Juneau Assembly Hears Systemic Racism Review Panel Report

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Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – The City and Borough Committee of the Whole met with members of the Systemic Racism Review Panel, or SRRC, on Monday evening and reviewed the criteria for the review panels’ questionnaire.

As part of their review questionnaire, the first step is to ask “What is the impact of the proposed legislation?” “

The following is a yes or no question asking whether the proposed legislation negatively impacts or improperly benefits a particular racial / ethnic group, or otherwise perpetuates systemic racism. If so, we will move on to the next question asking whether the legislation seeks to mitigate and / or eliminate structural racism. According to the SRRC, they have yet to find an order in their review that goes beyond the first question.

Lisa Worl, chair of the review committee, said one issue they faced when reviewing resolutions and practice orders was determining what fell within the committee’s jurisdiction.

“Some data doesn’t exist specifically for race, and so that could maybe be part of an impact on neighborhoods that may include some different races, so we’re trying to wrestle with all that part of data, like what may lend itself to us to understand the impact on certain groups.

Assembly member Wade Bryson said his understanding of systemic racism is that it is historic, “it’s been done all over the history of the United States, and so I think one of my first questions is, how much history or historical information about Juneau has been pulled up? “

Assembly member Christine Woll detailed her understanding of the difference between racism and systemic racism.

“If you think of systemic racism as a series of patterns, sometimes you can see a resolution or an ordinance and that doesn’t necessarily tell you if those patterns are present in the larger system, so the committee was astute in understanding that , and asking staff questions to see if what they are seeing is part of a pattern or a simple incident. “

However, these issues are not currently addressed in the SRRC charter, due to a lack of race-related data.

Grace Lee, a member of the SRRC, said they were told their charter explicitly told them their goal was to focus on racism.

“If class or income inequality, if it arises and if it’s the only problem, it’s not something we consider,” Lee said. “If it’s part of the race, then it’s something we consider.”

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