EP 65: DIRECT Talks on Race (and Equity vs. Equality)
A new program from the North Carolina League of Municipalities is convening frank talks with municipal officials about racial tensions and inequities in our communities. Learn how DIRECT (Diversity, Inclusion & Racial Equity for Cities & Towns) works for better lives through best practices and historical knowledge. Mark your calendars -- on Feb. 1, at 10 a.m., DIRECT will hold a webinar, which you'll have to register for. You can find it on the events calendar at nclm.org. This webinar will provide the basics city and town leaders need to advance discussions and local efforts on racial equity. Webinar attendees will have the opportunity to learn valuable information and engage in meaningful conversations. The course includes: -Discussion of the importance of racial equity and its associated values -Review of historical events that have impacted racial equity at the national, state, and local level -Examination of relevant data that impacts racial equity -Strategies and tools for practical solutions at the local level -Participation in a racial wealth gap learning simulation The DIRECT webinar is available to members for $65 plus applicable taxes and $75 plus applicable taxes to nonmembers. Attendees who complete the course will earn 2.5 credit hours toward AML's Order of Municipal Leadership. If your town wants to address racial inequities, but you're not sure where to start, Introducing DIRECT: How Cities and Towns Can Engage in Racial Equity Conversations is the first step in learning more. Register.
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Transcript
This is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Your favorite podcast on municipal government in North Carolina is back. This is Ben Brown, and, yeah, we've been gone for a bit. We did, like, 70 episodes starting in 2016 and hit all kinds of topics that were in vogue, like autonomous vehicles and smart cities and the urban rural political tensions and quirky stuff too. Like, we even did an episode about UFOs and how folklore about aliens from outer space completely and forever changed a certain municipality. That was Municipal Equation, the podcast I hosted for the North Carolina League of Municipalities for a few years, during which it got a lot of acclaim, you know, that we were really proud of, and even making listicles that named it one of the top government podcasts nationally. Well, we're back, and this time we're really homing in, and yes, it is homing in, not honing that we're doing that too on really interesting ideas and stories from municipal governments in North Carolina and the people who make them. Being a public official, whether elected or appointed, means you hear it all. Every subject under the sun, or at least whatever is at the public's attention, becomes the bailiwick for people with positions in representative government. This is uniquely true for people who work in local government, being the closest to the people. While municipal governments in North Carolina have specific charges and duties to carry out, as opposed to, say, state government, they're also very much a player in the national dialogue and how it fits back home. For decades and decades, and for a long history prior to that, one of the central national conversations has been about race. How to reckon with the past and what to do about it today? Do we do anything about it today? What is there to do? And, for instance, what could an individual city council do to improve our measures when it comes to racial equity? Equity being a word that's actually been a point of confusion for the past good while, often being conflated with the similar sounding word, equality. It's different. And that's actually important to understand when it comes to participating in the conversation of race in our communities. So, this is something city councils may very well want to develop a new knowledge of. Like, when people say the word racism, what's meant? What does that include? Is it just the sort of classic, quote unquote classic definition that you might be familiar with, or is there more to the conversation? Understanding the terminology and context for the conversation of race in The United States, and in our local communities, is essential if we want to have a productive talk where everyone is working off the same understanding.
They would be in a position to at least hear and understand and not get defensive.
This is Vicky Miller, and she works with the North Carolina League of Municipalities on member initiatives, including one focused on race, which we all know can be very sensitive to broach with people. In particular, we're not informed or not comfortable
with it and direct that to to being a personal attack. Are you calling me a racist? Right. Yeah. Raising to you a concern that seems to be historical and be able to shift the conversation from the personal and the individual to us looking at let's look at this, from a system level, which is not personal.
DIRECT stands for diversity, inclusion, and racial equity for cities and towns. And it's meant to help North Carolina cities and towns, as well as their elected and appointed officials, strengthen their communities by identifying and addressing racial disparities at the local level. Direct works alongside municipal leaders to acknowledge existing inequalities and inequities, identify local history and data, and examine municipal policies and procedures that contribute to structural and systemic racism in local communities. Through this shared understanding and knowledge, DIRECT empowers local officials to develop strategies that work towards stronger, more equitable communities. So the league believes that DIRECT will help cities and towns with the understanding and shared language necessary to tackle racial equity and related issues in a robust and practical way. So so what's the origin of DIRECT? Like, how did it come up this is something that the League of Municipalities should do?
The program is an outgrowth of a multiyear effort that actually began with the league's strategic plan, maybe not, in pure concept, but, the vision that cities and towns in order for them to be sustainable and to provide the quality of life for for residents and citizens that, we needed to believe in the federation cities need to be forward looking. And out of that process came, a series of operating principles to include things such as inclusion, to include an idea that in order to have equity and equitable communities, our cities needed to be and leaders needed to be positioned to, provide and to help govern and move in that direction.
A group of elected municipal officials helped create what became direct, the learning program we're talking about. There were times when it was very uncomfortable. This is one of them, Jeff McIntosh of the Winston Salem City Council, and part of what was called the task force on the impact of city leaders on racial equity.
But the what the reason that I think it works so well is that right up front, we were told that it was gonna be uncomfortable. And we were told kind of the reasons why it was important for us to work through that discomfort Yeah. To be able to hear some things and and, you know, maybe say say some things that we don't feel comfortable doing on a day to day basis, but we were within within a group that all felt, you know, that there was a safe place. It was okay to lean into some things. So it just it worked that we were all on the same page. And even though we were from small towns, big cities, all you know, and everything in between, we were all league board members that really kind of got the greater purpose of what we were being asked to, to work our way through.
