A changing Maine Increasing diversity brings good and bad changes to our doorsteps BY SHAY STEWART-BOULEY

Three years isn’t even enough time to go through a president’s term in the White House (barring death, humiliating resignation, or impeachment), but it’s enough time to see Maine become an identifiably more diverse place.

Three years is also the amount of time that’s passed since I landed in Maine from Chicago and brought my own share of diversity with me. When I first moved here, I could go days — occasionally weeks — without seeing another person of color. Not so anymore.

Since coming here, I must admit I’ve often been on a bit of a quest, particularly in this column: to do my part to help spur change in the racial and ethnic makeup of the state.

Part of my motivation early on was that I suspected, deep down, that many white folks here must be racist, since they live in one of the whitest states around. I laugh now at that misconception, which steadily declined the longer I lived here. Granted, some people can be ignorant because they lack exposure to people from other backgrounds. However, I have met very few true racists, even in the most secluded back-road parts of the state, and I had more truly racist encounters on a yearly basis back in Chicago than here in Maine.

Driving down Congress Street and going through the Portland Public Market the other day, I noticed that it’s hard now to miss the growing degree of multicultural people and influences, from pedestrians to businesses. As a big-city girl, this is a delight to me.

But, there are also times I’m not so delighted. In mid-February, for example, there was a disturbing incident in which Ibrahim Muhammed, a 29-year-old homeless man in Portland, allegedly assaulted two Portland police officers, Stephen Black and Brian Regan. Regan sustained a broken nose and hand, as well as bite marks, and Black was also pretty roughed up.

As I write this, Muhammed is being held at the Cumberland County jail on a $50,000 cash bail. Sadly, Mr. Muhammed is black and the two officers are white. That’s never a comfortable thing for me to see anywhere, but particularly in a state like Maine where people are still getting used to darker faces and different traditions and customs.

Is this one of the unwanted consequences of growing diversity in a community or a state? Frankly, it might be, but it’s more than just a color issue.

Growth in Portland and the rest of the state does mean we’ll get some negative influences coming in from various corners of the nation and the world. People are coming from bigger, badder cities, in some cases. There’s no detector we can run people through to see if they are decent, law-abiding folks. If we could, there’d be a number of native Mainers we’d probably kick out of here.

When you see people who are transient, or prone to violence, or getting public aid, some say it’s because Maine has a reputation of being too generous of a state in terms of providing for its less-fortunate residents.

I spend a fair chunk of time at a Web site that discusses and dissects the state’s happenings, and there is a undercurrent among many people posting there that Mr. Muhammed wouldn’t have been here if Maine were not such a swell and overly generous place.

Honestly, I believe this type of talk is what can lead down the road to racist actions and beliefs, so we need to be careful. Not every person of color from away is here for a handout. Very few are intent on wrongdoing. Mr. Muhammed, if indeed he is as guilty as it seems he is, is a bad apple. Bad apples come in all sizes and colors, and many of them are homegrown.

At the same time, embracing diversity does mean that things will change in Maine. Change is inevitable and often good. Does anyone want to return to the days before indoor plumbing and electricity?

But growing diversity and other changes in this state mean that, slowly, we will become a place where most people lock their cars and houses. How soon that day will come is anyone’s guess.

As different faces come in, the trusting nature that many Mainers have will go away. It has to. I won’t lie; that thought makes me sad. After all, I don’t know too many places where, when I send my husband out to pick up Thai food and the credit-card machine is down, the staff tells him to pay for the food sometime later in the week. Even when he offered to go to a ATM across the street, they told him not to worry about it.

That won’t last forever. But it’s a point of honor for this state that such attitudes have lasted this long, and will probably continue in many parts of the state for many years to come.

The truth is, Maine cannot and should not close itself off to people from other cities, other states, and other countries. We are going to change significantly in the coming years and decades, but I still have faith we can be a place where there is more trust and more peace than in most parts of the nation.

Shay Stewart-Bouley can be reached at shaybouley@msn.com