NAACP and community groups urge Spokane Valley to pass racial equity policy, citing institutional

NAACP and community groups urge Spokane Valley to pass racial equity policy, citing institutional racism


Roughly two weeks ago, elected leaders at a Spokane Valley City Council meeting generated controversy after rebuffing a proposed racial equity policy, arguing that it was unnecessary and that there isn't racism in Spokane Valley. Now, the NAACP and other community groups are calling on officials to adopt it, citing the reaction as "all the more reason" to pass it.

At the July 23 meeting, council member Linda Thompson pitched developing a racial equity policy for the city in the run-up to a meeting with Spokane Valley officials, the NAACP and Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers on racial issues, per the Spokesman-Review.

However, her fellow legislators shot her down. Spokane Valley Mayor Rod Higgins cited a "inclusive city" resolution from 2017 in arguing that the city doesn't need a racial equity policy. Council member Arne Woodard, meanwhile, said that friends of his who are minorities purportedly told him that they don't feel racism in Spokane valley: "We're trying to make a problem where there isn't one," Woodard said. "Everyone of them said it was great place to live."

Spokane Valley is 91 percent white, 5 percent Latino, 1 percent black, 1 percent Native American, and just under 2 percent Asian, according a 2018 U.S. Census Bureau estimate.

Read more: https://www.inlander.com/spokane/naacp-and-community-groups-urge-spokane-valley-to-pass-racial-equity-policy-citing-institutional-racism/Content?oid=18077989
(Spokane Inlander)