-Hello, everybody.
Good morning, and thanks so much for joining us today.
So this morning session is going to be called
the Civil Rights and Culture Shift.
If I can ask folks to kind of --
kind of move up towards the front
because we are going to ask some audience participation
by asking a few questions.
So we're going to maybe ask for volunteers
or at least ask each other some questions
because we really want you to really think about
how this really will inform the work that we do.
So I'm going to start off.
My name is Mike Chin, pronouns, he/him,
and I'm the civil rights enforcement director
at the Seattle office for Civil Rights.
-Hey, everybody. I'm John Page.
I'm the community investments division director.
Thank y'all for coming
and checking out what we're about to put down.
-All right,
so I will just begin by saying that when Mary approached John
and I to present, this morning, on civil rights,
as well as some other topics around equality, equity,
the first thing that came to mind was this was the first time
I've been invited to come
and actually share some information at a summit.
And so that's a great privilege to be asked.
But the second thing was to actually work with John Page.
And so this is our first presentation together,
and I'm really excited
because so much of what we talk about our history, our present,
and our future is really thinking about
how our work really works together.
This is also an opportunity to kind of do some self-reflection.
It's not just to learn about civil rights and
about culture shift.
It's also to think about what are some opportunities
where we need to do some growing?
And how does this apply to our work in the RSJI world?
-So y'all -- going to have to play with this mic with Mike.
So thinking about the learning outcomes,
what we hoping --
what we're hoping folk to walk away with in this session
is understanding the importance of civil rights laws
and creating equal opportunities,
but also understanding that it's not the end of the story, right?
So we think about what's the culture shift that happens?
What happens in the culture as a result of these laws, right?
You know, give you a quick example.
I'm going to date myself a little bit.
So Brown v Board, one, happened in 1954.
That was the law that desegregated schools.
And I'm from the South. I'm from Texas, right?
And so I was born in '64,
so I was born about 10 years
after the legislation was enacted.
In Dallas, schools didn't start to be desegregated till' 1976.
I was in the sixth grade when they started bussing,
and it was just one way, right?
So when you think about that, the law happened.
So what happened in the culture, in society,
to make that law actionable, right,
and to see it in folks' lives. And I guess the final thing,
want to think about what's the culture shift
that needs to happen around RSJI
as we do this work in the city of Seattle?
-All right,
so I'm going to really talk a little bit
about kind of what it was the lead up to the Civil Rights Act.
And this legislation passed in 1964 was probably the --
one of the biggest pieces of legislation
that really changed the laws in employment,
in housing, in public accommodations, and in voting.
But I think it's really important to kind of acknowledge
that the lead up to the Civil Rights Act
wasn't just what was happening in 1960s,
but also acknowledge the slavery
that was happening in the United States
and around the world from 1619 to 1863.
When we think about access,
when we think about harm to communities of color,
especially Black and brown populations,
it's so important to acknowledge the history that was tied in
and the harmful history that still exists today.
And even though in 1863 with President Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 200 years after,
things had not gotten better.
Maybe the freedom of slavery,
but it didn't actually mean
that we were free to have the power to vote,
to have access to education, access to jobs, and so forth.
Really, what was happening was a movement of the people,
especially young people,
to change our society and to really think about
how do we end segregation?
How do we remove poll taxes and literacy tests?
And how do we achieve equality and access
to some of the basic fundamental access to housing
and to employment and to be able to vote?
These are some of the images
that I had an opportunity with John and I to go to the South.
And some of these are actually photos
that we took with the empower initiative
to really think about our history
and how that informed the civil rights movement.
I think this was also the first time,
you know, John talked about growing up in Texas.
I grew up in Moscow, Idaho, 10 years after John.
And actually, this was the first time
I actually had that awakening of what it was like
before the civil rights laws were passed.
And you don't realize the harm that has been happened
and the harm that still exists today by government,
by businesses, by workplaces.
And even though we have the Civil Rights Act,
and we've had the civil rights movement,
it took hundreds of years to actually achieve to
where we are today.
Also, this year is a really important year
because this is the 60th anniversary
of the Civil Rights Act that was signed into law on July 2.
Why this is important is not just about the ability
to be prohibited from discrimination in employment,
which most people think about.
