Racism deters speakers at public hearings

Last year, I attended the City of Vancouver's Anti-Black Racism Virtual Town Hall on Sept. 24. Other people who attended will remember how quickly the comment box was hit with racist remarks, literally within the opening minutes.

Luckily, folks on the call acted swiftly and informed the City of Vancouver to immediately disable the comments box, so as to prevent further abuse. The message was clear. Anti-Black racism is very much alive, and the City of Vancouver had not adequately provided safety mechanisms for the town hall, causing harm and hurt to Black and other racialized peoples, such as myself. I was shaken.

I was shaken because after that incident, I felt that my trust that I or my fellow racialized peoples would be safe from racial violence, physically or virtually, was diminishing, and fast. I agonized, and still do, over the increased danger of being racially visible in community spaces. I started to ask these questions. Can my neighbours keep me safe from racism? Can my physical environment keep me safe, from racism? Most importantly to me, can local government policies and practices keep me safe, from racism?

The answer for me is no. In February, the Vancouver Police Department reported a 717 per cent increase in anti-Asian racism incidents in the city. We need to address racism, especially how it affects us on a local level, and especially our municipalities' capacity and readiness to support anti-racist processes.

For example, during a recent public hearing to speed up affordable housing permits for non-profits housing providers, I listened with utter disbelief as residents, many of them living in Kitsilano — a historically white-majority and relatively privileged neighbourhood — called in to express their anger, frustrations and disapproval.

At that hearing, there was much unchecked subtle and not-so-subtle racism in residents' perspectives. This is not a surprise. Zoning as an urban planning practice has a racist history and the public hearing format is a way to ensure that voices are often given to those in higher social power.

This is why public engagement and consultation formats like public hearings are failing our communities, especially racialized people. As a community planner who works in public engagement, I don't participate in municipal public hearings because of the level of racism that's embedded in them. They are dangerous for me, in a city where targeted attacks on people like me are on the increase.

Without clear guidelines to ensure safety for participants who already navigate systemically imposed barriers, local governments risk re-traumatizing and silencing those of us who have worked up the courage and found time and energy to speak our mind.

This lack of protection creates inequitable forms of consultation whereby only the most privileged and abled get to access a platform ostensibly meant for “all of us.”

I applaud the City of New Westminster for its efforts to ensure that in a time where many racialized peoples feel unsafe in public, physically and virtually, it stepped up beyond the Local Government Act to give important space to residents who called to give input at its virtual public hearing last month about the Aboriginal Land Trust Society's affordable housing proposal in that city. That is promising. That should be considered a precedent to follow by other municipalities.

I urge the City of Vancouver, and others, to support updating the Local Government Act to create ways for folks like me to participate in public engagement processes equitably and with dignity.