Racial justice town hall touches on race and economic opportunity

OLYMPIA –– The second in the series of racial justice meetings in Olympia Thursday night focused on economic opportunity across race lines. Like the first meeting last Friday centering on the legal system, this endeavor brought together a diverse lineup of panelists of color to bring to light their perspectives.

“I really want to thank you for your support with this series,” said moderator Kelly Purse Braseth. “The panelists are bringing their experiences and their honesty to the table.”

Economic inequality is a complicated issue that covers and ties together much of the injustice that people of color often face, both intentionally and unintentionally. The systems that influence social justice involve countless facets of our daily lives in one way or another.

“Social injustice matters to life,” said Clinton Petty, a retired U.S. Army division command sergeant. “It governs who we become, it governs what we do, it oversees everything about us as human beings. I saw that up front in the military.”

One aspect of daily life that is affected by unequal economic opportunity is housing, according to panelists.

“Housing is huge,” said James Sulton, a lawyer based in South Carolina. “Rent prices have increased. We know that we don’t have enough housing for people.” 

Building more housing people can afford, Sulton added, is a key point in addressing economic inequality.

“[There has been] more conversation about what we need but what we don’t want is more housing built that’s not affordable,” said Sulton. “We have to look at what other states, cities, jurisdictions are doing.”

The question of government representation was also a main theme throughout the meeting, as having diverse perspectives in leadership positions can help create a more complete sense of the community’s needs.

“If you don’t have the voice of the people in the community you cannot create policies that are equitable because you don’t know what the need is,” said Megan Matthews, a panelist who works in the Washington State government. “All of us went into this world with a partial perspective. You have different perspectives to consider. If you’re missing key demographics, your answers are going to fall short for them.”

The complexities of economic opportunity have roots in the workings of the governmental systems that determine who gets which financial resources and how they are received.

“After working almost 40 years in the public and private sector,” said long-time state government official Merritt Long, “one basic truth I’ve come to learn and realize [is that] unless the decision makers are fully committed to the issues or policies at hand, they will not succeed.”

Tackling this issue can be a major challenge for policymakers because a phenomenon as broad and often abstract as economic inequality can be difficult to quantify. Long referred to a quote from Irish physicist and engineer Lord Baron Kelvin (written in 1883) to illustrate this.

“When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you indeed know something about it,” described Long. “But when you cannot measure or you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager, unsatisfactory kind.”

Numbers, facts and figures can be relatively easier to respond to than the corollaries of a nationwide crisis only visible by those who actively look for and recognize it.

Hiring practices also play a role in influencing the makeup of the workforce. It is commonly valued that businesses attempt to hire the most qualified candidate for the job, citing qualifications and a candidate being the best fit for the tasks at hand. The panelists bring light to the occurrence of equally qualified people of color not being considered for a job.

“[And] we’re not saying stick a black person there, we don’t want tokenism,” said Matthews. “Talking about hiring practices...what does ‘best fit’ mean?” said Matthews. “[There are many] black people that have so many different degrees...and are still not getting hired.”

Members of the community who attended the virtual town hall asked how people here can create fertile ground in Olympia for people of color to thrive. Like last week’s meeting regarding racial justice, the panelists described the groundwork for where to start in personal accountability and responsibility.

“Encourage difficult conversations,” said Matthews. “Track plans through data and metrics, use process improvement...make sure that the values of our new hires are in line with organization values,” said Matthews. “There is no middle road in there. Either you are part of upholding the racist systems [or you’re not].”

It is important to demonstrate a serious commitment to the issue of economic opportunity if one wants to truly make a difference. Holding our government representatives accountable is one way to do this.

“There is legislation before the Washington State legislature right now in bill form geared toward rectifying this situation and I doubt whether it goes anywhere,” said Sulton, “because it’s going to be a huge food fight about...more licenses and people don’t want more licenses.”

The representation question often extends back to the foundations of this country, when Black people were essentially barred from participation in government. Even today, a large majority of government representatives are white.

“What is happening with us that I’ve seen that is really detrimental to the poor and to the minorities [is] we haven’t got ourselves into the room,” explained Petty. “I have finally gotten into that room to find out what was going on that makes a difference in my life and in my grandchildren’s life. I had to be there to make a change.”

The fight for economic equality is a continuous process far from that of a simple objective.

“It’s not going to be rectified by evolution,” continued Sulton. “It’s not going to be reversed by anything but intentional action.”

It will take a great deal of mentoring and organized planning to move towards a solution, according to panelists, since it is such a pervasive issue. Many of them mentioned mentoring as something that helped them immensely as young people working up to their current levels of experience and education.

“I was just given access, somebody took the time to mentor me to help me grow, my parents said ‘you’re going to go to college’,” said Matthews. “Without someone taking time to help me complete the FAFSA, college applications , waivers. I don’t know what my life would look like right now.”

Having a supporting individual who has been through the situations that a young person will encounter in life can work dividends for understanding how the social world works (often in ways that fall short of fair).

“We have got to get people of color in our schools,” said Petty. 

The meeting also placed a degree of responsibility to cities as governments who make hundreds of financial decisions every week.

“Show me your budget, show me how you’re spending your money and that will tell me what your priorities are,” said Long. “Is it all predominantly white-owned businesses, is there a miniscule number of businesses of color that are there? What can the city do about that?”

After all, everyone regardless of racial, ethnic, or economic background shares one trait in common.

“We are all human beings,” said Petty. “All of us have blood flowing through our veins. We have discovered through this virus we all need each other,” said Petty.

Leveling the playing field of economic opportunity would allow more people a wider range of educational, professional, and lifestyle opportunities. However, being able to participate is a fundamental necessity for doing so.

“If you’re not in the game, if you’re not participating, if you don’t have access to the opportunity, how can you win?” Long asked. “How can you win the race if you’re not in the race?”

Using the process of recognizing the problem, creating measurable goals, and holding one another accountable, people in this community can take steps toward bettering the groundwork for economic stability for more people.

“There tends to be an understanding that something is broken, otherwise you’re just getting busy and nobody’s going to be paying attention to you,” said Sulton. “The second thing is you have to have a measurable goal and objectives. The third thing is you have to have consequences if you’re not doing this. We have a feel-good meeting, but what are the consequences if you don’t do it? Five years from now you’ll be having the same meeting.”