Does racism exist in the Peoria government?

Councilman’s question leads to tense exchange

Does racism exist in Peoria’s city and county government?

That is the question that sparked a tense exchange at Tuesday night’s Peoria City Council meeting between councilmember John Kelly and Mayor Rita

Ali while the city was voting to amend the charter for the Commission on Racial Justice and Equity.

Stated in the commission vision is an effort to “end racism in city and county government and to achieve racial equity and justice across our community.”

Kelly felt that statement makes too strong of a suggestion that there is racism in Peoria’s city government.

“Is there racism in our city government? And, if so, how do we measure that?” Kelly said. “Frankly, I don’t know that there is. Is it truly the feeling of this commission that there is racism in our city government?”

Ali said the commission had seen a report that showed there were workforce barriers, systemic and historical barriers to employment and that there’s been evidence of institutional racism in not just Peoria, but nationwide.

“The intent of the commission — which was approved unanimously by both the city and the county over two years ago — was to try to remove all elements of racism, institutional racism that may be built into the fabric of policies, practices, procedures. That’s really the intent of the commission ... to help remove those elements,” Ali said.

Kelly retorted that he understood all of that but said that was all past tense. This new motion was forward looking and in the present tense, saying there was still racism in city government.

“If there is (racism), let’s hear about it,” Kelly said. “I don’t believe that there is. If there was in the past, I don’t doubt that there was in the past.”

Ali, who is Peoria’s first Black and female mayor, said her answer to Kelly’s question was “yes,” racism does still exist in Peoria city government.

Kelly also took issue with the commission’s goal to achieve racial equity.

“Perhaps I am ignorant, but I don’t really know what that is,” Kelly said.

Kelly would go on to question how the city measured equity. “It sounds nice, but what is it exactly?” Kelly said what the city was looking at wasn’t racial disparity, but racial discrimination.

“I don’t think there is racial discrimination in the NBA, even though there aren’t very many white players. You get to play in the NBA by merit, not how many people does it represent in the United States of America,” Kelly said.

Kelly would go on to support the changes to the commission but just wanted to voice his objections to the language before doing so.

This was not the first time Kelly made comments about equity publicly. At a candidate forum in March 2023, he said he was “not a fan of equity” when asked what his position was on making diversity, equity and inclusion a priority in the city.

“I am not a fan of equity, I’ll stick to that,” Kelly said. “A long time ago we had government-supported racial selection systems. Those were called Jim Crow Laws. I thought we were past that. I don’t want that. I think the answer in education. The education we have in this city is very substandard.”

Kelly would go on to say he was not a fan of equity but was “a fan of equal opportunity and help for anybody whether they’re Black, white, whatever, if they are poor and underserved I think we can help them, but not racially.”

Councilmember Andre Allen applauded the work done by the commission at Tuesday’s meeting after Kelly finished his remarks.

“As we are seeing nationally, there is a trend to pull back from these kinds of efforts right now, and seeing that we have a joint commission here that is based off the city and county government, I think that demonstrates what kind of community we have here in our city and county government, and I am very proud to be a part of it,” Allen said.