Friends,
Last month we talked about one big challenge in front of us: how Bloomington can respond to the climate emergency. This month, let’s confront a second big challenge: how our community can be a truly inclusive place where all can thrive.
A first observation about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) is the need for humility. It’s a complicated and long challenge, and all of us have a lot to learn. Certainly I do. Certainly our community does.
Improving DEIB requires public policies, resources, and energies. It requires the same from the private and nonprofit sectors. And perhaps most importantly, it requires cultural change.
Bloomington’s government can and should do much. We can lead with policies that assure more people have affordable places to live in our city, that investments of public funds are equitable and not tilted to those with more power or voice, and that we identify and fix inherent biases or implicit inequities in existing policies. I want to commend our City Council for its past attention and evident commitment to these kinds of changes. They are not always easy or universally popular.
Fundamentally, our community must also consider our overall levels of public investments. Last year we increased the annual base city budget by about 10% better to invest in our future – including housing, climate, and equity, along with basic services. In part due to inadequate funding from our state, our community underinvests in public health and our safety net. We must instill DEIB deeply in our current criminal justice reform – that means at the county level investing substantially more in mental health and substance use disorder services, at least as much or more than we do in a new jail.
Our city government must continue our energies and commitment to training and education as well. All of us have much to learn about DEIB. That training has been helpful already, I believe, to chart a better path for Bloomington, but much remains ahead.
Non-governmental actors must continue and expand their commitment of resources and energies to DEIB. Businesses, nonprofit providers, education and health institutions, all can do more to work together with government to make progress.
Finally, it is cultural. Do enough of us truly believe America and our community grow stronger and better as more people are finally welcomed as equals and brought to the tables of power? It feels that a great debate about that is playing out in front of our eyes. About persistent racism and sexism. About immigration. About our personal freedoms. About reproductive justice. About poverty. DEIB demands our culture lean into the better angels of our nature.
Personal experiences are crucial. Kids who grow up in communities and schools with healthy DEIB cultures will be changed. Even little things can teach us. Just one example, of so many: I vividly recall pushing my father in a wheelchair in the neighborhood I’d walked many times, including with strollers before. A wheelchair was different, and missing sidewalk ramps were a serious problem. I’m glad Bloomington has installed about 600 such ramps in recent years.
I’m optimistic about our country and our community. We can seize the challenge and opportunity of DEIB to accelerate real progress. Toward a more perfect union, with more belonging. That’s been our story, haphazard and partial though it may be. It happens because we--through our institutions, through our personal lives, and through our activism and actions--make it happen. Let it be so.
Democratically yours,
John Hamilton
P.S. Keep an eye out for city workers during these holidays. So many keep our city humming so all can enjoy the season. Thank you’s and smiles go a long way on cold days of patrolling or picking up refuse or responding to 911’s or clearing snow or fixing water leaks or driving buses or helping shut-ins or . . . . you get the picture. Thanks.