Controversy over blackface photo smolders
Gary board member: Merrillville council member should resign
The Merrillville Town Council continued to face criticism Tuesday over its handling of an incident in which a white member of the council appeared in blackface, as well as diversity issues on the council itself.
Councilman Jeffrey Minchuk, D-3rd, apologized at the previous meeting for his action almost 20 years ago and the council stripped him of his vice presidency position.
The council also announced that it was already planning to undergo diversity training in study circles starting next month.
But Robert Buggs, president of the Gary school advisory board, said he thinks it’s reprehensible that town officials need diversity training now, in a community with a large Black population, and thinks Minchuk should resign.
Holding up a photo of a Black woman and her two daughters hanged by Ku Klux Klan members, Buggs said, “A lady and her two daughters were beaten, raped and hanged by the Ku Klux Klan and someone thought that was funny.”
Minchuk did not make a statement Tuesday.
Resident Darian Collins said if it was corporate America, Minchuk would have been fired by now.
“If you don’t address what’s going on with diversity issues, it will mar what’s going on at the (Dean and Barbara White) community center,” Collins said. She told the council the public needs to know who’s doing the study circles, what the plan is and whether other community leaders will be involved.
Council President Rick Bella, D-5th, said the diversity sessions were in the works for months before the Minchuk incident appeared on Facebook and would be handled through Merrillville High School.
He said department heads and elected officials will undergo the training first.
But Councilman Leonard White, D-7th, told fellow council members he thought it was biased that he and Councilman Donald Spann, D-1st, two of three Black members on the council, didn’t get any committee chairmanships this year.
The third Black councilman, Richard Hardaway, D-2nd, chairs some committees and was elected to replace Minchuk as council vice president Tuesday.
White said while the appointments may have had support among the majority council, they need to make sure their decisions have community support. White said after the meeting he saw this as a slap in the face.