Sly James’ first race inequity talk focused on life expectancy, maternal mortality

The disclaimer was hardly necessary, but Kansas City Mayor Sly James offered it anyway.

“I do not think we are going to solve the problem of racial inequality in the next 90 minutes,” he said Wednesday evening as he launched what he calls the Race and Inequity Initiative.

“I could be wrong. And if we are able to do that I would urge all of us to stay here, enter into a contract because we can sell whatever we’ve done around the world and I’ll become quite rich.

“The main thing is that you showed up. That’s what really matters,” he said.

A diverse group of about 300 community activists, religious and nonprofit leaders, and the curious gathered at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center for an event that mixed elements of a TED Talk, sensitivity training and a call to action.

It was the first in a planned series of public conversations about race, intended to drain away some of the fear and vitriol while focusing on how local government and other institutions perpetuate inequality.

The initiative has other goals: to encourage residents to be agents of change in their neighborhoods and workplaces, and to stimulate interest in local organizations already working to promote racial equity, including the Cultural Competency Collective, Showing up for Racial Justice and The Open Table.

James, in the final year of his two-term mayoralty, promised that City Hall would walk the walk. All departments will form “Race Equity Action Teams,” trained by the Kauffman Foundation and the Racial Equity Institute, a North Carolina nonprofit, to identify and change policies and practices that perpetuate racial inequities.

Organizers tried Wednesday evening to ease the crowd into the fraught subject matter.

“How many of you have ever had a conversation about race that didn’t go well?” asked PaKou Her, principal of Tseng Development Group, which coaches organizations on racial equity.

A sea of hands rose.

The goal for the group, Her said, was not the eradication of racism, which “shapes us at the deepest level of our psyche,” but how to disrupt institutional racism embedded public policy.

Organizers focused on public health issues for the kickoff session.

Kansas City’s deputy health director, Sarah Martin, displayed a map of the city broken out by ZIP code to detail the wide spread in average life expectancy. In just a seven-minute drive from west to east on 63rd Street, she said, longevity declines from 80-83 years on average to 70-72 years.

The stress of poverty and race prejudice diminishes the immune system and literally transforms the brain, Johnson said, raising rates of cancer and other serious illness.

“Hearing a bullet affects the ability to fight disease,” she said.

A Californian raised by a Latina mother and white father, Martin also made clear in stark terms that white contrition was a necessary element of any change.

“Even if I didn’t do the things that might have created the inequity, I owe the city as a people ... an apology for the things that happened before,” she said.

Perhaps the evening’s most dramatic moment came when Martin broached the issue of maternal mortality. Black women in Missouri face a mortality rate of 65 deaths per 100,000 live births, while the rate for white women is 28 deaths per 100,000 births.

Asked how women of color could better protect themselves against high rates of maternal mortality, Martin repeated an answer that she gave to City Manager Troy Schulte.

“Be white,” she said, to a large round of applause.

“I’m going to take that question and flip it,” she elaborated. “What do health care providers do to better serve women of color? What are medical schools doing to teach culturally competent medical care?”

James closed the session by urging audience members to “get out of your comfort zone.”

“See something you haven’t seen, do something you haven’t done with people you don’t normally do it with.”

In a handful of interviews, audience members expressed hope that something positive had begun.

“I think it’s a great opportunity,” said Rodney Smith, a change management consultant and adjunct professor of education at UMKC. “I love the fact that it has given us the opportunity to change the narrative.”

“I think it was a good academic overview so people can have a shared understanding,” said Councilwoman Alissia Canady, a mayoral candidate. But change will come only when economic development expands to the neglected ZIP codes on Martin’s map.

“We have to intentionally invest in those communities like we invest in downtown,” Canady said.

The next session will be Oct. 16 at the Mohart Center.

This story was originally published August 30, 2018 at 9:34 AM.