Vandalism at Milton: The Town - Volume 8 Issue 11
By Daisy Wademan
At Milton Academy, it is completely unacceptable to utter racial or sexist slurs, and formal punishment ensues if such a statement is uttered. The world outside our tiny community, however, is not always accepting of every race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation. Thus, as English students at Milton read the work of black or female writers, and history classes review the numerous and varied accomplishments of many minority or disadvantaged groups, people in the same town are busy scrawling swastikas on other citizens’ cars.
Early on the morning of September 25th, vandals spray-painted the cars of Ola Awogboro, 39, who has been living in the town of Milton for several years. Awogboro, a Nigerian immigrant and father of Ola Awogboro ‘93, is an administrator of Roxbury Community college. Crudely painted swastikas decked both of Awogboro’s cars, in this, one of the many apparently racially motivated attacks Awogboro has been forced to endure since he bought his house in Milton two years ago.
Awogboro was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying that “the police have not been any kind of help. They come in here with a nonchalant attitude and say they’ll file a report and then nothing happens.” Milton police are supposedly on the case, but have not made any arrests.
David Wright ‘91, Student Head of A.I.M.S., called the attack “a repulsive act.” David Fricke ‘91, agreed with Wright but also said that he was in no way surprised by the attack or the police response to it. “The town of Milton itself is a very racist area with a history of racially motivated incidents. A lot of the kids I know who live in Milton, and happen to be black, have been yelled at from cars or taunted and threatened by passers by when they were walking home quietly from school. The Milton Police always pull aside black people when looking for a specific criminal even if the description of the criminal they are looking for nowhere near fits the guy they pulled aside.” Ola Awogboro ‘93 himself explained that it is shocking “that are the 1960s civil rights movement people of different colors cannot live in the same neighborhood and get along.”
The thing that concerns and angers every member of the Milton Academy community is the fact that although we are living in a financially well-off and highly educated town, there are still people who commit violent acts based on another person’s skin color or country of origin. Boston area residents of the 1990’s are still thinking like fairly conservative Louisiana plantation owners of the early 1850’s. Luckily, Milton Academy is attuned to the problem of racism. We have our own Multi-Cultural association, a range of ethnic groups represented on campus, and courses such as Afro-American History, which all acts as buffers against the looming menace of prejudice. We, as Milton students, have, now more than ever, the task of informing ourselves and others about the potential harm caused by unwarranted hatred.