Charlottesville City Council met last night and discussed the possible creation of a Dialogue on Race in order to improve race relations in and around the city.
Assistant City Manager Maurice Jones, who proposed the idea, called the idea an “attempt to engage our residents in an ongoing discussion to better understand each other, our backgrounds, our history, our perceptions and how past actions continue to affect life in Charlottesville today.”
During Council’s retreat last fall, Council identified race relations as one of the major projects to work on during the upcoming year. Jones said, however, “there is a level of unease concerning race and discrimination.”
Vice Mayor Julian Taliaferro agreed with Jones on the difficulty of addressing racism.
“Race is a difficult issue to talk about,” Taliaferro said. “People are uncomfortable with it, and what I am hoping [this project] will do is get people talking about it and try to create an atmosphere where people are comfortable and will share their concerns.”
The Dialogue on Race would facilitate conversation about race and discrimination by bringing together as many people as possible from different areas of the Charlottesville community to discuss issues in the city, Jones explained.
Those who took part in the dialogue would be broken up into small groups in which “discussions would focus on race and diversity here in Charlottesville,” Jones said, adding that each discussion would last about one to two hours.
The program Jones wishes to introduce, he said, calls for Charlottesville to hire a professional facilitation team to train volunteers to head the small discussion groups.
Mayor Dave Norris, however, cautioned that “it is important to not look at whatever staff support we hire as leaders of the initiative” but for the city to lead the way by example.
Jones explained that he hopes for the project to reach out to all Charlottesville residents, including members of the University community. In this regard, Jones has been in contact with Franklin Dukes, director of the University’s Institute Of Environmental Negotiation. Dukes, with help from students, faculty, staff and community members, previously created the University’s Community Racial Reconciliation Project, a response to the Virginia General Assembly’s 2007 expression of regret about slavery.
Dukes said his project involves ways to act upon such expressions of regret. He said he intends to connect and work with Jones’ initiative to “look at the legacy of discrimination and efforts to fight that, and what role the University has played and what role for those who are interested in countering [discrimination], what role [the CRRP] would be playing.”
Although many Council members expressed support for the program, there was some hesitancy expressed regarding funding for the initiative.
Jones requested a sum of $10,000 for the 2009 year and funding between $40,000 to $60,000 for 2010.
Council Member David Brown said the cost is his main concern about the project, suggesting that Jones look to the local community for a facilitation team, possible donations and other outside support. In response, Jones said he has already started working with community members about such matters but added that he wanted to speak to Council before he went through with any other plans.
Jones said his program “had many encouraging responses from community members,” noting however, that “there are many in our community who still carry their wounds of past injustices [whereas] many are unaware of the deep distrust that is present in our community.”
Jones and other members of Council stressed that though the Dialogue on Race may initially be driven by the city government, it must eventually be supported by the community. Council granted Jones’ request for first-year funding, and a decision about later years’ funding will be reached at a future Council meeting.
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