Published on page A1 in the Wednesday 16 September Washington Post and at
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-news/anne-arundel-pasadena-black-lives-matter/2020/09/15/7dd0449a-d651-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html >

Maryland
A Maryland suburb known for a slaveholding past confronts its racist present

[Photo caption:Jordan Keemer, 18, of Pasadena, Md., stands in front of Chesapeake High School with his parents, Nichole Keemer, 38, and Terry Keemer Jr., 40. All of them experienced racism as students at the school. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)]

By Ovetta Wiggins September 15, 2020 at 3:37 p.m. EDT

Two years before George Floyd’s killing forced a reckoning with American racism, Jordan Keemer was in his high school government class in Pasadena, Md., acting as the judge in an exercise that resembled a mock trial.

The teen doesn’t remember the topic, or his verdict.

But stained in his mind are the stinging words he says his teacher uttered quietly as he sat, a 16-year-old Black student surrounded by mostly White classmates: “I don’t trust you n