Quay Hanna carries a backpack, maintains a down-to-earth demeanor and greets students with a "What's up?" or "What's happening?" as he passes them in the hall.

But he's not a student, teacher, full-time counselor or trained educator.

His mission?

To help teach kids about the dangers of racism.

But for Hanna, there's no quick and easy solution to combating bigotry.

Hanna, 37, a Strasburg native, says that it's going to take a long time for the Warwick School District to heal after a racist incident involving high school students shocked Lititz earlier this month.

Hanna is scheduled to speak at several assemblies at Warwick High School this week. He recently penned the second edition of his book titled "Bus America: Revelation of a Redneck."

"[Racism] is miserable for everybody," he said. "Nobody likes wandering the halls wondering what's going to happen next."

At Warwick, six white male high school students have been arrested on charges relating to recent racial incidents. Three are 16-year-olds who brandished Confederate flags and threw trash at black students Oct. 3. They've been charged with disorderly conduct as has a fourth student who was arrested for making racial slurs Oct. 5 to a parent at Lititz Elementary School. Another was charged Tuesday for threatening to burn down the high school, and a sixth was charged for shouting obscenities in the parking lot, officials said in previous reports.

Part of Hanna's visit will include counseling some of the perpetrators of the Oct. 3 incident.

The 'why'
He said there are several reasons why racism exists among youth.

For some, it's about power.

"They say, 'I can be a part of this group with these guys,' " Hanna said. "These guys talk about pride, not always about hate."

For others, hatred is just a natural consequence of the human condition.

"If we eliminated racism, it wouldn't stop the problems," he said. "It's only a form of hatred. It's a human trait."

For still others, it's just about getting attention.

Kids who wear Confederate flags, for example, are usually out to get attention and notoriety, he said.

"If it's about your Southern heritage, find a symbol that doesn't offend people," he said. "You think [Confederate soldiers] died so you could intimidate people with their flag?"

Hanna said the problems Warwick and other schools face won't be solved in a week, or in one speech or assembly.

"There's no quick and easy way [to get rid of racism]," Hanna said. "It takes years and years.

"You have to be on it all day, every day, all year."

Hired as consultant
Several districts in the state and county have hired Hanna as a consultant. At Conestoga Valley High School, he supervises classes and counsels students on issues such as violence and bullying. He is a diversity counselor at Penn Manor High School.

"He talks about his life experience as a former racist," said a sophomore at Conestoga Valley who sees Hanna on a regular basis.

He may still carry the look of a white supremacist — a clean-shaven head, and tattoos on both arms — but he has long since abandoned its ideology.

Hanna harbored white supremacist ideals in the early 1990s. He said an eye-opening trip across the country changed his life.

The nine-week sojourn spanned 37 states and more than 12,000 miles. Hanna traveled by Greyhound bus and met people who were far different than he.

"I was the minority then," he said.

Hanna said a strong, proactive approach to eliminating racist incidents and violence is the best remedy schools can pursue.

In 1997 at Penn Manor High School, six students wore white T-shirts to proclaim a message of white supremacy.

Penn Manor principal Jan Mindish said the incident, which happened in her third month at the school, was a wake-up call. "It brought me crashing to reality. I said, 'What am I going to do to fix this?' "

Before the T-shirt incident, Penn Manor officials were told that racial slurs were used by students.

Like at Warwick, the root of the problem wasn't immediately confronted.

"We discreetly addressed those kids and moved on," Mandish said.

But that, she said, was a mistake.

"We were putting Band-Aids on it," she said. "We need to actually look at it. We've gotten better at not ignoring things."

The Southern Poverty Law Center published an article Sept. 27 in response to the "Jena 6" incident in Louisiana, where three white students hung nooses from a tree on the Jena High School's campus. The tree was nicknamed by students as the "White Tree," because it was traditionally a place where only white students congregated.

Dec. 6, 2006, six black students from the high school attacked 17-year-old Justin Barker, a white student, and knocked him unconscious.

Barker received severe injuries to his face, ears and hand.

Mychal Bell, 16 at the time of the December beating, is the only one of the "Jena Six" to be tried so far. He was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and could have gone to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned in September when an appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

Bell was put back in jail Thursday to complete his sentence in an earlier juvenile case, local officials said Friday.

The "Jena 6" were initially charged by the La Salle district attorney with attempted second-degree murder. All but one of the teen's charges have been downgraded to battery.

The SPLC report urges school administrators to take nonviolent bias incidents seriously.

Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, told the Chicago Tribune that the noose-hanging incident was just an adolescent prank before the attacks.

"Don't ignore obvious signs of trouble," the report said. "By their very nature, bias incidents intend to demean or instill fear in those targeted, and schools must address them quickly, consistently and effectively."

"Any school that boasts that they don't have these problems ... I have a hard time believing them," Quay Hanna said.

Paul Franz, Sunday News staff writer, can be reached at pfranz@lnpnews.com.