Marin residents must work to listen, learn, change

Two recent letter-writers who expressed their displeasure with research pointing out Marin County’s racial disparity inadvertently demonstrate how urgently we need to examine the impact of bias—conscious and unconscious—our nonWhite community members so often experience.

Just because some people don’t see it doesn’t mean that systemic discrimination based on race and individual expressions of prejudice don’t exist, even in areas full of well-intentioned residents.

Red-lining thrived in Marin County until the late 1960s, leading to housing and educational segregation and depriving would-be Black homeowners of building generational wealth.

The practice may have been outlawed, but the devastating effects linger. To this day, there is vociferous opposition to almost all affordable housing proposals in Marin County. Dog whistles about “crime” and “the character of our community” are commonplace.

Harsher punishment of

Black and brown children in school as well as those caught up in the criminal legal system are well documented, as is economic inequality. These disparities cannot just be written off as “life is unequal” or the random vagaries of the housing market.

One of my favorite signs festooning Marin yards and windows in the uprisings following George Floyd’s murder said: “Listen. Learn. Change.” Doing so isn’t always easy, but it’s absolutely essential if we have any hope of overcoming our nation’s long history of racial injustice.

— Lorrie Goldin, San Anselmo