The Move Podcast S1E8: Planners and Personal Complexity (with Danielle DeRuiter-Williams)

In Episode 8, The Move Podcast interviews Danielle DeRuiter-Williams, formerly at the San Francisco Planning Department and founder of The Justice Collective. Co-hosts Ceasar and Ayushi laugh about the art of writing angry emails, why biking to work isn’t for everyone, and tackling the homogeneity of corporate structures.

Transcript

Danielle: [00:00:00] when we enter into a workplace we’re not leaving any of the experiences that we’ve had our entire lives, let alone just that morning on our way at the door. So it’s necessary that people who manage other people have an understanding of the complexities and the nuances as much as they can of people who are different than them. Whose experiences are not the same.

Ceasar: [00:00:27] Hey Ayushi. How you doing?

Ayushi: [00:00:29] Good, how are you Ceasar?

Ceasar: [00:00:30] I’m doing great. You know here we are. It’s been what seven weeks of shows?

Ayushi: [00:00:34] Seven weeks.

Ceasar: [00:00:34] And now we’re moving into the eighth week.

Ayushi: [00:00:37] Yeah.

Ceasar: [00:00:37] Right? Well and this is actually really I’m really excited about this one. I know this is a friend of yours, Danielle DeRuiter-Williams,

Ayushi: [00:00:43] Mmhmm (affirmative)

Ceasar: [00:00:43] who happens to be, you know, Senior Community Development specialist for the city of San Francisco

Ayushi: [00:00:48] She’s amazing.

Ceasar: [00:00:49] But I’m… First of all, I always love someone who actually gets to live in San Francisco, so I like her for that reason to begin with (Laughter)

Ayushi: [00:00:57] I think she technically has her apartment Oakland.

Ceasar: [00:01:00] Ok, I love her even more then! (laughter) That’s the best of both worlds, but uh, no in reality it’s just it’s great to have her here.

Ayushi: [00:01:08] Thank you so much for being here with us.

Danielle: [00:01:09] Yeah happy to, happy to be here.

Ceasar: [00:01:11] And how did you guys get to meet each other? How did you know each other?

Ayushi: [00:01:14] We actually met because she’s the founder of an organization called The Justice Collective that does racial trainings across the city and I attended one of these trainings. It was amazing to watch her in action.

Ceasar: [00:01:24] That’s really cool. So Danielle, I’m sorry for making you look, you know, just sit over there and pretend like you don’t exist, while we talk about you

Ayushi: [00:01:30] In the third-person

Ceasar: [00:01:30] In the third person. But yeah, you know, I noticed that you know, your work is really around social Equity. That’s what you do for the planning department of San Francisco. And I’m just like how did that come about? You know, (Laughter) It’s not a thing you see… I mean you can go to a lot of planning departments around this country and that’s actually not one of the names on the office doors.

Danielle: [00:01:52] Yeah. Yes. And I wasn’t hired to do that work. I was hired to join a team of community development specialists who were focusing on.. And this is a racial equity strategy but it wasn’t specifically called that. To really shift our approach to planning from the top down approaches to relationship rooted solutions, and solutions surfacing from our community particularly in communities experiencing rapid displacement, gentrification. Bayview Hunter’s Point for one, Chinatown, the Tenderloin, The Mission. All of these community of color in San Francisco are experiencing a lot of demographic shift and economic shift as we all know. What became abundantly clear pretty early on in that role is that one of the primary complaints and challenges that community has with the planning profession and the planning department, specifically in San Francisco, but this is pretty consistent I would say across many government agencies, but also many planning departments around the country. Is just a lack of one deep and meaningful understanding of the nuances and challenges that people of color are facing. Two the competencies to deal with that and recognize what adjustments need to be made in our community engagement strategies. But even beyond that, being able to really center those unique needs when creating our policy, our processees, the permitting of different developments. Are we thinking about and centering marginalized communities and what the impacts of these things are going to have on them? That just isn’t happening across the board. There are people who are individual advocates whoa re thinking about these things, but it’s not like a part of their job description to consider racial equity on this project. Right? So that being surfaced as a need early on, I saw an opportunity to push our department to do something about it. I enjoyed kind of a unique positioning inside the agency wherein. Like I said, I was a part of this new team and we were still self defining, and the director of the division at the time who had created this team was really.. really took his mentorship of us seriously, and really wanted to create the space for us to do the work as we saw fit. And was a huge champion not only for our team but for me as in individual in creating space for me to kind of redefine the parameters of not only my work but of what good leadership looks like inside of an institution like that. So I was able to say “Hey, this is a problem and here’s some potential solutions.” One of those was for us to start doing racial equity work. First by building a capacity of core team of us to do it, but then that leading into a larger initiative. SO that’s kind of how it got started, but it certainly was something that had been on the minds of people and the tongues of people for a while. But no one had really pushed them to do it thus far.

