Study details racial inequity in Oakland

In Oakland, like in many cities, you don’t have to look hard to see evidence of racial disparity. You see disparity in who lives on the street. We know the 2010 census told us 28 percent of the city’s population is black but a 2017 Alameda County survey found that almost 70 percent of the city’s homeless people are black.

So when the city set out last year to study what equity looks like through many lenses, the results weren’t surprising: There are wide gaps between blacks and other racial groups in income, education, public health, housing, public safety, and neighborhood and civic life, according to a study conducted by City University of New York’s Institute for State and Local Governance with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

CUNY chose Oakland to be among the first cities for which it would produce a sort of racial equity report card that could help city officials set policies and practices to ensure fairness.

“In Oakland, the City defines equity as fairness,” the report reads. “It means that identity — such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or expression — has no detrimental effect on the distribution of resources, opportunities and outcomes for our City’s residents.”

The study shows there’s a

lot of work ahead. The city scored a dismal 33.5 out of a possible 100 points — with 1 representing the highest possible inequity and 100 representing the highest possible equity.

There’s so much to sift through in the 160-page study, but what immediately jumped out to me was the gulf in economic outcomes for racial groups in Oakland.

For example, the median income for white households was the highest at $110,000, almost three times more than black households. The median income for black households was the lowest in the city at $37,500, nearly half of the citywide median income of $73,200. The median income for Asian households was $76,000, and $65,000 for Latino households.

What’s more, the study found that one in four blacks and more than one in five Latinos live at or below the federal poverty level in Oakland.

About 46.5 percent of Latino workers make less than a living wage while only 12.3 of white workers earned less than a living wage. For black workers, 37.6 percent take home less than it costs to live in Oakland, while 36.4 percent of Asian workers fall into the category.

Darlene Flynn, head of Oakland’s Department of Race and Equity, believes the details in the study can bring much-needed focus when searching for remedies.

“The way that we are starting to work on addressing disparities is different, and it is much more data driven,” Flynn said Tuesday night at a public meeting about the study.

Flynn came to Oakland from Seattle, where she worked at another race and equity program.

She was raised in Seattle’s Central District, a black neighborhood that has seen its black population pushed to the southern border of an increasingly segregated city. She saw the urban renewal projects and highway construction that gutted black neighborhoods in Seattle. A similar thing happened in Oakland when large swaths of black and Latino neighborhoods were bulldozed to make way for Interstate 880 in East

“We have a collective responsibility for addressing the problem.” Darlene Flynn, Oakland Department of Race and Equity

Oakland and the BART Station in West Oakland.

In Oakland, Flynn plans to use a methodology similar to what she used in Seattle, and that’s working to build equity from inside city government. The approach is straightforward: If people have the right analysis to grapple with longstanding problems, they’ll be inclined to work to find solutions within a social equity framework.

The study is a powerful tool — if people listen.

In May, I met with Flynn to talk about equity in Oakland. The 45-minute interview provided a glimpse at how she’ll attempt to eliminate racial inequities. For Flynn, it starts with a conversation.

“That’s a big, important part of this work — to change the way we talk about inequity and disparities and to disrupt the dominant narrative of how people ended up in conditions that they’re in so we can recognize we have a collective responsibility for addressing the problem,” she told me.

It’s a tough conversation to have, but now there is data to back up what people have said for decades about the unfairness that exists in Oakland.

Remember, black communities were once deprived of loans and investment, a practice known as redlining. And those same communities were targeted for subprime mortgages and loans, which caused many to lose their homes when loan payments ballooned.

“A big piece of this is shifting the narrative,” Flynn said. “Being able to have those conversations and not have them be super personally charged, but really focused on the legacy of systemic racism and marginalization that we all inherited as a skill set.”

We need to change how we work with our communities.

And to do that, the way we view our communities must change, too.

We can’t reach a different outcome if we continue approaching problems the same way we always have: blaming the marginalized.

We certainly don’t spend enough time talking about who benefits when communities of color are denied basic resources and opportunities.

When we talked a few months ago, Flynn told me she’d put herself in the middle of Oakland’s equity discussion. With the release last month of this report, she has.

“I’m in the middle of it anyway,” she told me. “I’m black. It matters to me.

“This is not for everyone, and I don’t expect this from everyone who shares my identity, but for me it has been the saving grace being active in fighting for something better. It has kept me from slipping into despair.”

As depressing as the study is, the data in Flynn’s hands gives me reason to hope.