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Is it possible to discuss public policy in Durham without making it about race?
It’s a valid question raised by a Durham Public Schools teacher during a lengthily conversation involving Durham County Manager Wendell Davis. We discussed the challenges local teachers face in believing public education isn’t receiving adequate funding. I pressed concerns about perceptions of racism in Durham County Government and how talks involving Davis’ contract feel like retaliation.
She told me many Black and white educators feel trapped in a racial climate that minimizes the way we address public policies. She asked me why. I wondered if Durham is the only city with heated public policy debates with race and racism in the middle.
I offered the influence of context, culture and history. My work, as both an independent journalist and Black liberation minister, is to evoke the life and witness of Black people. I’m unapologetically Black. My agenda is not in elevating the varied perspective within a vastly divided community. My goal is to share what others miss due to historical and cultural distance. My motivation is to facilitate conversations aimed to building greater community solidarity – beyond race, gender, religion, gender identity, economic status and political ideology. I offer an untold and often hidden perspective.
This work is tricky business. It demands owning the absence of a monolithic Black voice. It digs deep into silence stirred by economic disparity. It demands internalized critique of assumptions rooted in personal privilege. It owns being impacted by personal experiences.
When I taught journalism at the University of Missouri, I told students to use their bias to frame the way they approach the story. Asking personal critical questions regarding the unknown and misunderstood helps craft questions aimed at moving beyond what we know. The story is within the story. The essence of true storytelling is the heart. It’s what makes the story tick.
Can you discuss public policy without making it about race? The simple answer is no. Everything is about race. Public policy is about power. It’s how power can be used to affirm or dismiss others as a tool. As much as we’d like to discount the impact of race, history, interpreted from the lens of current context, complicates everything.
Durham educators want to discuss Davis’ county contract based on his funding of public education. As lobbyists supporting education, it is appropriate to promote their agenda. I feel their tension related to being attacked as racist for doing what their professional interest demands. Durham educators aren’t racist for confronting Davis. Their lobbying collides with a pile of historically rooted concerns that places race and racism at the center of this conversation.
Is critique of a Black man racist? No. Is it credible to engage in that criticism without considering implications rooted in race? Absolutely not. When public policy and race intersect, it’s essential to address all the underlying assumptions that cripple conversations involving policy.
What does that mean?
Individual and community perceptions regarding race and racism should always take priority to conversations involving public policy. This is the work of anti-racism. It’s difficult work. It may impact the speed it takes in implementing a public policy agenda. It requires deep listening and a willingness to check all power play at the door. It affirms being right means sometimes you can’t win.
The work in making a more powerful and inclusive community is a challenge to anyone determined to rise above the damage of our collective histories. It means listening more and screaming less. It owns that most of us desire the same thing. It measures our conduct based on the knowledge that privilege breeds the power to impact public policies.
It also concedes how institutionalized racism shows up in white progressive organizations. Racism is placed on the back burner. Black people are moved to the frontline to cover the sway of white privilege. Public policy changes are the battle cry in the unconscious maneuvering to silence claims of racism.
It matters when a Black person's job performance is attacked for reasons beyond their job description. It hurts when a Black person’s job is at risk due to an unwillingness to succumb to the demands of a political action committee. It’s a repudiation of a long history of disqualifying Black people to assert job performance matters less than a public policy agenda. Black people are often fired, demoted, arrested, demoralized and lynched for speaking their truth.
Attacking racism must always be the priority. This is not a post-racial society. Questions regarding Davis’ contract can’t be limited to public policy concerns. These conversations are more about perceptions of race and racism. They involve how Davis, and other Black employees, feel attacked by white members of the Board of County Commissioners. Those perceptions must be addressed prior to any decision involving contract renewal.
If not, the outcome will be tainted by assumptions of retaliation. As always, race matters. In this situation, Black rage matters. Forcing a public policy decision in the heat of division regarding perceptions of racism is a formula for public outrage.
Stay tuned in for more Black outrage.
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