Ayushi: [00:05:21] And then you guys made it a formal team?

Danielle: [00:05:23] Yeah. So twelve of us went through a year long-

Ayushi: [00:05:26] Wow.

Danielle: [00:05:27] -training.

Ayushi: [00:05:28] That’s significant.

Danielle: [00:05:29] Yeah. Yeah. We went once a month with some work in between, to trainings that the government alliance on race and equity had created for.. Specifically for municipal participants in the region, and then they also had a regional one down in southern California. It was the first year that they had done this cohort. We all went and some of the stuff for me personally wasn’t new because I had had training in it previously. Racial equity was the space that I had been working in by a function of my non profit work. But for others it was new. And then there was the newness for me of learning about government. Because I had just started. So I brought up this opportunity within four months of joining the department. So I had just got my time there. Didn’t really know much about government at that point was able to.. My only lens through which I was learning about it was through this racial equity lens because we started this so early on. Which was a really exciting and unique I think entry point into that. Yeah.

Ceasar: [00:06:35] Wow. Now a whole bunch of questions come up for you about doing this. I want to actually.. Often times when we talk about.. I know in conversation we’ve been involved in here before on our series, but even just here at MIT and around, people think about these racial equity issues and they think about them in relationship to the work with the community. But what I’m hearing you say is that there was internal work the planning department was doing around this to really understand how it can develop the competencies to actually engage in that work with the community, is that right?

Danielle: [00:07:10] Yeah. It’s not only how to engage with work in the community, it’s also thinking about the planning department as a workplace.

Ceasar: [00:07:19] Yeah.

Danielle: [00:07:19] So as we know planning is not a particularly diverse field, especially considering planners are working government. But many more people of color and functions department of public works, or even transit. Right? If you look at the numbers. So planning itself as a profession is not especially diverse. Planning in San Francisco is also not especially diverse. It’s certainly not representative of the cities demographics, although those are changing and probably maybe more like the cities demographics of our time. But in addition to that the way in which people of color experience the workplace varies too. And that wasn’t just a hunch, that’s something that as a part of the earlier steps in our racial equity work was proven through our survey. Our survey of staff revealed statistically significant differences between perception of fairness by person of color versus white folks. Perception of commitment from leadership, right? To racial equity, and leadership versus non leadership position. So there were a number of different data to back up the anecdotal experiences. Because often times unfortunately that’s not considered to be enough. I’m not saying just in the planning department, just generally in this work.

Ceasar: [00:08:43] Yes.

Danielle: [00:08:43] We had a number of data points that we could then share that emboldened us, legitimized the need to both address the way in which we engage externally so what’s the application and the practicality of this framework. But also what does it mean to be a workplace that centers equity, that considers and takes steps towards improving that workplace experience for under represented folks. Which are in this case folks of color in the department. So for us it was both, and we actually decided to start with our internal work first versus the practical application externally.

Ayushi: [00:09:24] I took a class at the business school last semester and it makes me think about.. You’re talking about your manager being open to feedback and really taking mentorship seriously. It makes me think about how even the ways in which we understand management and work flows in internals with healthy organizations, perhaps are so skewed by the way that non people of color experience the workforce.

Danielle: [00:09:52] White people?

Ceasar: [00:09:53] Yes. That’s a different way of saying it.

Danielle: [00:09:58] Yes.

