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September 29, 2022
Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
R(EDI)
Study Session
Ideas + action for a better City
YOUR TRAINERS
FOR TODAYLena Carew
Head of Organizational
Health & Innovation
Ellie Tumbuan
Head of Strategy & Culture
MISSION
The Justice Collective
(TJC)
is a cross-sector, social impact consultancy
with interdisciplinary expertise. Founded in
2015 in Oakland, CA, by Lena Carew, Ellie
Tumbuan, and Danielle DeRuiter-Williams.
TJC is 100% owned by women of color.
VALUES
Transform organizations by unlocking and
uplifting the abundance within.
• Abundance
• Collaboration
• Radical & Empathetic Leadership
• Transformation
Each of these values is integrated into our central organizing principles of EQUITY and JUSTICE.
●Welcome & Getting Started
●Somatic Activity
●Historic Structural Inequity
●Understanding Your Role in
R(EDI)
●10-min Break
●Demystifying Dominant
Culture
●Best Practices for Leaders
●ORE Team Progress Updates
Photo Credit: Chona Kasinger
from the Disabled and Here Project
AGENDA
TODAY’S LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1.Understand and analyze the government's role in key
historical and present racial justice contexts.
2.Identify and describe examples of racial equity, diversity, and inclusion concepts.
3.Define and assess common myths related to dominant
culture, and their relationship to an equitable and
inclusive workplace and city.
4.Recognize and describe the interrelationship between
emotional intelligence, bias, and racial equity.
5.Identify and assess best practices in the field for
equitable leadership to drive equitable outcomes at CSJ.
6.Awareness of City’s efforts, accomplishments, and path forward.
LAND RECOGNITION
https://native-land.ca/
7 Mindfulness: Science Confirms the Benefits of Attention Training ●Increase Resilience to Stress
●Increase Compassion
●Increase self-awareness and
emotional regulation
●Improve Mental Health
●Improve Relationships
●Reduce Psychological Bias
●Improve Memory
●Improve Sleep
SETTING INDIVIDUAL INTENTIONS
●TRY IT ON: Be willing to “try on” new ideas, or ways of doing things that might not be what you prefer or are familiar with.
●PRACTICE SELF FOCUS: Attend to and think about your own experiences and responses. Pause when you hear something new to you or something you may not agree with and consider if your instinct is to speak for a whole group or express assumptions about the experience of others.
●REFRAIN FROM BLAMING OR SHAMING SELF & OTHERS Resist any negative self talk during this session.
●PRACTICE MINDFUL LISTENING: Be willing to be surprised, to learn something new. Listen with your whole self.
Borrowed from East Bay Meditation Center
AIMING FOR THE STRETCH ZONE
??😫
HISTORIC
STRUCTURAL
INEQUITY IN
SAN JOSÉ
LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD: HISTORY OF SAN JOSÉ
1.Between 1950 - 1969 the city’s population grew from 95,280 to 495,000 and much of the city’s land was designated for single-family homes - many people became car dependent.
2.Construction of I-280 and Highway 101 destroyed many homes and businesses mostly occupied by black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
3.Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) backed mortgages principally benefitted white middle- and upper-income residents, many of which purchased suburban homes.
4.Improved freeways enabled longer commutes from suburbs to the city, and those who could live farther away from work and services were advantaged most by highway improvements.
5.The communities surrounding the highways experienced decades of disinvestment beginning in the 1930’s due to “redlining.” leakytechpipeline.com
Redlining refers to local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which was established in 1934, furthered segregation efforts of the time by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods and other communities of color.
At the same time, the FHA subsidized builders to mass-produce entire subdivisions for white communities—with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans (or any other person of color).
WHAT’S REDLINING?
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SAN JOSÉ RESIDENTS TODAY?
Communities surrounding the I-680/I-280/US-101 interchange are at the highest risk of:
1.Displacement due to gentrification
2.Poor air quality due to localized air pollution
3.Vehicle related injuries and fatalities
Today, rising costs and exclusionary zoning exacerbates the housing crisis
1.84% of the city’s residential land is zoned for single-family.
2.6% of city residential land can be built for apartments, condos, duplexes, and triplexes.
3.Nearly half (47%) of San José’s renters live in housing that is considered unaffordable
4.One in four spend more than half their income on housing-related costs
5.Black, Hispanic, and Pacific Islanders face disproportionately greater barriers to securing affordable housing.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR
ROLE IN R(EDI)
Racial equity work requires us to answer
questions like…
1.Why do so many people believe that the current conversation about race, gender, ableism, etc. is new?
2.How do beliefs about race differ across groups and cultural lines? Why do they differ?
3.Who determines what is and isn’t considered taboo? Why? Intersectionality
22 Kimberlé Crenshaw
Lawyer, Scholar, & Civil Rights Activist
23 IDENTITY PRISM
Think about your identity, what is ….
➔Visible
➔Perceptible (Noticeable) by others
➔Invisible to others
*Adapted from Tirien Steinbach, Associate Dean of DEI at Stanford Law School, former Chief Program Officer, ACLU of Northern CA and Legal Scholar
Demystifying Dominant
Culture
THE CULTURAL ICEBERG
01 02
03 04
05COMMUNICATION NORMS
NOTIONS OF
CONCEPTS OF
ATTITUDES TOWARD
APPROACHES TO
Courtesy & Manners, Friendship,
Leadership, Beauty
Time, Family, Self, Past & Future,
Fairness & Justice
Senior Citizens, Children, Rules, Work,
Cooperation vs. Competition, Authority
Religion, Courtship, Raising Children,
Marriage, Decision-Making, Prob Solving
Facial Expressions, Body Language, Eye
Contact, Personal Space, Gestures,
Handling & Displaying of EmotionsDEEP CULTURE:
SURFACE CULTURE:
Food, Music, Games, Holidays,
Fashion, Dances, Language, Festival,
Literature
SOME DOMINANT CULTURAL VALUES
EXAMPLE HOW IT’S
TRANSMITTED
ACTIONS YOU CAN
TAKE
Either/or Thinking
Fear of Open Conflict
Collaboration norms,
decision-making and
transparency (or lack thereof).
●Disabuse yourself from
objectivity
●Be okay with non-closure
●Lean into the “grey area”
●Create multiple
opportunities for dialogue
Emphasis on being polite;
equating the raising of
difficult issues with being
rude or out of line.
Leadership avoidance of
surfacing issues they
“cannot” solve.
●Equip your team with the
skills they need to work
through conflict
●Get comfortable with
discomfort
●Consider how POWER
shows up, mitigate for it
●Unpack your urge to
tone-police
HOW TO REFRAME THE CONVERSATION
“The problem is
too big and too
difficult to solve.”
I didn’t create the
problem.”
Individuals are
responsible for
poor conditions.”
There isn’t
anything I can do
in my role or
department”
Real systemic barriers
exist. Access to
mortgages, safety, and
healthy living conditions
are unequally
distributed.
We’re taught to be
biased against those who
face barriers instead of
the barriers themselves.
We often hear: Try this on:
Best Practices for Leaders
REVIEW KEY TAKEAWAYS
1.r(EDI) is one effort to resolve a major social issue at work, and it pays off. We cannot discuss or address r(EDI) without a solid understanding of Racial Injustice.
2.r(EDI) and racial justice thrive - or stall - on multiple levels.
That creates LOTS of opportunity to move the needle.
3.Clear racial disparities exist because of historical and current systems of inequity.
4.There are important implications for the City of San José as a local leader, steward, and global citizen.
5.Anyone can use their power to perpetuate racial inequity, or to dismantle it - the choice is yours.
THANK YOU!