There were several different aspects of the Civil Rights Act
that tried to address the disparities in discrimination
and try to remove segregation from voting,
from public places,
from desegregation of public facilities, education,
the creation of the Civil Rights Commission,
nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs
such as the city of Seattle and the state of Washington
and the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity
to enforce the city's -- well,
enforce the federal laws that prohibit discrimination.
And this was not just the only piece of federal legislation
that was passed after John F Kennedy's death.
Nineteen sixty-five, next year,
will be the 60th anniversary of the Voting Right Act,
and 1968 will be the Fair Housing Act.
And what we're going to be talking a little bit about
in the next slides is that even though we have these laws
that prohibited discrimination,
de jure discrimination and de facto discrimination,
which means by law you could discriminate,
or society could discriminate,
we're really going to be focusing on
how is that really changing what we are experiencing today?
So I want to really point this out because,
in Seattle, similar to the Race and Social Justice Initiative
that's very unique to Seattle,
the civil rights laws and protections
in the city of Seattle is also very, very different,
and it's very jurisdictional.
So although we have federal laws
prohibit discrimination based on race, color, national origin,
which later included religion, sex, age, and disability,
we also have city ordinances
that prohibit discrimination based on additional
20 protected classes.
So when we think about discrimination,
we have to think about
are these protections just in the city of Seattle
or is on a state level or on the federal level?
And all these protected classes prohibit discrimination
in employment, housing, public places and in contracting.
-Right on, Mike. Thank you.
So what are we talking about
when we talk about culture shift?
Again, we're talking about what actually happens?
How do we -- how does that law actually --
and that rule actually hit the ground, right?
How does -- what's the material,
tangible changes we see in society?
So we think about the norms, our beliefs,
how we talk about a thing, right,
how we engage with a thing, right?
And really what we're talking about is because --
so those laws kind of socialize us
and condition us to think about things in certain ways.
Would that be sort of fair to say?
Would folks say that's fair?
So even though we have these laws, you know,
in Dallas, they were like, shoot,
we going to keep these schools segregated, right?
Yeah, we know we have a law.
So what have -- what had to happen for folks to say,
okay, we're going to really integrate schools?
And so we think about --
so we have a couple of definitions, right?
Culture shift, I'm just going to read it.
Culture shift refers to significant changes
in society's values, norms, beliefs, behaviors,
arts, literature,
or any aspect that shapes collective identity
as Americans, as Seattleites, right, as men,
as women, as cisgendered men, women, cisgendered folk,
heterosexual, LGBTQ.
And so we got some examples.
Think about the telephone.
Think about material examples.
But what are the non-material examples
of shifts in the culture?
Mike, can you go to the next slide?
So thinking about protections around public spaces, right?
So disability rights, religious freedom,
LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, gender identity protections.
Mike, can you go to the next slide?
Thank you.
Actually, go back to the other side, actually.
So I just have a couple of examples
under all these thinking about what the --
how the law --
what the culture shift was that reflected the law.
And we think about, you know,
just recognizing the rights and dignity
of people with disabilities.
So we start seeing ramps, right.
We start seeing spaces being made,
for instance, the spaces here.
Even though we had the law, it took a minute for us to do this,
right, for us to say, hey, we're going to make these places,
these public spaces welcoming and accessible, right?
It's one thing to say you have this law,
and then you have to go to a public space
and advocate and remind folk that there's a law,
but there's something else that needed to happen
for us to really make it accessible
and welcoming for folk with disabilities.
Thinking about religious freedoms,
so looking at stuff like allowing prayer in school,
think about religious symbols in public spaces.
And then just, y'all,
I'm going to -- I'm going to tell on myself a little bit,
but I'm going to tell on us, really.
So we have this thing around separation of church and state,
right, right?
I don't know what that means, really,
because whenever we have a real tragedy, right,
and pretend I'm President Page, right?
And so what's the first thing
I'm going to say to acknowledge that tragedy?
God bless the survivors, the victims.
And I'm the president.
I'm the man that represents this branch of government.
So what does it really mean
when we talk about a separation of church and state?
That's just a little tangent I like to kind of interrogate.
I hadn't figured it out. I'm just going to tell you.
But it's still curious to me that we talk like that.
LGBTQ rights, the Obergefell v. Hodges,
which happened in 2015, and it's public accommodation laws.
