A study (PDF) recently released by UMass-Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy shows that people of color are severely underrepresented in elected and appointed offices at the municipal level. The study looked at ten cities and towns in greater Boston and found that only 17 of 186 municipal elective posts are filled by people of color; 15.5 percent of appointed posts are held by people of color.
The center’s director, Carol Hardy-Fanta, said, “This should serve as a wake up call to communities of color to pursue paths that will gain them representation on appointed boards and commissions as well as position them to run for elective office, where their voices are sorely missed. This should also serve as a challenge to all these cities and towns to closely examine how their appointed positions reflect the diversity of their communities.”
Communities of color need this wake-up call? It seems to me that there are obstacles in the path of pursuit of public office beyond simply just "waking up." And how mild to suggest merely that cities and towns "examine" how existing positions reflect community diversity. Isn’t that what this study did?
It may be that government is broken, and communities aren’t represented well measuring by a number of variables. How do we fix a broken government? Simply pressure new people to run for office, so they can spend exorbitant amounts of money and time trying to convince the masses that they have all the answers—when it’s not humanly possible to have all the answers?
While the study focuses on eastern Massachusetts, its findings are relevant throughout the state, perhaps most especially and acutely in its more populous cities. Studies like this one, and the press it receives (none out west), seem to indicate that the pool of potential state appointees (where diversity is likewise needed) dries up at Route 128: a familiar story to longtime western Massachusetts residents.
We need new models for community participation that don’t require people to become candidates for elections and political appointments in order to engage (or, similarly, to join a particular religion in order to find "community"). Operating on a governmental system that takes for granted everyone’s equal access to it, rewarding those with a desire to place oneself on stage in a spotlight as a community leader, necessarily leads to a point where things must adjust, because people with the biggest egos and the most willpower or charisma are not therefore also the most skilled elected leaders and appointees. We need some new intelligent system—for the city, for the state, for the country—that allows people to stay closer to the ground and involved in their own lives, and does not ask of them political superstardom, for that is a myth.
We in Springfield turn to each other and ask, who will be the next mayor? And we long for some new shining face to emerge—maybe someone of color—we long for some healing balm, some wise and balanced leader who can bring us justice and inspiration and dare I say redemption. But such a singular leader is no lone person. It is all of us, together.
Our success as a city may depend on whether we make changes deliberately as a community, officially forming new volunteer-supported, grassroots, cooperative municipal systems that are organically inclusive of naturally-inclined community leaders regardless of their societal means. The stewardship of our communities really is in the hands of every resident. Elections, appointments and similar public recognition alone do not set the parameters for who can stand up and be a leader. To the degree that any of us shies from that leadership in the realms of our own community life, we lose that potential.
