Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman To Treat Racism As Public Health Issue
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) -- Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman is planning to treat racism as a public health issue.
This comes after a series of hate crime incidents in the county.
"The county is divided and we don't want to be divided in Anne Arundel County," Pittman said.
Pittman said that he wants to show that Anne Arundel County is taking the issues of racism and hate crimes seriously. He said he will put all the efforts of his administration behind the initiative.
A report released last month showed that Anne Arundel County had the highest number of hate crime and hate bias incidents in the state. The incidents increased from 63 in 2017 to 78 in 2018.
"The call to action really was this hate bias incident report," Pittman said.
The county had dealt with a number of racially charged incidents over the past two years- including nooses found at two middle schools, racist messages written inside a high school, and KKK fliers found in two neighborhoods.
Pittman said they need to acknowledge the problem and try to address it to bring people together.
"We are going to be getting very serious about confronting the issue of hate bias incidents, racism. The country is very divided and we don't want to be divided in Anne Arundel County," Pittman said.
He's also asked the public for ideas on how to improve, but notes that change won't happen easily.
"We can't legislate always how people act, but we can use the seat of government to remind people that we need to treat each other civilly and be one community," Pittman said.
Convener of the Caucus of African American Leaders Carl Snowden said declaring racism a public health issue has produced positive results in places like Milwaukee, and hopes it will work well in Anne Arundel County.
"Anne Arundel County is finally admitting that there's a problem here," Snowden said. "Racism is a health problem and this is the first county executive to address the problem head-on."
Pittman said one of the first actions he's considering taking is adjusting the county's slogan by changing it from "The Best Place" to "The Best Place For All."
