Bait and switch came to mind as I sat listening to the speakers at the City’s Department of Justice (DOJ) race dialogue on February 29, 2016. Although billed as a discussion of race and a summary of the notes collected during the summertime hearings on race, it was only a rah-rah session for Manager Augustus. He spoke for a long time about the things he has done.
Neither the City Manager nor any of the scheduled speakers said a single word about or use the phrase “BlackLives Matter”. Many in the City are either afraid or disagree with BlackLives Matters. This is sad, as even the Presidential candidates have spoke to the issues.
Manager Augustus spoke of the Chief Diversity Officer he has hired, Dr. Malika Carter. She was in the audience and curiously not at the speakers’ table. This is not a good sign for her as many Black women in this City have been marginalized and forced out. I wish her good fortune and success.
The Manager then spoke of the sensitivity training that the police officers have undergone. He did not say anything about transparency of police policies and misconduct. These remain secret and unavailable for public scrutiny.
The other speakers were from private agencies and non profits organizations. They all said the right things and I have to also say that they do good work given their limited resources and mission statements.
The most interesting and, I think, useful of the non profits is Community Legal Aid (CLA). It helps people with their civil cases such as housing, unemployment, and discrimination. Valerie Zolezzi-Wynham, Managing Attorney spoke how CLA diversified its staff and hired an outreach attorney specifically for the Asian community which has not much used CLA’s services. It also hired an educational Attorney to help students with their cases and “level the playing field”.
Mabel Milner is the chair of the Manager’s Committee against Bias and Hate. This Committee organized the meeting. Ms. Milner facilitated the meeting. According to the Manager, her Committee has been enlarged to be more inclusive.
Ms. Milner indicated that Reverend Tally, the minister at the AME ZION Church, heads a subcommittee that reviewed the notes from last summer DOJ hearings. Rev. Tally apologized for the lateness of the summary and said that the review of the notes was not complete. He pointed out that the raw information could be found on the City’s website.
The speaker for the NAACP, Pat Yancy, indicated that it had held a demonstration when a hangman’s noose was seen at the Post Office in the Denholm Building and that it held a support service for the Black church goers killed in South Carolina.
Members of the Progressive Labor Party had passed out flyers with five demands to fight racism in Worcester: Transparency of Police policies and misconduct, Stop arresting students at schools, Fully funded Public Schools, Jobs for Worcester residents, and End City use of police force against BlackLives Matter and the poor.
Reverend Tally promised the audience that there will be more discussions like the one tonight. I hope he is wrong. This meeting was a joke on the people of Worcester. Like the hearings during the summer, people who should have attended boycotted and the words that needed to be said were not heard.
Leadership is needed in this City. Many people in leadership positions are just misguided or pretending.
I must admit this is extremely accurate. I applauded you when you put people on notice about your feelings. I also did some of the same. I pulled a few people to the side. I will work with who I can with the expectations that we get back to where we were told we were going. I spoke to Dr. Carter afterwards. She is willing to talk to me. I emailed her today. I explained how disappointed the community was. There were many (specifically some elderly white people) who invested just as much time as we had during the dialogues and they infact submitted comments of their disappointment. We were looking forward to a real report. The fact that the City Manager admitted that they are just winging it is frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI intend on trying to get our voices at that table. I explained to the Reverend and Dr. Carter in my emails to them this morning that most of us felt dismissed. We felt it was business as usual. There were a few good things that I heard. There are people doing positive things to bring better diversity. The issue I see is those people for the most part represent agencies.
The agencies and the city have been doing it their way all this time. As the residents our input was not utilized effectively. The struggles will continue if we are not at the table. I am hoping to get us or at least our message there.
I have nothing against the Coalition Against Bias and Hate. I know nothing one way or the other to have an educated opinion. With that said it makes me question its effectiveness in reaching out to and including the actual community. If their effectiveness was up to par we wouldn't need a Chief Diversity Officer or board. Those are what we expected to hear back on. Those are what we didn't hear about. We heard about what we already know. People involved in the community know. The average person who is not isn't getting the information. They don't care. The city does business as usual and this is another reflection of it. The community will not continue to waste time. In order to get full circle we need to start fresh. Let's see if
Dr. Carter is empowered at all or just another person working at city hall. I think fresh eyes are great eyes more often than not.
Very discouraging and seems a waste of time and resources. I agree with the comment above: The struggles will continue if the right people are not at the table being heard.
ReplyDelete