Ayushi: [00:10:01] Exactly. Quite precisely. The way that you just put it so simply and it’s so obvious, and yet so powerful to hear it said out loud. Which is the way people of color experience the workforce is so different. I personally, excuse me, know that to be true. I know among coworkers. But I don’t know that that informs the way in which trainings or competencies or sensitivities are really addressed.

Danielle: [00:10:29] Yeah. You’re exactly right. This particular division head was actually white. Which is one of the reasons why I think we were able to cover as much ground as we were in pushing for the effort. Because him championing it legitimized it. And him championing me-

Ayushi: [00:10:43] Is a whole other thing, right?

Danielle: [00:10:45] Yeah. Right? Like that legitimized it in a way as well. But to your point the reality is is that when we enter into a workplace we’re not leaving any of the experiences that we’ve had our entire lives, let alone just that morning on our way at the door. Right? So it’s necessary and it’s important that people who manage other people, people who are colleagues of other people, so that’s literally everyone with insight of an organization. Has an understanding of the complexities and the nuances as much as they can of people who are different than them. Whose experiences are not the same. And that often times comes with proximity. Right? But if as a result of our many policies that keep our communities segregated, if you have not had the opportunity to grow up with people who are different than you, which the majority of white people do not have that experience. Your ability to relate and understand on a deep and meaningful level, people who are different than you, is limited. Right? Practical implications of this, right? Had a conversation with a woman, a colleague, a coworker. She’s like “Why don’t you ride your bike to work?” Big bike advocate. She’s like “Why don’t you ride your bike to work?” And there are a number of reasons why, but one of those reasons why if we want to get real specific is I live in East Oakland. Which is really far from San Francisco. I live in East Oakland because it’s the only place I can afford to live. I live in East Oakland because I don’t have inter generational wealth that allows me to live closer, even to downtown Oakland. I live in East Oakland because I’m a single person. And if we want to get real specific black women are the least coupled group in the country. So me not being partnered and not having the opportunity to share resources with a romantic partner, or even a husband or a domestic partner, is actually informed by my identity as a black woman. It is impacted by my identity as a black woman. The chances of that are lower, right? So by the very virtue of who I am, there are so many domino effects as to like why I have to live where I live. Add on to that, and is where it gets really deep, I have chronic pain. So then we have the intersection of my identity as a black woman with an invisible disability. That invisible disability was not treated with as much seriousness as it would have if I was a white person because of issues in our medical system around the ways in which the perception of black people’s.. how we feel pain is inequitable. There are literal studies out of Johns Hopkins where physician residents are like “No no no, black people’s pain threshold is higher, right?” These are current, this is current studies. So when we layer all these factors on top of each other, I’m sitting in traffic for an hour and a half before I even get to the office. And what does that do for my mental health? What does that do for my physical health? How does that affect my ability to show up fully? Let alone show up on time, or at the same time as my colleagues who may have a shorter distance to get to work. So I have a direct supervisor who understood those things and we were able to have an agreement or an understanding of when and what my work day would look like as a result of these many nuances and complexities. But if the manager is not willing or open to consider that and if an employee doesn’t feel empowered enough to advocate for themselves or feel that it’s safe for them to advocate for themselves, then they’re going to have a number of unmet needs. And a number of challenges that are going unnoticed. That’s going to affect their desire to stay with an organization in the long run.

Ayushi: [00:14:37] Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow.

Danielle: [00:14:39] Deep right?

Ceasar: [00:14:41] Yeah it is.

Ayushi: [00:14:41] Like just real. But just the facts. That’s the thing too. And the experience is unfortunately not unique. Right? I mean this is applicable to every person that might share identities across the board that you mentioned.

Danielle: [00:14:55] Yeah absolutely. I mean people are being displaced even further than I am. I’m lucky to be where I am. I got in at a good time. You know? Into where I live. So there are folks coming form even further who have children. Or who have other challenges. But in the moment when that colleague asked me “Why don’t you bike to work?” To her, and she was a white woman, it was such a simple… You know like “Oh is your tire flat on your bike?” Or whatever.

Ceasar: [00:15:23] Are you afraid to ride? What’s in your way from doing this thing that is really so simple to do?