And, and also the difference between equity and equality, which get, you know, kind of interchanged a lot erroneously. And
it seems like putting That's a really valuable part of the training. Yeah. Everybody took that away, took that to heart and really, it really sunk in, to I think with everybody on the on the group.
You know, like I might say, you know, we need racial equity and someone might respond, well, you know, we're all created equal. What's what's erroneous about that? Because to me, understanding what we mean when we say equity is a big part of this.
Absolutely. Thanks for that question. And that was a key cornerstone and concept that the task force early on in their work, had to understand and so that they could talk at the same language and understanding. The difference between, racial equity and other ways of looking at equal society is that equality, by definition means sameness. That, everyone is on the same level, everybody is starting from the same place, and that history and circumstances the prior circumstances have no role in that. And Yeah. That has led to, particularly from a municipal standpoint, the task force found that policies and processes at the municipal level, although they have been the policy is set in terms of looking at the inequality, they actually maybe, may have caused harm or are causing harm because everyone is not starting from the same place. History has had an impact on circumstances, particularly around race, unfortunately.
One analogy that sometimes goes around is the monopoly analogy. If you have a few people playing the game of monopoly and buying up all the utilities and railroads and various other properties, and then a couple hours into the game, you have some new players invited to join. Those new players aren't going to have the advantage. They were invited late. They don't have the same access to property ownership or wealth building, which is what Vicky is talking about. Historically, black populations didn't have the same access to wealth, loans, abilities to buy property, pass wealth down to future generations. And a lot of that relates to restrictive policies.
And another piece that the task force came to understand as a part of their overall understanding and common language is that race in our country, unfortunately, still is a significant impact or has an, an impact on quality of life and well-being. And if we look at policy a municipality from policy from an equality standpoint, being able to have equitable communities, particularly as it relates to race, may not yield those desired results. When we look at things, when the task force looked at, the issue from an equity standpoint, that is looking at, things from a standpoint of fairness and taking into account history and taking into account, the circumstances that people and particularly marginalized groups, how they have been impacted and identifying that, understanding that, and then looking at potential ways of directing resources and opportunities in a targeted way so that that level so that that can be leveled. And then from there, you could look at things on a more equitable basis. But until, the raising of the gaps and, the lack of opportunities, given prior set of of our history, which is, you know, that makes some of this conversation very uncomfortable. Yeah. However, until we understand that that does have an impact, we cannot have an equal society as, you know, our constitution has set out.
I spoke with Carrie North Carolina council member and former league president Jennifer Robinson, a member of the racial equity task force, to get her thoughts on whether a program like this could inspire policy
change. Yeah. I think I think that'll be a probable offshoot of this experience Mhmm. That boards that talk together, will be more likely to take action action on areas that they see need improvement. Mhmm. I mean, one thing we know is that when any governing body sits together and talks openly about any topic Mhmm. They're more likely to address it in a productive manner, And that's what we're hoping for. This has the potential to not only help councils address the issue of equity and to be able to be more informed, but it also has the potential to to foster communication among boards that maybe don't have a lot of open conversation.
Fuquay Varina town commissioner and task force member Bill Harris agrees that direct could have a great ripple effect in styles of policy making and listening overall.
I think that's so important because a lot of these decisions that we we make have a direct impact on the quality of of life for for people, in our communities. And as we become more diverse, in regards to our citizenry, I think it's going to be important for us to make sure that we are aware of those issues, historically, that impact how people respond to to government. We can have a sense of where people are coming from in regards to how they, expect government to respond to their particular needs.
Mark your calendars on February 1 starting at 10AM. Direct will hold a webinar, which you'll have to register for. You can find it on the events calendar at nclm.0rg. That's nclm.0rg. That's the League of Municipality's website, and you'll see a rundown of the program. It's going to be a more in-depth introduction to DIRECT with discussions of the importance of racial equity and its associated values, a review of historical events that have impacted racial equity at the national, state, and local level, examination of relevant data that impacts racial equity, strategies and tools for practical solutions at the local level, and participation in a racial wealth gap learning simulation. Municipal officials who attend this webinar will earn two and a half credit hours toward advancing municipal leaders' order of municipal leadership. That's the league's education platform, AML. So if your town wants to address racial inequities, but you're not sure where to start, this webinar called Introducing Direct, How Cities and Towns Can Engage in Racial Equity Conversations is the first step in learning more. Thanks for listening. We're so glad to be back with The Municipal Equation, a a podcast from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, and we want to hear from you, especially the municipal officials of North Carolina, whether elected or staff, mayors, city council people, city managers, planning directors, finance people, the impressively creative intern. We wanna hear the amazing or different kinds of things you're working on or novel initiatives you think might benefit other municipal officials to hear. There are no one size fits all solutions, but the more we hear about what works for you, the more tools we have in the community box. You can send me an email that's b brownnclm dot org. So, bbrownasinBenBrown@nclm.org. If you need ideas for what we're talking about, we have a big back catalog of episodes that go in-depth on so many different topics. You can find the past episodes at nclm.org. From technology to skate parks to creative renovations, downtown, and even police issues, it's all about municipalities and the unique kind of living in cities and towns. It might surprise you to know that one of our most listened to episodes is just about trees, like downtown urban trees. It's way more interesting than you might think. So my name is Ben Brown, and I'll continue to be a host here. If you have any questions or comments, the address is bbrown@nclm.org. Just put municipal equation in the subject line. That's the name of this podcast. We'll continue to follow the progress with Direct and bring you updates, and we'll be back with more episodes soon. Thanks again for listening. This has Ben.