Black wealth remains near zero due to centuries of systemic anti-Black racism and is on a trajectory to only worsen. In Seattle, white wealth is nearly 20x more than Black wealth. What specific actions will you take to close the Black-white wealth gap?
How much of the Black-white wealth gap will you close while in office?
Who are you working with in the Black community to close it?
How will you support investing federal funding directly and specifically into the Black community in the next two years?
Answer
As Mayor, I’ll take direct action to address the wealth gap and create an economic climate where every community can prosper and thrive. I have a proven history of fighting for economic fairness for Black communities – in addition to representing Black workers in class action lawsuits against unfair and discriminatory practices, as well as helping get Black small businesses off the ground – on Council, I was a lead negotiator in ensuring the $15 minimum wage, I sponsored and passed “ban the box”, and championed the Race and Social Justice Initiative.
I have a number of policies and programs I’ll drive with the purpose of addressing the wage gap. One of my top priorities is the creation of a Seattle Jobs Center. Through this program, we will use all means to help employ every possible person who seeks employment, including providing resources to re-tool and retrain job applicants seeking work. There will be a specific focus on connecting underrepresented communities with opportunities for apprenticeships, skill training, and other resources to both help them succeed and improve representation across industries.
I will also create the Seattle Empowerment and Opportunity Program – a new mentorship program that will pull mentors from all industries and fields to connect with youth in the Black community. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, artists, and the like will provide career counseling, networking, wealth building guidance, and, most importantly, proven pathways to success.
I’ll build on the work I did as an attorney supporting minority-owned small businesses. Seattle will be nationally recognized for our involved efforts to support BIPOC businesses. We will take on I-200, and offer improved methods of contracting and supplier practices that ensure these businesses can succeed. As we receive our second round of American Rescue Plan funds and other federal support, I’ll daylight funding so distribution is both clear and equitable.
We need innovative and bold ideas to close the wealth gap and support Black communities. In addition to Black community and business leaders and organizations, I would gladly work with King County Equity Now in pursuit of these efforts and others.
Question
There is a crisis in Black health in this region. In King County: Black babies are more 2x more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies; Black birthing people die 3x more than white birthing people; Black residents die of diabetes at 3x the rate of white residents; Nearly half of all Black adults in King County are food insecure; Black adults are 3x more likely to be living in poverty; Black adults are evicted at 6x the rate of white adults; Black people in King County contracted COVID-19 at 3x the rates of whites; and yet Black community received less than 2% of federal relief funding.
This region boasts some of the most sophisticated, renowned hospitals and medical facilities in the world. The disparities in medical treatment received by Black communities are appalling, with COVID-19 serving as just the most recent flashlight into this dark and disturbing reality. What are your specific plans to invest in Black community health?
In the entire Pacific Northwest (OR, WA, ID, MT, WY) there are zero Black community-owned, federally qualified health clinics. What are your specific plans to support base-building Black community-owned clinics? Specifically, the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom (TCHF), Somali Health Board (SHB), Surge Reproductive Justice (SRJ), African American Health Board and more?
Answer
Recognizing and acting on the great disparity in healthcare access and treatment for Black communities, I am the only candidate for Mayor proposing a “Healthy Seattle'' program to provide universal healthcare access to every Seattle resident. We know Black residents are disproportionately likely to lack health insurance. This program is the first step – ensuring that ALL Seattle residents – including low-wage workers, gig-economy workers, immigrants, unemployed people, and other vulnerable communities – have access to the lifesaving care they need, without fear of overwhelming costs and bankruptcy.
Further, this program will put a strong emphasis on reducing the disparate outcomes that face Black communities in health. We know that Black patients need providers who understand their specific needs, acknowledge their symptoms, and offer culturally competent care that helps people get better. That’s where Black-focused clinics and providers, like Rainier Valley Midwives or the programs mentioned above, will provide critical insight, as well as training opportunities.
My understanding is that programs like the Tubman Center, Somali Health Board, Surge, and the African American Health Board represent best practices for specifically addressing Black community health. Our administration will be committed to supporting organizations like these and proliferating the thoughtful, understanding, culturally-focused care practices they provide.
Finally, my administration will take a holistic view of what it takes to ensure healthy communities, with a specific equity lens focused on Black and other underrepresented communities. We’ll track access to healthy food and produce, working to grow availability of locally grown foods and eliminating food deserts. We’ll use environmental mapping software to address pollution and help communities historically overburdened or who lack access to parks and open spaces. And, we’ll look at our Parks and Recreation spaces and programs to make sure we’re providing robust and accessible athletic programs and services that help people exercise and stay healthy.
