“A concept that I heard a lot about when running for office,” said Aviva Friedman, a Democrat Binghamton board member who often clashed with the former mayor. . “You know, the coded term for, ‘Oh, these poor colored people, the Negroes.’ They are not talking about SUNY students. “
Periodically, there have been incidents occurring in the area and surrounding areas that hint at the ugly racist attitudes of some young people in particular.
In 2018, the swastika was found with spray paint on the wall at Binghamton High School. Last winter, a Black teacher at Windsor High School, a short drive from Conklin, complained after students in the predominantly white community dressed in racist clothing engaged “Gangsta Night” at a school basketball game. And in Oneonta, a rural community between Binghamton and Albany, two students were filmed shooting at a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. while shouting racial slurs.
Even so, those who did not identify as white and took classes with Gendron at Susquehanna Valley High School pushed back against the notion that their community was prejudiced.
“No one else thinks like him around here. We are not a racist town,” said Ms. McClain, 19, Mr. Casado’s girlfriend, who has known Mr. Gendron since sixth grade.
After the shooting, she read most of the 180-page document Gendron posted online – but only partially, she said, because she couldn’t read it all at once.
“I never thought he could even think like that, let alone act on it,” she said. “He’s a disgrace to his community, because we don’t think so.”
