City Manager's Racial Policy is a Joke
In 2015 the Worcester City Manager, Edward
Augustus, organized the so called race dialogues. He had the Department of
Justice participate in the series of meetings. Many in the Worcester community
thought that the race dialogues were “a lot of talk and very little
action”.
This writer called the talks a “joke”. The
changes to the so called Affirmative Action Officer position and the lack other
developments have shown the race dialogues to be worse than a joke,
The first sign of that the dialogues were
not taken seriously by Manager Augustus was that all of the notes of the race dialogues
were lost. There was no serious attempt by the City to recover them.
Another sign was that the City Manager claimed
the police received “bias training”, but no quantifiable evidence of the effectiveness
of this or any other police policy has been made public.
There have been requests
that statistics on hate crimes be released to the public, as well as the status
of body cam for officers. This information has also been withheld.
There are two organization created by the City that are worse
than a joke. They are the Mayor’s Committee against Bias and Hate and the
police clergy group. They seem only to meet in order to give cover to the City
when there is a crisis. To my knowledge the bias/hate group has never asked the
City for the hate crime statistics. Most of the people in these groups sincere,
but history has shown them to have been manipulated.
Most recently the so called Affirmative Action Officer position
was changed from that of an advocate/ compliance officer to that of a
recruiter. This change was done without any formal input from residents.
Many people have expressed disappoint that the new Affirmative
Action Officer was hired from within the City government and is beholding to
the City Manager not to make any waves by advocating for racial justice.
There is a need for real dialogue among the people who are
disparately treated, including White people, and the government.
It was not long ago that the Department of Health held a
discussion about homelessness without inviting a single homeless person. UMASS decided to shut down a clinic in a poor
neighborhood before any input from the patients.
So it seems that the City Manager’s race programs and other
programs are just a joke on us.
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