Question
Equity means ownership. Thriving Black communities require control and agency over land. We prioritize Black land acquisition as a foundational pillar to our work. As demand for land grows at an unprecedented pace, the rapid gentrification, active divestment from, and exclusion of Blacks from Seattle and King County is important not merely due to the dismantling of historical Black cultural and societal spaces, but also the socio-economic, health, wealth, and education fallout resulting from Blacks being pushed out of the State’s largest economic and cultural engine. What is your specific short and long-term plan to rectify this region’s abysmal Black land ownership rates?
What is your plan to rapidly advance Black home ownership rates?
What is your plan to rapidly advance Black community land acquisition and restore historically Black cultural and societal spaces?
How much will you invest in the: (A) Keiro project - the first entirely Black community led and centered homelessness consortium with wraparound direct services; (B) Red (Black and Green) Barn Ranch - Black liberated farming and youth healing center; (C) Youth Achievement Center - a holistic co-housing complex that is designed to support homeless students, historically underserved students, system-involved youth?
What mechanisms will you put in place to halt gentrification across the state, specifically to stop corporate and private developers from buying up once affordable property and pricing out Black communities and families?
What specific policies will you pass to not only halt gentrification but re-invigorate the Central District as the hub of Black land ownership in Seattle?
Answer
The importance of increasing equity and homeownership for the Black community is something I’ve understood and acted toward my entire career. As the sole lawyer for two of the largest Black churches in our region, and now as the chairman of the board of the Royal Esquire Club, I see firsthand the kind of impact these investments can have for the community.
I led the effort to incorporate the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund – helping secure over $50 million for investment in housing and serving as interim Executive Director. And, on the Council, I was a leader on discussions around the Equitable Development Initiative, and acted to secure significant funds for development specifically intended to serve communities of color.
As Mayor, I’ll broadly address the housing crisis by dedicating general-fund sources to build more affordable housing, especially on vacant or underdeveloped public land; increasing density options citywide; reducing reliance on property taxes via alternative progressive revenues; and supporting tenants at risk of displacement. To reach the tens of thousands of new units that we need, similar efforts must continue with urgency, density, and financing.
During this growth and development, I’ll work to protect communities against gentrification by calling on our Office of Housing to explore programs for increasing equity in housing and homeownership, including community land trusts, affirmative marketing, and exploring policies like those in other cities that allow tenants to purchase buildings when up for sale. These will be guiding principles of my administration as we address the housing crisis and work to create a city that anyone can afford to live in.
I’ll work to protect EDI funding and ensure a stable source that provides needed, effective investments. I recognize that substantial support and investments are needed to help projects like those mentioned above – Keiro project, Red (Black and Green) Barn Ranch, and the Youth Achievement Center – and I remain committed to meeting with the leaders involved to talk about capacity building, fundraising, and investment opportunities. There are a number of avenues Seattle could provide support and I look forward to being a helpful partner in these efforts.
Question
The public education system is anti-Black. It uses harsh discipline policies that push Black students out of schools at disproportionate rates; denies Black students the right to learn about their culture and whitewashes the curriculum to exclude Black peoples' history, contributions, and accomplishments. It pushes Black teachers out of schools in Seattle-King County, and across the country, and spends entirely more money on imprisoning Black youth than on educating and healing them. How will you support pro-Black education?
How will you create and maintain Black community schools?
How will you establish and maintain restorative justice practices in schools to end the school-to-prison pipeline?
What will you do to ensure Black teachers are hired, that current educators receive anti-racist professional development, that schools implement Black studies curricula?
What will you do to ensure the Black community has control of schools that serve Black kids as well as education resources and levy funds that are meant for but rarely make it to Black youth?
Answer
My brother and I, as Black students in Seattle Public Schools – T.T. Minor Elementary, Meany Middle School, and Garfield High School – experienced and understood the unique challenges that face Black students. There were not many teachers or administrators that looked like us or shared our experiences, but there were some who were committed, well-trained and awesome.
That’s why I’ve personally been so committed to providing mentorship to kids in our community. Throughout my life and career I’ve coached, mentored, and tutored, including at the Rotary Boys and Girls Club in the Central District, hundreds of Black kids. I’ve seen how that kind of afterschool support makes a difference. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been a strong advocate for expanding those kinds of wraparound services through the Family and Education Levy.
Also, as a City Councilmember, I developed The Great Student Initiative which helped provide 20,000 Seattle Public School students access to computers and high-speed internet, after tutoring students in the Central District and using data to analyze disparities in technology access. I also championed the "13th Year Promise" so that graduating seniors could attend community college for free, which has since become the Seattle Promise – open to graduates across the City. We will continue to strengthen similar efforts and work to implement the Seattle Empowerment and Opportunity mentorship program as mentioned above.
