An unknown “Zoom bomber” spewed racist remarks after crashing a recent online meeting of the Council on Aging board of directors, leaving board members dumbstruck even as one of them — Hope White, who is Black — watched and listened in pain.
The incident occurred during the board’s February 9 meeting. Since it was a public meeting of a town board, the Zoom link was posted ahead of time. “I started seeing people in the [Zoom] waiting room whose names I didn’t recognize, and I was suspicious but I had to let them in because of the open meeting law,” COA Director Abby Butt told the Board of Selectmen at their April 5 meeting.
After the intruders renamed themselves in the Zoom with the same names as some of the board members (but without turning on their cameras), “there were lots of racial slurs directed at one board member, a great deal of sexually violent talk, slurs in the chat, blaring music — the goal was just to create total and utter chaos and be as offensive as possible.”
Butt at first tried unsuccessfully to mute the intruders and eventually managed to disengage them from the meeting. The board was “very jarred” as she explained to members what had apparently happened, and the meeting ended shortly thereafter.
About an hour later, she said she realized that she needed to reach out to White and the other board members to talk about the incident, and members called White to express their dismay and support. Town Administrator Tim Higgins also contacted Butt and White to express concern and asked to attend a later debriefing that was led by board member Jane O’Rourke, who is a social worker.
White told Butt and the COA and (and the Lincoln Squirrel in a later interview) that at the time, “no one acknowledged that this racial slur has been scrawled across the screen and obviously I’m the only Black person in the meeting… I just felt completely isolated.” Everyone was shocked, but she soon realized “no one’s gonna say ‘Hope, I’m sorry you had to see that, that must have been awful.’ There was not one word about it… I was more hurt than angry. People just left me out there.”
It’s unclear whether the board members experienced the same things seen and heard by Butt (the meeting host) and White, who was the co-host while Butt was giving her report, but it was enough to shock everyone into silence.
“Abby apologized [in the subsequent phone call] and said she didn’t know what to say in the moment. She said, ‘I’d never been in a situation like that and I should have said something but I said nothing at all.’ She was so apologetic. I explained to her that saying nothing is worse than saying ‘I don’t know what to say’,” White said.
“When you’re in the moment and all these awful things are flying at you and you’re trying to maintain your composure, it’s hard to know what to do,” Butt said. White was “incredibly gracious and kind and understanding” in the later debriefing, she added, but the incident left an emotional mark.
“I wasn’t bleeding [as from a physical assault], but the attack was the same and the pain might have been worse,” White said. “If you’re in the presence of someone being attacked, you don’t have to fight the perpetrator, but you can provide comfort for the victim in that situation.” She added that friends later asked her if she planned to quit the COA board as a result of the incident, “but I said I tried to make this a teachable moment.”
White noted that “this was not my first and won’t be my last encounter of racism,” saying she has been called the n-word to her face in Cambridge and other locations. “These people are ignorant, I’m totally aware of that, but it still hits to the core. It’s really hard to explain. That word just takes you out of your element for a minute — it’s like a blow.”
A Lincoln resident for 29 years, White said she has never experienced overt racism in town, though because there are so few Black people who live here, she is noticed. “Literally every time I go to the store or the bank or Twisted Tree, I get double-takes, like ‘what are you doing here?’ or ‘who are you?’ People are curious,” she said.
White works in public health education, connecting patients of color with health care resources. “Awareness and education — it makes a big difference,” both in her career and in tackling racism, she said. “I have no problem speaking up for myself or for someone else. When you have open communication, you’ll make a connection eventually.”
Butt gave a recording of the meeting to Lincoln police, but the chances of catching the Zoom bombers are slim, she acknowledged. Meanwhile, future meetings of the COA board will be in webinar format so attendees can write questions in the chat portion of the meeting but can’t be seen or heard if they’re not panelists.
Zoom-bombing public meetings may be more widespread than many realize. A few other online meetings in Lincoln involving the schools and town boards have been invaded, though none were formally reported to police, Chief of Police Kevin Kennedy said. However, Butt has spoken with other COA directors in the region, “and [the Lincoln COA board] is about the last in the area to have this happen… most of them had it much worse.”
Thank you for your openness here, Hope, and for making it a teachable moment not just for the board but everyone who reads this. I’m grateful for your candor.
A Zoom Bombing incident happened at a Housing Commission meeting in December, of which I was Chair and Zoom host. It was really disconcerting and shocking – although it seemed more a random attempt to disrupt the meeting than an attack with a specific agenda or target. Unable to shut down all the fake attendees, my only option was to terminate the meeting, then restart it.
There was a similar incident last August at the first online meeting of HFAC, which I chair. Several people joined the meeting and started making noise. I wasn’t able to hear clearly but was told it included vile and offensive comments. The meeting host simply ended the meeting after a minute or so.
Hope…thank you for making this a teachable moment for the board…I am sorry you are often put in the position of teaching us about issues we should already empathically understand. You are a generous and loving soul…so grateful for your presence on the COA!