And what the way the culture shift looked
was against discrimination based
on sexual orientation and gender identity, places --
gender identity in places like hotels, restaurants,
and other public venues.
So I'm going to give you all a preview of the test.
We're going to ask y'all to name some ways
that culture shift has happened around RSJI
and then what still needs to happen.
Because would it be fair to say,
in Seattle, the city that I love,
I'm going to clown a little bit,
but in liberal Seattle that we have the language, right?
We have the social justice, racial equity language,
but have we really internalized it?
If somebody didn't know we had this language,
and they came to Seattle, would they think that we had an RSJI?
Would they think that equity really, really mattered to us?
To look at disparities around -- name something --
education, healthcare, criminal justice,
home ownership, economic disparities.
So what needs to happen, even though we have an RSJI?
It's been around for 20 years.
There's something else that needs to happen, right?
And what I'm going to put forth
is sort of some internalizing what these really mean.
I think -- I think the previous panelist talked about this.
I think we'll get stuck if we're not figuring out
how this applies because we --
there's this term of jumping over the church
to get to the church, right?
And so what that means is I'm a RSJI practitioner, right?
And so I'm setting up RFPs to be accessible low barriers, right?
But then I'm giving this person in the cubicle
right next to me the blues, right?
And so what happens to RSJI
and what I've internalized about RSJI,
so RSJI really is still theoretical, or it's technical.
And sometimes we --
I think we struggle -- and that sort of work has to be inside,
but sometimes we struggle with materially
and internally and emotionally,
how do we adopt and live by RSJI principles.
How do they show up?
So, Mike, can you go to the next slide, please?
What is the next slide?
So, Mike, actually, okay, this is yours.
You were going to talk about this?
-All right.
And like what John was saying,
think about the space that we are here.
This is a public space, and who -- can you imagine a place
where it excluded people who look like me
or look like you
or look like John or people with disabilities?
I mean, even though we had these laws as a foundation
of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
but did it create a culture shift today?
Because I think that's the distinction about culture shift
is, like what John said,
it's more than just what the law says.
It's the shift of attitudes, behaviors, and values,
and principles
because even though these laws say you can't do this,
is it really shifting the culture to really embrace this,
to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to be at the table?
When we talk about state and local government,
which was part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
why was this in place?
What was happening in the 1960s and the '50s and the '40s?
Government, cities, states use federal funds to discriminate.
I remember a story where they said, you know what?
In the South,
they said we're going to close these public pools
if we have to open them for Black people.
We're going to close this public zoo
if I have to be in the same space as a person of color.
What the Civil Rights Act tried to say
is that you cannot do that. It tried to say that, as --
if you are receiving federal funds, like the city of Seattle,
like the state of Washington, like all 50 states,
you cannot discriminate based on race, color,
and national origin.
When we also think about gender equity,
when we think about access to so many services,
it also applied based on sex.
So even though you have state law
that says something different,
you had politicians saying we're going to exclude people,
but we're okay with accepting your money, federal government.
That's where the rub happened with Title VI.
-So want to try something a little interactive.
I want folk to just turn to whoever you sit next to
and just think about the culture shift,
and I've named some of them, right?
Think about RSJI and what some of the culture shifts
that has happened, that needs to happen to move the work forward.
And so we don't have a slide on RSJI.
Mike, do we have a RSJI slide?
-We do at the end. -Go to that then.
Go to that slide.
So these are the questions we want folk to think about, right?
And then when it come back,
we just probably give you 10 minutes,
give folks 10 minutes to think about culture shift
as it applies to RSJI.
Is that clear to folk? That's clear?
Thank you, Medhi. Is that clear? Faheem, are you going to talk?
You can talk to her?
Faheem, you may want to go to the row behind you.
So can folk just turn to -- turn to somebody next to them
and just talk about RSJI and culture shift,
and how do we move this work forward?
What, first of all, what needs to happen?
And what would be some indicators that we've shifted,
that we've sort of internalized,
and it's not -- it's not a theoretical exercise, right?
It's not just an initiative with an ordinance now.
But how do we really, really, really implement
and make it actionable?
So going to give you about 10 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes.
Depends on how fruitful.
And I'm going to come out and help folk and talk to folk,
and we'll figure it out.