East Lyme — A crowd of 30 people gathered Friday evening at the East Lyme Senior Center to begin a community conversation about race.

Dr. Terrlyn L. Curry Avery, a licensed psychologist and the interim pastor at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Groton, asked audience members how many times they saw the letter "f" in a sentence that was distributed to attendees.

Some correctly said there were six, while other people said there were four or five.

"The point is we come to this conversation from different places," said Dr. Curry Avery, who was facilitating the discussion.

Father Anthony C. Dinoto, rector of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Niantic, spoke about the importance of not letting fear stand in the way of having important conversations.

Dr. Curry Avery, who has trained school systems on issues of race, agreed that "if you don't talk about it, then we can't do anything about it."

She said that, to bring change in this country, the first thing that needs to happen is for people to recognize that they are all connected.

Dr. Curry Avery asked audience members to reflect on this when they see the news about a person of color who is shot by a police officer.

She stressed that she is not indicting police officers and is horrified by violence against them. She said police officers serve and protect their communities.

"We have to have a shared humanity," she said. "When you see those stories on TV — that's a person. That's someone's father, or brother or cousin."

She added that "we are all created as sacred beings."

During the event, she asked people who were not of color to write down five things that would change if they woke up tomorrow and were of color.

She asked people of color to write down five things that would change if they woke up the next day and were white.

Kavitha Rogers, who is biracial and grew up in East Lyme, answered that there would be more people that looked like her, people wouldn't ask her where she is really from, and she would see people in books and TV that reflect her life, among others.

She also said there would be a box for her to check on forms.

Tariko Satterfield Sr. said he wanted to share his experiences as an African-American man.

He recalled one incident that he said happened several years ago, when he was working as an instructional aide at East Lyme High School.

He said he was working late one night, when he saw police lights outside. When he left the building, he said he was told by a police officer to put his hands up.

Satterfield was wearing a school staff badge and the officer saw it and realized he worked at the school. He said that when he asked the officer what happened, he was told that police got a call "that there was a black guy in the building."

After the forum, he said that it's so important to keep community conversations like this going.

The evening came about after East Lyme resident Eva P. Menon reached out to Dr. Curry Avery about facilitating an open dialogue.

Dr. Curry Avery had posted on Facebook a letter to her congregation to reflect on their shared humanity in the wake of the shootings by police and the shootings of police officers.

Menon told the audience members that in light of all the news, she "wanted to do something to make a difference."

Dr. Curry Avery also spoke about "implicit bias" and the importance for people to be more conscious.

At the end of the forum, residents spoke about how they would like to continue the conversation with more events.

k.drelich@theday.com