Does Boulder choose grievance over harmony?
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, 12/25/19
Sometimes, we should take a few steps back and look at the big picture before we chart our path forward. It's easy to get lost in today's events and lose sight of what we're trying to accomplish over the long run.
Today, Boulder's sense of community is slowly fracturing. Just a few years ago, Boulderites shared many of the same values as reflected by our local leaders. Now, not so much. Millennials don't think much of boomers, bicyclists and motorists are an increasingly toxic combination, and those trying to make space for more housing have run out of patience with the NIMBYs. Civic differences and debates are generally good things but the growing community divisiveness is unsettling.
Maybe Boulder is just caught up in the national scourge of tribalism but it seems reasonable to expect that we Boulderites, largely of like minds, could avoid civil wars. Right now would be a great time for our leaders to look for ways to help us live together more harmoniously. Instead, our leaders have spent the past few weeks pouring gasoline on the flames of grievance rather than looking for fire extinguishers.
The current ruckus started when the City Council leadership race attracted only two white men. During public comment, several speakers suggested that Boulder should do better than selecting white men as leaders. Council member Miribai Nagle called out the speakers as being "obnoxious" and suggested that most people are descended from cultures that had some history of persecution. She further expressed intolerance for the kind of divisive rhetoric that diminishes a person's value based upon their race or sex, even white males. Her words against the speakers' racist and sexist comments were a clear call for harmony between people of all genders and ethnicities in Boulder.
The explosion that ensued was swift and relentless. That Councilwoman Nagle was a member of probably the most persecuted race in human history – the Jews – did not matter. Jews had spent centuries being enslaved and banished before Fascists murdered six million of them only 75 years ago making them uniquely qualified to understand the virtue of a harmonious society. But, when a Jewish woman told Boulder to stop being tribal, she was publicly flayed and asked to resign.
Instead of growing a spine and getting behind a message encouraging civic tolerance and harmony, the Boulder City Council saw it as an opportunity to make clear that they fully understood that there was a sound basis for racial grievance in Boulder. To prove the point, City Council passed a resolution entitled "Committing the City of Boulder to promote racial equity in city relationships, programs, services, and policies." While the resolution's title may sound like sweetness and light, the messages within are not.
Much of the resolution is spent unveiling Boulder's sordid racist history. While those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, our past is not our present. By any measure, those of us living here today should not be judged racists because of actions performed by others a hundred years ago. Suggesting that the racism in Boulder today is the same as that of lynchings and Jim Crow is absurd and gives no credit to our tremendous progress over the past 50 years.
The resolution goes on to attribute many of the current racial disparities to white privilege and suggests that our "seemingly neutral policies and practices" are likely contributing to "classist and racial outcomes." The resolution then promises to find these injustices hidden in city codes, polices, and practices and commits Boulder government to "systematically and deliberately applying a racial equity lens in its decision making to build an equitable community." Finally, it promises to address our human failings through race relations training designed to end our biases and micro aggressions.
Little in this resolution reflects the Boulder I know, which is a city that for the past 50 years has worked continuously and diligently to encourage multiculturalism and tolerance. If we aren't as multicultural as we'd like, I suspect it has little to do with our racist inclinations and much to do with our cost of living.
To be sure, there is more work to be done to address racism in Boulder and across America. We are a nation of immigrants that has always struggled to integrate people from different races. Figuring out how to build a society where people from all over the world can come to live, work, marry, and have children together is America's eternal challenge. To address this challenge, we must stay ever vigilant to keep racism at bay.
But, the solution to racism in Boulder will never be grievance and tribalism. So, when some obnoxious citizens at a city council meeting make blatantly sexist and racist comments in the name of "racial equity," we should celebrate leaders who are willing to stand up and call them out for it.
Sometimes, we should take a few steps back and look at the big picture before we chart our path forward. It's easy to get lost in today's events and lose sight of what we're trying to accomplish over the long run.
Today, Boulder's sense of community is slowly fracturing. Just a few years ago, Boulderites shared many of the same values as reflected by our local leaders. Now, not so much. Millennials don't think much of boomers, bicyclists and motorists are an increasingly toxic combination, and those trying to make space for more housing have run out of patience with the NIMBYs. Civic differences and debates are generally good things but the growing community divisiveness is unsettling.
Maybe Boulder is just caught up in the national scourge of tribalism but it seems reasonable to expect that we Boulderites, largely of like minds, could avoid civil wars. Right now would be a great time for our leaders to look for ways to help us live together more harmoniously. Instead, our leaders have spent the past few weeks pouring gasoline on the flames of grievance rather than looking for fire extinguishers.
The current ruckus started when the City Council leadership race attracted only two white men. During public comment, several speakers suggested that Boulder should do better than selecting white men as leaders. Council member Miribai Nagle called out the speakers as being "obnoxious" and suggested that most people are descended from cultures that had some history of persecution. She further expressed intolerance for the kind of divisive rhetoric that diminishes a person's value based upon their race or sex, even white males. Her words against the speakers' racist and sexist comments were a clear call for harmony between people of all genders and ethnicities in Boulder.
The explosion that ensued was swift and relentless. That Councilwoman Nagle was a member of probably the most persecuted race in human history – the Jews – did not matter. Jews had spent centuries being enslaved and banished before Fascists murdered six million of them only 75 years ago making them uniquely qualified to understand the virtue of a harmonious society. But, when a Jewish woman told Boulder to stop being tribal, she was publicly flayed and asked to resign.
Instead of growing a spine and getting behind a message encouraging civic tolerance and harmony, the Boulder City Council saw it as an opportunity to make clear that they fully understood that there was a sound basis for racial grievance in Boulder. To prove the point, City Council passed a resolution entitled "Committing the City of Boulder to promote racial equity in city relationships, programs, services, and policies." While the resolution's title may sound like sweetness and light, the messages within are not.
Much of the resolution is spent unveiling Boulder's sordid racist history. While those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, our past is not our present. By any measure, those of us living here today should not be judged racists because of actions performed by others a hundred years ago. Suggesting that the racism in Boulder today is the same as that of lynchings and Jim Crow is absurd and gives no credit to our tremendous progress over the past 50 years.
The resolution goes on to attribute many of the current racial disparities to white privilege and suggests that our "seemingly neutral policies and practices" are likely contributing to "classist and racial outcomes." The resolution then promises to find these injustices hidden in city codes, polices, and practices and commits Boulder government to "systematically and deliberately applying a racial equity lens in its decision making to build an equitable community." Finally, it promises to address our human failings through race relations training designed to end our biases and micro aggressions.
Little in this resolution reflects the Boulder I know, which is a city that for the past 50 years has worked continuously and diligently to encourage multiculturalism and tolerance. If we aren't as multicultural as we'd like, I suspect it has little to do with our racist inclinations and much to do with our cost of living.
To be sure, there is more work to be done to address racism in Boulder and across America. We are a nation of immigrants that has always struggled to integrate people from different races. Figuring out how to build a society where people from all over the world can come to live, work, marry, and have children together is America's eternal challenge. To address this challenge, we must stay ever vigilant to keep racism at bay.
But, the solution to racism in Boulder will never be grievance and tribalism. So, when some obnoxious citizens at a city council meeting make blatantly sexist and racist comments in the name of "racial equity," we should celebrate leaders who are willing to stand up and call them out for it.