Today, I am discussing the issue of equity and opportunity in education with leaders like my close friend Dr. Brent Jones, School Board Member Brandon Hersey, who has endorsed my campaign, and Dwane Chappelle, Director of the Office of Education and former Rainier Beach High School Principal. Having Black leaders in our school leadership, with their lived experience and perspective, is critical. We know there needs to be programmatic changes across our schools in terms of discipline, mentorship, job training, internship access, curriculum change, which the city can help support and coordinate through the Office of Education.
There is much to be done to ensure Black students can succeed and thrive in our schools. Under my leadership, this will be a major focus of our administration with a commitment to progress informed by our community and lived experience. Others will say they will do it; I have spent a lifetime doing it and will continue to do it with more resources as Mayor.
Question
Already experiencing COVID-19’s economic fallout, conditions for Seattle’s Black community have worsened. Against that backdrop, KCEN and many others in the Black community mobilized to divest from policing and demanded correlating investment in pro-Black public safety solutions that work for us, for the first time in Seattle's history. This movement was driven by Black community and specifically called and continues to call for a reckoning with anti-Black racism (i.e., not a general “racial” reckoning, or a “BIPOC” movement).
Emboldened by the overwhelming support of thousands and thousands of community members, the Seattle City Council briefly upheld their pledge to divest from a percentage of the Seattle Police Department (SPD)'s bloated annual budget and invest modestly in Black communities. It should not have taken such prolonged, sustained community efforts for this change but we acknowledge the small percentage of divestment as a break from decades of votes to expand violent, anti-Black policing.
The work of reshaping this region into one that values all Black lives—and moves away from funding racist policing and towards resourcing true public safety—is overdue and not for non-Black folks, unaccountable gatekeepers or non-rooted folks to dictate. We advocated strongly for monies from the police budget to be invested directly into the Black community and are unmoved on that stance.
What percent of SPD’s budget will you divest from and invest specifically in Black community-led and -centered organizations? What date will you close the Youth Jail in the first year of your term?
Will you join the veto-proof majority of the city council who pledged to defund SPD by half and what will you do to accelerate that commitment becoming a reality?
What specific steps will you take to shift investments from the criminal punishment system towards human services that are controlled, led and center Black community?
Answer
As a Black man and the only major candidate who’s had to deliver “the talk” to my own children and having marched last summer to once again demand an understanding that Black Lives Matter, commitment to racial justice is rooted in my DNA – it’s a catalyst for why I’m running. I’m the only candidate who has cross examined Police Officers on the witness stand under oath and defended wrongfully- or overcharged African American youth in the Juvenile Detention Center.
I agree with many key principles of the ‘defund’ movement – eliminating police bias and brutality, increasing use of social workers, continued improvement of de-escalation training, real accountability so bad cops are fired – but I do not believe committing to a specific level of funding without thorough analysis will help us best achieve these goals. Additional funds for changes in recruitment, training and community involvement in policing may be necessary to achieve effective public safety. With every organization in which I’ve worked, performance doesn’t improve by reducing resources needed to meet goals; a close examination of funding priorities and strategies is the key to delivering wanted results.
We will look for opportunities to transition to community-based recruitment for functions that historically have been SPD roles – issues such as traffic enforcement, parking, athletic and cultural event security, and more. The results of the city’s Health One unit are encouraging, and demonstrate how a multidisciplinary team with specialized skills and focuses can better approach certain kinds of emergencies or crises. In the long run, this will require a significant analysis of all police and emergency responses, review of whether police were needed or effective, and then the thoughtful development of a model and system for well-calibrated and well-deployed emergency response teams.
My administration will examine every opportunity to reduce situations where a gun and badge are used, re-imagining the City’s response to 911 calls and other emergencies. Mental crisis counselors; de-escalator experts; traffic managers - we’ll invest where it makes sense and re-build the department from the ground up, including as we negotiate a new contract and hire a chief of police who will work with us to implement this vision.
Beyond tactics and training, I’ll advocate for serious culture change, the kind necessary to ensure broader reforms are implemented and effective, so public safety exists for ALL residents – especially Black and Brown Seattleites. This will require significant effort, but without changing how we approach policing and how police approach our community, we will never see the change we need.
This is not a new issue for me – I was the first Seattle City Councilmember to meet with the family of Native American woodcarver John T. Williams after he was killed by SPD in 2010. I was a dogged supporter of body cameras for all SPD officers. I led efforts to pass Seattle’s bias-free policing law, prohibiting racial profiling and collecting data to track bias at SPD.
This effort will require participation of grassroots organizations like KCEN – your insight, community perspective, and collaboration will be critical for effectively channeling calls for reform and using this moment of engagement to create the sustained, permanent change that ensures effective public safety for all communities. I ask for your support and partnership.
