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
First of all thank you for the opportunity to answer your survey questions. As a black man myself one who has been in Washington state for more than 45 plus years I directly understand the wealth gap between white and black communities. Please understand as part of the black community I developed a small business incubator to give blacks the opportunities to start qualifying and preparing themselves to be entrepreneurs. That business Central area Business development center was the first black incubator or small business incubator developed in the state of Washington sanctioned by former governor and certified Booth Gardner. If leaders in the black community at that time and some organizations now we're not out for themselves and had developed all of our areas of black existence in the community or the city of Seattle we would have been prepared for the finances that were released by the federal government. I have developed a program called The Three L's that program will allow my staff and myself as married to listen to all learn from all and provide leadership to all. It is called all included no one's excluded. I further believe that the black community has to be taught how to come together as a unit and be prepared to show success when federal dollars are given to different organizations and businesses in the black community. I believe there needs to be a mentoring and monitoring program that brings about success to all black businesses and that also shows those white organizations that are willing to work with us to be successful.
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
Yes yes you are right, we are behind in the areas of health therefore as mayor gathering the sharpest minds of different age brackets from senior citizens to mid-range adults to our youth including our churches and organizational structures conversations must be put together in teaching and monitoring our people on how to eat properly maintain a healthy balance in their life and to look out for others as we develop avenues for the success. I believe the coming together and talking out the negative systemic points in the lack of trust is one of the first things that must be changed helping those to develop a positive mindset brings about an opportunity to do things in a different way. To answer your questions
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
To answer your questions, to see that considerably is more than one question it all depends on what the black community is willing to develop in the area of working together and unifying. The central area of Seattle is not the only location for blacks I believe there is a good opportunity that has happened and I will work with Africa town to develop more opportunities but there must be opportunities all over the city including like the other question there must be more black clinics that not only service black people but are able to teach healthier ways of life for black people. We also have to understand that ownership is a part of being wealthy and a part of having a quality lifestyle not everyone wants to own a home but still wants the opportunity to be successful.
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
Yes there are several areas in education where we have been totally overlooked one of my organizations Rivers and Associates, was used by the board of education under the leadership of secretary Ernie Duncan granted us 8.7 billion dollars to administer funds out to a program called race to the top we were very successful and reorganizing some school structures and recertifying some teachers to teach certain curriculums that the Grant had offered. First of all you must know ask Mary Seattle I can work along with the Seattle School board and the superintendent but I have no jurisdiction over them I would be more than happy to work to find ways to help bring black stories as far as history and other areas of inclusion into educational streams to develop the mindset of our black people and students. I also will be looking to work alongside of preschool and develop more preschool locations where we can have an early start and presence in the mindset of our young black students. We also must look at changing the negative aspect and thought pattern into a positive ram of success for our black students in the area of education. There are sponge that will come on several levels from Federal , state, county and City funds and grants that developing a educational committee that will concentrate on opportunities to extend the knowledge of our black students that will be developed.
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
I am thankful for black lives matter and the youth of the city of Seattle and the state of Washington and all of our counties for the protest the March and all of the focus that has been given toward understanding that we are lacking the opportunities to be successful and be properly treated by law enforcement. About almost 25 to 30 years ago I and others developed a format for law enforcement reconciliation and racial profiling the process still exists and was awarded to be a successful program by the White House and the national crime prevention council. Yes there is systemic racism and profiling done by officers. But please understand out of the 45 plus years that I've been in Washington State I have yet to see a black officer kill anyone no matter how bad of a criminal they have become. I have also watched black officers turn the opposite way and not help me personally and others that we would not be in the position we're in now. Therefore we tend to use negative affirmations. I believe in positive affirmations "I am not looking to defund the police department, I am looking to restructure the police department". I strongly believe out of all my years of advising teaching working both sides of the Isle of the Republican party Democratic party and other parties as well as all communities of culture and all types of police agencies from different countries that we must understand that policing has to be done in two parts. Criminal justice and social justice. I will be developing a whole new department of social justice policing that will work 100% with the community I will also look forward to police officers going to class and being further trained in advanced techniques of understanding cultural competency. These classes will take place every month I will work with the unions to decrease the hours of police on the street if they have not been certified by taking these classes.
