Karen Nelson on Appleton’s Participation In The Government Alliance On Race And Equity – “We are looking at tackling this thing from a totally structural standpoint.”

Karen Nelson, Appleton’s Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, spoke at the 12/07/2020 Police Community Advisory Board Meeting about the Government Alliance On Race And Equity–the goals and focus of that group and what Appleton hopes to accomplish by being a part of GARE. She also mentioned that back in February the city of Appleton declared racism to be a public health crisis in Appleton.

“So this is an article that I wrote in that issue called Racism Is A Crisis. Um. And it talks about GARE in greater detail. That’s my only reason for pulling all this out. Uh. And it talks about how we are looking at it from, uh–declaring race as a health crisis in the city of Appleton. We did that in February of this year just before Covid hit in March. And we’ve been working on that because there are–let me just try to quickly kind of describe to you this, this GARE framework, because it goes in three parts. There’s individual racism. There’s institutional racism. And there’s structural racism. If you can imagine all three like, like a turning gear of a mechanical something or other. You have all three of those moving parts together moving at the same time. And what we are focusing on with GARE is we’re ready to get just beyond just the training and all that individual–uh, I like to call it that annual inoculation of, “Okay, I’ve had my diversity training for the year. I’m good. I’m done.” No, no, no we’re talking about what else can we take a look at in terms of policies, procedures. Something as simple as how do you go about getting a library card? And how do we talk to people when you say, “Oh, I want to go and get a library card.” [Stern voice] “Well, don’t you know you need to have an ID?” Or is it: [Friendly voice] “Well, we would like to let you know that we welcome you and we want you to know that this is the process that you need to have an ID and that kind of thing.” It’s all about the individual piece but also targeting how do we break down and dismantle that. So we have working groups inside of GARE. And the Chief is a part of the Police Enforcement piece. I’m a part of the Equity Officers group. And so we are looking at tackling this thing from a totally structural standpoint. Not just–not just a little bit of feel good stuff and we’re done. And so that’s what GARE is all about. So I will send you the link to still find this article online, and that’s what I wanted to contribute to the conversation. Thank you, Chief.

Karen Nelson, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator for the City of Appleton, during the 12/07/2020 Police Community Advisory Board meeting

You can view the video here: https://www.facebook.com/100336338479466/posts/186886629824436/