Tag : Discriminatory

Washington: For Dwight Mullen, the very public reparations process in Asheville, North Carolina, is an extension of his decades of behind-the-scenes data work on inequity. The retired political science professor started digging into local racial disparities nearly 20 years ago – in health, education, criminal justice and other areas. So when national racial justice protests began in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd, Mullen said it felt to many that the time had come for something different. "It was a summation – we've got to do something as a city and county to make it right," Mullen, who chairs the local Community Reparations Commission, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "It starts with enslavement, and works its way through lynching and segregation and mass incarceration and urban renewal," he said. "It ends with the disparities incurred." The commission was appointed by the city and surrounding Buncombe County in 2022, and in October released draft recommendations it hopes will address inequalities in criminal justice, economic development, education, health and housing. The effort is one of dozens across the country, as local communities lead a reparations conversation that has languished at the national level for decades. Some have looked at compensating Black Americans for their ancestors' enslavement and related violence and degradation, while others, as in Asheville, have focused on more recent structural racism – and its continued effects. "Everyone's version of reparations is different," said Brenda Mills, Asheville's director of equity & inclusion. "Some people think it's money and land, while other people see it as programs and policy changes that can begin to correct." The complexity and emoti ...