Community reacts to Nazi salute at meeting
Suzanne Busdiecker arrived at her first ever Birmingham school board meeting two weeks ago to thank members for issuing a district-wide mask mandate.
But once she arrived and saw that separate rooms existed, for those wearing masks and those who were not, she realized the atmosphere was not what she expected.
“As the meeting started going on, the environment was not conducive to speaking for masks or saying ‘Thank you,’” she said. “It was pretty toxic, actually.”
Busdiecker and others watched a video broadcast of the live meeting from one room, noticing that promask parents were being heckled and could barely get through their statements.
“I knew right then and there it was not going to be a night where there would be understanding on either side,” Busdiecker said.
Still, at one point she approached the podium with a friend, a flight attendant who is mandatorily tested for COVID-19 twice a week as part of her employment. According to Busdiecker, who stood behind her friend for moral support, the heckling continued until the pair left the podium.
“When we turned around to leave, there was a portion of the room you couldn’t see on film,” she said. “There was a man that gave the ‘Heil Hitler’ and said it very loudly. I’m Jewish, I took great offense to that. I was stunned that someone at a board of education meeting on school property would do that.”
Busdiecker said the man in question made the Nazi salute gesture when he yelled the phrase. Another pair of individuals allegedly joined in yelling the phrase.
When she and her friend returned to their room, others said they heard the man and saw him make the gesture on video — both of which have been subsequently edited from the district’s meeting broadcast on YouTube.
Some witnesses, including Busdiecker, approached a police officer on duty at the meeting..
“The police officer acted like it wasn’t really a big deal,” she said. “He didn’t ask us if we wanted to make a police report.”
Busdiecker said that the man who made the salute was reportedly escorted out of the meeting chamber, but was not forced to exit the building.
A week after the meeting in question, Busdiecker said she had not heard anything regarding ramifications for the man’s actions, whether police took action or whether there was a police report filed.
Beverly Hills police have not returned repeated calls for comment.
“I think as a community we need to stop invoking Hitler and trivializing millions of people who died of state-sponsored genocide,” she said.
Embekka Roberson, superintendent, and Lori Ajlouny, board president, issued a statement via email to district parents on Wednesday, Aug. 18, saying the salute was made in front of numerous community members that included Jewish and Black attendees.
“Birmingham Public Schools emphatically denounces and will not tolerate any act of racism, disrespect, violence, and/or inequitable treatment of any person, including actions and statements made at board of education meetings,” the statement read. “It is in situations when people feel strongly about a matter, and emotions run high, that we most need to model appropriate behaviors for our students. As a National District of Character, we teach our students to listen empathically, think critically, and at times, disagree respectfully. Last night’s meeting did not consistently display the behaviors that we expect from our students and community.”
Busdiecker was glad the district issued the statement.
“Gestures made to equate our current health crisis with Nazi regimes should not go unnoticed and should not be tolerated at the school or anywhere for that reason,” she said. “It’s good they set the tone that they will not tolerate it.”
State Sen. Mari Manoogian, D-Birmingham, issued a statement Aug. 19, commending the district and board for “standing strong against the tide of bigoted, anti-science, and completely ahistorical hate spewed against them” and for protecting individuals from the ongoing virus.
“I am shocked and appalled to see the use of racist, Nazi language and imagery in our community, particularly by parents attending a school board meeting,” Manoogian said. “Let me be clear: racism, anti-Semitism, and any other forms of bigotry and hate have no room in our discourse or our community, and I forcefully condemn the use of this phrase and gesture at yesterday’s board of education meeting.
“For the last 18 months, our state, country, and world have suffered a collective trauma. But the use of Nazi phrases and gestures is beyond the pale in any context; it disrespects the memory of those murdered in the Holocaust and dishonors the values of our community. Actions such as these must be forced out from our society at every level, and we must resume engaging with each other in the spirit of understanding, kindness, and mutual respect — themes which form the core of the values taught within BPS.”
State Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, said in a statement also issued Aug. 19 that he had family members who suffered at the hands of Nazis and that a school board meeting cannot be compared to the Holocaust.
“I’m proud of our bipartisan efforts a few years ago to require historically accurate instruction of the Holocaust in Michigan school curriculum so Birmingham Schools students, and students all throughout Michigan, will understand its lasting lessons — and that protesting health measures during a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic is not one of those lessons,” Moss said.
Lauren Herrin is associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council/American Jewish Committee, headquartered in Bloomfield Hills. It serves the Jewish population in metro Detroit, including establishing relationships with other ethnic, racial, civic and religious groups.
“We’re disgusted, we’re saddened,” Herrin said. “Like anybody who opposes hate, it’s absolutely abhorrent that somebody would be making that salute…everything that (it) means, especially at a school board meeting when you’re talking about children.”
According to a 2018 study conducted by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, there were about 83,800 people living in 31,500 Jewish households. Of that, 70,800 people, or 85%, identified themselves as Jewish.
“There is no place for hate, no place for bringing in the Holocaust and what that meant, ever — especially in this situation,” Herrin said. “People are likening vaccines and vaccine cards to wearing the Yellow Star. It’s obviously very hurtful to many in the Jewish community because you cannot equate those two things.”