Have a little Pride, Darien

The latest error ought to have been a gimme for Darien’s elders. Push again in opposition to that stubbornly unique fame by allowing flags of all colours to be flown in entrance of City Corridor and different city property.

This was an intentional stroll, however they swung by all of the pitches.

The loudest outcry has been from the LGBTQ+ group, which will be unable to show Satisfaction flags on city property. City leaders would possibly counter that they received’t allow flags from different teams both, similar to Veterans of International Wars.

That simply makes it worse.

In the course of the debate, Darien Selectman Jon Zagrodzky declared that it will be “trivial and nearly insulting” for the board to as an alternative select the opposite choice, which might have empowered them to rule on flag requests.

How’s this for an insult? The City of Darien dismissed pleas from Darien Satisfaction members Monday, which occurred to be two days after a gunman killed five people in a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. Board members may have tabled the dialogue once more, as they did after debating it in August, however opted as an alternative to seal the deal on a sleepy vacation week.

This isn’t simply tone deaf to the LGBTQ+ group, however to the shameful fame Darien has just about had because it was included 202 years in the past.

That notoriety was burnished by Darien’s long-held standing as a “sunset city” the place minorities weren’t permitted after darkish.

Again within the Nineteen Twenties, Stamford residents discovered messages of their mailboxes inviting them to a Ku Klux Klan assembly in pink ink. “Kindly attend or endure the results,” the message learn, a uncommon union of patrician manners and thuggish risk.

Stamford residents notified the postmaster, who contacted police. It didn’t require a lot detective work. They went straightaway to the house of Darien resident Harry Lutterman, the “King Kleagle of Connecticut and Rhode Island” for the KKK (kleagle was Klan code for “recruiter”). He responded that it was a conspiracy to border the KKK and guaranteed police that Klan members had been on the case. The legislation finally caught up with Lutterman for working an unlawful nonetheless throughout Prohibition.

By 1947, Darien’s fame was so entrenched that writer Laura Z. Hobson used it because the setting of her novel about antisemitism, “Gentleman’s Agreement” (“New Canaan’s even stricter about Jews than Darien,” one character proclaimed, which is able to by no means be a protection).

The movie model of the e-book starring Gregory Peck started filming instantly within the city. The Stamford Advocate reported Peck carrying round a baseball and tossing curveballs to director Elia Kazan on the prepare station. The city threw again its personal screwball. Although the Oscar winner for finest image was screened at Stamford’s State cinema, Darien’s theater opted as an alternative for “The Egg and I” about newlyweds operating a hen farm.

And so, “Darien” grew to become a type of unctuous shorthand. Waterbury native Rosalind Russell as “Auntie Mame” cracked clever on celluloid in 1958 about “an Aryan from Darien.” Reality was even bleaker than fiction. In the identical period, there was a single Black athlete, Scipio Tucker, on the rosters of all Darien Excessive College groups.

If all that appears so way back and much away, contemplate this. The Black inhabitants of Darien within the 2020 Census was about 1 % (sure, 2020, not 1920). Too many city residents nonetheless learn the phrases “affordable housing” as a declaration of Northern aggression. Earlier this yr, the Darien Board of Schooling voted in opposition to letting 16 youngsters from Norwalk attend kindergarten on the town faculties, citing the price.

That final one drew blowback from state Senators Bob Duff and Patricia Billie Miller, who every characterize parts of Darien, because it dovetailed with the city’s $103 million bid to purchase a private island. 

Once more, that’s not a film plot. The imaginative and prescient for the island features a croquet courtroom. You simply can’t make up Darien.  

Because of redistricting, state Rep. Matt Blumenthal will lose his Darien constituents in just a few weeks. Within the wake of Monday’s vote, he sounded thunderstruck by its timing after the Colorado Springs capturing.

“I don’t suppose (the flag ban) would ever be the correct factor to do, however it sends a horrible sign proper now,” Blumenthal informed me. “It appears very detached to the concern and insecurity and ache the LGBTQ group goes by typically, however significantly presently.”

And whereas Darien loses Blumenthal, it positive factors a 3rd state senator. A city with fewer than 22,000 residents nonetheless tilting predominantly to the right could have three Democratic senators. Earlier than the flag vote, Duff tweeted that he was flying a Satisfaction flag at his dwelling in a present of solidarity after the capturing.  

The most recent member of the delegation will probably be Ceci Maher, who lately served as interim director of Sandy Hook Promise after an extended tenure as govt director of Person-to-Person, which was primarily based in Darien.

Maher identified why the flag resolution is so damaging. Darien held its first Pride rally in June, drawing greater than 600 supporters who rose above some petty homophobic acts within the city (garden indicators stolen, dunderheaded movies).

It was an illustration that Darien will be higher than its fame.

“There was a lot pleasure (on the occasion). To suppose that they’d select to show away …”

Maher was preventing a post-election chilly. However I may inform that wasn’t the explanation for her deep sigh. Then she summoned exactly the correct phrases: “Darien took a step ahead and now could be taking a step again.”

The vote to go the coverage adopted social gathering traces, and Republicans preserve the bulk on the five-member board. In the course of the spirited debate, First Selectman Monica McNally stated, “I personally suppose that the Darien flag, the Connecticut flag and the American flag cowl everyone in our group. Each single particular person is represented beneath these rights.”

Sure, that needs to be true. Besides it’s not. In Darien, these flags appear much less like symbols of inclusion and extra like welcome mats that learn “Go Away.”

If this had been a film, the stirring last scene would present Darien residents taking a stand by flying Satisfaction flags from their entrance porches. However that might take an effort, simply as it will take time for the Board of Selectmen to contemplate flag requests.

And Darien nonetheless isn’t prepared to do the work to clear its identify.    

John Breunig is editorial web page editor of the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. jbreunig@scni.com; twitter.com/johnbreunig.