Golis: Sonoma County receives a wake-up call on diversity

In the new Netflix series, “Colin in Black and White,” the former 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick delivers a primer about what it’s like to grow up black in a community of white people.

In a dramatization, young Colin (played by Jaden Michael) is standing in a hotel lobby with his white parents, Mom (Mary-Louise Parker) and Dad (Nick Offerman). They’re attending a high school baseball tournament.

The hotel manager approaches Colin’s parents and asks, “I’m sorry, is this man bothering you?”

“Yes, he is,” jokes Colin’s dad, “but there’s nothing we can do about it. He’s our son.”

“OK. Wow. Adopted. Of course,” says the hotel manager, “My church has a foster kids program. I think about getting one all of the time. What country did he come from?”

His father answers, “Good ol’ Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

While the conversation unfolds, young Colin is standing there, seemingly invisible to the hotel manager.

This is the episode in which young Colin experiences various indignities — inflicted by hotel managers, coaches, police officers and others — while learning that the white privilege available to his parents won’t be available to him

Our narrator, the real Colin, explains: “Microaggression … refers to small behavioral indignities, intentional or not, that communicate derogatory racial insults that leave us to feel degraded, dehumanized and offended.”

The term, Kaepernick says, was coined by a Harvard-trained psychiatrist named Chester M. Pierce. Pierce played football for Harvard and then went on to become professor emeritus in both education and psychiatry. He also served as consultant to a new kids’ TV program. It was called “Sesame Street.”

As happens, microaggressions turned up in the local news last week.

When two Black executives decided they didn’t want to work in Sonoma County government, the conversation turned to the microaggressions people of color experienced while working in county government.

Here’s departing Economic Development Board Executive Director Sheba Person-Whitley; “My time here has been fraught with me doing my very best to perform my duties, while managing the stresses and harm caused as a result of racial bias and microaggression.”

Derrick Neal, who was slated to lead the county’s Health Services Department, beginning on Dec. 1, also changed his mind about coming to Sonoma County.

One thing we know for sure: It just became more difficult for Sonoma County to recruit the best available applicants and to create a workforce representative of the community it serves. As the county struggles to rebound from fires, pandemic and drought, no one should doubt the importance of economic development and health services.

Concerns about racism extend beyond the halls of county government. Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins told Staff Writer Emma Murphy that it became necessary to provide security for department heads of color.

This is not what Sonoma County imagines itself to be. Stories about racial offenses occur in other, less enlightened communities.

The truth is, Sonoma County hasn’t always lived up to its self-image as a place that welcomes all kinds of people.

This year we learned, for example, that the rate of COVID-19 infections among Latino residents was more than twice the infection rate of white residents. This happens because Latino families often live in crowded housing and because they often hold down those essential jobs that carry increased risk of infection.

For years, the Santa Rosa City Council resisted proposals to establish district elections, a reform designed to reduce the domination of city government by white people who lived in a handful of upscale neighborhoods. Only the threat of a lawsuit caused the council to change, thus assuring that westside neighborhoods and their concentrations of Latino residents would, at last, be represented.

County officials are saying all the right things now. They mean, in their words, “to do better.”

After last week, we know there is more work ahead. Expect new and improved training programs. When an employee suffers indignities, it’s not only wrong, it hampers an employer’s ability to recruit the best and the brightest.

“If all we do is have good intentions, but we don’t change the way we do business to support our diverse leaders in this county, then that’s not enough,” said Supervisor James Gore.

Last year, the board created a new agency — the Office of Equity — and appointed lawyer and Santa Rosa school board member Alegria De La Cruz as the new director.

De La Cruz pointed out that we’re losing role models for our children. “If you look at our kids,” she said, “they’re Black and brown; they’re Asian.”

The new agency testifies to the county’s changing demography. Data from the Economic Development Board tell us that 27% of county residents are Latino, and it’s projected that Latinos will represent the largest ethnic group within 30 years. Thirty-three percent of Latinos are younger than 18 years old, as compared to 14% of white residents. The median age of Latinos is 22 years younger than the median age of whites.

Whatever the ethnicity, the next generation’s success will be essential to the county’s future prosperity.

But all the talk in the world about diversity, inclusion and equity won’t make a difference unless people commit to equal treatment for all. What’s in people’s hearts will matter, and so will the recognition that our progressive pretensions won’t mean anything unless we wake up to a changing world.

It’s not enough to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. As critics admonished the Board of Supervisors last week, you’ve also got to walk your talk.

Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.