Creating a County That Fosters Inclusiveness and Belonging

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Greetings from the Office of Equity and Racial Justice (OERJ) Team, 
 
Thank you to all who were able to join the Diversity & Inclusion Executive Council on Nov. 15 for a town hall on condemning hate-filled speech and creating a place of belonging. Your thoughtful comments are especially appreciated.  

It is our goal to use this space each month to share insights about the work we are doing and how it threads into creating a county that fosters inclusiveness and belonging. Before we can do that however, we feel it is necessary to acknowledge the reverberating array of emotions being evoked by two highly visible cases garnering national attention in recent weeks, one of which has since reached its conclusion. First, the jury in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse reached a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Rittenhouse was accused of killing two unarmed men and wounding another man during a protest against police shootings in Wisconsin in August 2020. 

The second case involves the ongoing trial of three men charged with the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in February 2020 while he was jogging through their neighborhood. 

The emotions evoked by these cases are compounded by the recent racist incident and continuous escalation of threatening language at Board of Supervisors meetings in the past year. These types of situations have the capacity to cause stress, anxiety and/or mental and emotional pain for many in our community, especially for those who experience bias and racism as part of their human experience in their daily lives. They are painful reminders of our nation’s complex history of systemic and structural racism.  

We and County leadership acknowledge that we operate within a flawed system. We are actively working to dismantle structural and systemic racism within our organization. While we may not have the capacity to change the past, we can make a commitment to take an active role in condemning racism and hate while creating belonging in our organization and in our community. 

One simple thing we can all do is to approach one another with empathy and compassion in what we do and say, every day. We also urge each of you to be mindful in taking care of yourselves, however that may look for you. Additionally: 

Take care,

Team OERJ