Let’s Talk About Race! Action Items
See attached file for Calls to Action from the Intercultural Speakers Bureau and below for the action items defined in breakout rooms during our May 20, 2021 General Membership Event. A recording of the event is available here and the program booklet is available here.
Group 1 (Ashwini Kantak, Brisa Camacho-Lovell, Carmen Montaño, Mark Gilley)
- Conduct community engagement in different languages
- Host events to celebrate different cultures
- Engaging with faith-based organizations
- Hire staff that reflects the population and who can communicate in their language
Group 2 (Chappie Jones, Donnique SC, Elena Cacace, Kevin Park, Shannon Rivers)
- Hear from a wide range of minorities’ perspectives and experiences
- Explore the vast amounts of things to learn that are there even before going into policy
- Consider mental health support needed when hosting events
Group 3 (Jethroe Moore, Kathy Truong, Kathy Watanabe)
- Respect diversity in our communities, make sure we’re working with cities and counties around us
- Host discussions in collaboration with other cities and counties
- Create diversity and equity taskforce, promote youth
Group 4 (Dr. Hien Do, Kerry Duncan, Larel Prevetti, Larry Klein)
- Continue community conversations around diversity
- Celebrate cultural diversity with fun events (food, music, art, culture); ask questions and learn about each other through them
- Library is rich way of expressing diversity, equity & inclusion through programming (e.g. Los Gatos BIPOC oral history program)
- Integrate these ideas into day-to-day government work
Group 5 (Liang Chao, Margaret Abe-Koga, Marico Sayoc, Rabbi Amy Eilberg)
- Be an upstander, especially for ourselves and colleagues experiencing harassment
- Be open and bring diverse groups together for community conversations
- Reach out to Jewish community to ensure their safety
Group 6 (Maha Elgenaidi, Raj Chahal, Rich Constantine, Steve Preminger, Susan Landry)
- Address police mental health
- Host bystander trainings
- Host diverse cultural panels for staff
Group 7 (Alison Hicks, Hung Wei, Ishaq Pathan, Kent Steffens, Yan Zhao)
- Use libraries as venues for forums; display books
- Offer community grants for events, possibly arts and murals
- Cities work together as a group to host events – each city in the County can host a different event focused on a different culture that all are invited to
- Build cultural awareness into policing