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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-12-22 Public Comment - T. Burnett - Observations About the City Inequity Meeting October 25, 2021From:agenda@bozeman.net To:Agenda Subject:Thank you for your public comment. Date:Wednesday, January 12, 2022 2:45:35 PM A new entry to a form/survey has been submitted. Form Name:Public Comment Form Date & Time:01/12/2022 2:45 PM Response #:1498 Submitter ID:47641 IP address:69.144.37.57 Time to complete:2 min. , 16 sec. Survey Details Page 1 Public comment may be submitted via the form below, or by any of the following options. Public comment may also be given at any public meeting. Email: agenda@bozeman.net Mail to: Attn: City Commission PO Box 1230 Bozeman, MT 59771 First Name Thomas Last Name Burnett Email Address burnett.tom@gmail.com Phone Number 4065397075 Comments Observations About the City Inequity Meeting October 25, 2021 I attended the City’s Community Roundtable on Equity and Inclusion meeting online. Government and non-profit employees and one (volunteer?) refugee activist were fully versed in race and gender dogma. One must speak the language. The dozen people introduced at the outset of the 106- person gathering--moderators, facilitators, and organizers--all mouthed their pronouns, conforming, like applauding deputies at a Kim speech. The three offended guest speakers’ “narratives” were barely pertinent to the City’s purpose of showing gaps in provision of services, and injustice toward persons who are part of minority groups. Organizers had to have “story,” no matter how tangential. One pained guest speaker hailed from another continent. He was surprised on coming here to find so many white people. It’s a woman’s world. About 80% of the 106 attendees had female names. A Matriarchal system of power and hierarchy dominates. A goodly number of the attendees were employees of government, government schools, and MSU, non- profits, and environmental groups. Taxpayers paid while some of them attended. An environmental-group employee said she wished her organization could get more BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) people involved, telling their stories, so her organization could better meet their needs. (Is there a racially sensitive way to preserve water quality?) Nine women and I attended breakout session 5. The cost of housing and child-care were lamented. The women were definitely not of the Walmart class; they reflected style. Deference and affirmation are the Polit-speak norm in such female-dominated gatherings. It was very much like the Governor’s Council on Families meeting I attended in Helena 20 years ago. The guest speaker lamented the need for more government-paid child-care then, too. Mass handwringing ensued. I witnessed a similar audience in Sioux Falls fifteen years ago express concern about how to diversify the non-profit organizations they represented. Highly educated, white, upper-income women presiding over non-profits self-flagellated over their failure to procure and keep racial hires. I told my story of “gaps and disparities” in the breakout session. Over a span of twenty-five years, my mother washed cloth diapers for nine children. Her washing machines were inadequate. For long periods we didn’t have a washing machine and she took trips to the coin-operated laundry. She never blamed the government for not helping her with child-care. My father’s income was very modest; he worked extra jobs. (I could have added how we lived in a wall tent, an 8’x35’ trailer, and a cabin built from recycled materials. People commonly lack “affordable housing.”) The second winter of my marriage, we couldn’t afford to insure the car, so I disconnected the battery cables and rode a one-speed ten-speed through snow and ice to work and college, twenty miles a day. Somehow we got by. People can do things and eventually obtain a good standard of living without subsidized child-care, transportation aid, and whining. The breakout session moderator didn’t affirm my story in the way several people had, in the chat box, affirmed the three guest speakers for sharing their vulnerabilities. When one member of the group re- capped our session for the whole group, my contribution was left out. If I were thin-skinned, I would complain that I felt unheard, that my story was not valued, my narrative dismissed by the system--a “systemic” dismissal. Someone said people of color felt vulnerable riding their bikes, fearing taunts. They need more bus routes, I guess. Following the meeting, the City sent an email to all participants naming the next step in the equity-work process. It’s a commitment! “Complete the Equity Commitment by this Sunday, October 31st! Share with us how you can contribute to advancing equity and closing gaps in our community.” There’s a multi-step diversity, equity, and inclusion process that originates elsewhere, and Bozeman is locked into it. I found this city crusade earnest but inauthentic. If you would like to submit additional documents (.pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .gif, .jpg, .png, .rtf, .txt) along with your comment, you may alternately address agenda@bozeman.net directly to ensure receipt of all information. Thank you, City Of Bozeman This is an automated message generated by Granicus. Please do not reply directly to this email.