A Black Lives Matter Sign Stirs Debate in a Boston Suburb - WSJ

“We’ve lived in this bubble,” she said. Her town is about 25 miles southeast of Boston and nearly 90% white. Ms. Martin describes her regret about not speaking up earlier, especially the time her 11-year-old son, who is biracial, told her that he didn’t like the color of his skin.

Inspired into action, Ms. Martin, who is white, put a Black Lives Matter sign outside her business. The BLM sign announced her belief that  people of color should be treated fairly , she said: “I’m not part of any movement, I’m just trying to support the community.”

Not everybody saw it that way. Last month, one of her hair stylists got a text from a client who was sitting in her car outside the salon’s pale-pink clapboard house. “The BLM sign out front. It’s very divisive,” she wrote and skipped her appointment.

A protest by Black Lives Matter supporters in Mooresville, Ind., on July 3. Counterprotesters gathered on the other side of the street.

PHOTO:   MAX RUTHERFORD

Such conversations and confrontations over race have become common in suburban America. Many residents in predominantly white communities, including those without firsthand experience of racial prejudice or police misconduct, are divided over the message they see in  Black Lives Matter  signs—or whether bigotry is prevalent in their towns.

The BLM sign outside Cottage Beauty Lounge has been stolen four times, said Ms. Martin, 44 years old. The sign next to it, thanking essential workers for braving Covid-19, hasn’t been disturbed. The salon owner has since installed a security camera and given thought to moving, she said. Officers are investigating the thefts, said Gary Sullivan, the town’s police chief. Similar tension over BLM signs have cropped up on Cape Cod and in suburbs from Connecticut to Minnesota.

A half-mile from the Cottage Beauty Lounge, attorney Julie Kilcoyne said her BLM sign twice disappeared from her yard and so did a neighbor’s.
Some residents who read about it on the community’s  Facebook  page said they planned to order more BLM signs to show their support. Others in the town, including Les Bruning, 55, have different opinions. “I just don’t think that we should separate black and white,” said Mr. Bruning, who works at Sophie’s Pizza Place. “We’re all the same, and we all should matter.”

On the Facebook page, some Easton residents said they wanted to dig into any local history of discriminatory lending known as “redlining,” practices that blocked Black homeownership after the Great Depression.

During Easton’s annual town meeting last month, hundreds of residents in face masks gathered in a multisport arena to approve the fiscal 2021 operating budget and suggest amendments, a tradition in many New England communities.

Nicole DiCienzo proposed shifting about $270,000 from the police department’s roughly $4.3 million budget to education and health and community services. The idea wasn’t a criticism of local officers, she said. But wouldn’t it be more fitting for social-services professionals to handle calls for homelessness, school discipline problems and other nonviolent issues? she asked, taking the burden off the police.

At Easton’s annual town meeting last month, hundreds of people gathered to approve the fiscal 2021 operating budget. One resident proposed shifting funds from the police department’s budget to education and health and community services.

Town officials said they were open to ideas, but pointed out that Ms. DiCienzo’s proposal could force layoffs in a tight budget year.

After a lengthy debate, residents voted down the proposal.

Maria Derosa drew applause when she asked the assembled group to not let the topic of discrimination drop. “It’s easy for a community like Easton to say, ‘Wow, I’m sick of talking about this,’” she said.

From the suburb of Bargersville, Ind., about 20 miles south of Indianapolis, college student Lucas Maurizio, 18, organized several demonstrations this month in support of Black Lives Matter, calling them a “March on the Suburbs.” Mr. Maurizio said he wanted to spark conversation in places where people aren’t used to talking about  racial prejudice . “You don’t see it in your town because it’s all white,” he said.

On the day of the event, protesters waved signs on one side of the street, and counterprotesters gathered on the other. A few people from each group crossed the street to exchange views. Armed men watched from a rooftop, a scene broadcast on local news. Some chanted, “All lives matter.” One wore a T-shirt that said, “White Pride.”

No trouble surfaced. The event instead kicked off a lot of back and forth about race on Mooresville’s online “chatter” page. “People are divided on whether there is or isn’t racism around here,” Ms. Hodge said. “Before that march, nobody ever talked about it.”

Ms. Hodge said she doesn’t think there is bigotry in Mooresville, and that the topic draws too much focus.

Mike Washington, a 39-year-old Black man, owns a local photography business and said he, too, hasn’t seen or felt any racial tension in town.

Josh Wilson, who is white and grew up in Mooresville, said racial prejudice isn’t typically “out for everybody to see.” Such talk sometimes surfaces in conversations among white people, said Mr. Wilson, who runs a construction company in the area.

Mr. Wilson, 32, said he has grown sensitive to racial slights in part because his girlfriend has one white parent and another who is part-Korean and part-Black. He plans to cover the tattoo of a  Confederate flag  he got as a teenager with a new one.