Danielle: [00:15:31] Right? Like you’re such a bad planner because you drive, right? Because she didn’t have an understanding of those nuances and complexities. We actually had an opportunity, we got lunch one day and I talked about it. But that’s also after our racial equity work had started. So the racial equity work in some ways opened up a space to have those informal conversations through a new lens than was easily accessible to the broad range of folks with inside the department prior to us kicking off that work.

Ceasar: [00:16:06] I’m just thinking to a conversation we had in another show with someone who was talking about the importance of these kinds of relationships, and these connections. In society our ability to get to know each other. All the things that are int eh way of that and how we have to kind of remove those. You were just reminding me of that. I was thinking though about.. Wow. What you were able to do because you had this whole cohort of folks, and you had a good manager in place who really modeled leadership themselves around these issues. And I’m thinking about you know, you take some place like San Francisco or LA and New York, or Chicago or Houston. They’re kind of like those big departments with a lot of planners that create opportunities that have that. San Francisco’s probably a little more unique, but having gone through that.. What did you say or what would you think or what advice would you give with someone who’s.. We actually know a case of this. You know they’re in a department with maybe seven other planners and they’re the only black person sitting there. How do they move in that space?

Danielle: [00:17:20] Yeah. That’s a good question. So I say this acknowledging significant amount of privilege driven by my personality type, which is not risk averse, driven by probably an unrealistic level of self confidence. Although I haven’t been proven wrong yet so I don’t know. I’m just looking at my picture. But to me being an agitator is the only thing I know how to be. Not in a way where I’m raising things that can’t be solved or making.. It’s not about venting or complaining, or whatever. It’s about like “Yo. We’re not our best selves right now. Here’s how I think we might be able to get closer to that. Or we’re not in alignment with our values as an organization, if these are our stated shared values. Let’s discover ways to better embody those.” With that in mind I have adopted and it has served me well thus far, the approach that if people are not prepared to have the conversation that needs to be had, then maybe it’s not a great fit for me to be there. Or if we are not ready to bring ourselves closer to our values, and we’re not ready to do it now, because it should be our highest priority. Then it’s time for me to go elsewhere where that’s the case. And the spirit of that.. So my mom is white, and I’m half black. My dad’s black. When I was 16 years old Alicia Keys was really popular. She had braids. She had those braids with the designs in them and so I did too. Everyone had them. And at the time I had a job at the mall and I was like “Mom, I think I want to get another job. What do you think about that?” And she’s like “Yeah. I think that’s good but you know that if you’re going to be looking for another job you might want to take your braids down because people might not hire you.” I grew up in western Michigan so she’s right, it’s possible. And my response was at 16 years old, “Any place that isn’t going to want to hire me because of my braids is not a place I want to work anyways.” And she’s like “You’re right.” That standard is something that I’ve really tried to hold myself to and my employers to throughout my adulthood. That came into play in the planning department as well. Around an email I had sent when we were a few months into our racial equity work. So when Alton Sterling was murdered, one of many (inaudible) over the last several years. I woke up that morning having tried my hardest to avoid watching the video, but of course it was all plastered across Facebook. It was before you could turn auto play off on your timeline. I got up at 5 AM and I sat down to write an email to the entire department. At the time was around 230 people. I was still on probation at the time. I hadn’t yet reached my six month point, so I was still temporary technically. So this was risky. And I decided that I needed to say something. Luckily we had the kind of umbrella of this racial equity work to point towards us to like.. The justification as if I should need one, for sending this message. I was at least able to kind of frame it around “We are undertaking this racial equity work. I want to share with you why it’s so important for planners to consider police brutality, in the context of murder of another unarmed person of color. And we have our own example here in San Francisco.” So in this email I kind of listed out some examples as to why this is a problem and why it’s relevant to our work. And one of the examples I was able to provide was Alex Neito, who grew up in a predominately POC neighborhood in San Francisco, who was hanging out in a park by his house as he did often. And got into some sort of conflict, he was not the aggressor. With someone who had moved to the neighborhood recently, white person, and the police were called. He was shot and killed. So your point San Francisco earlier, there’s this presumption that because we’re all progressives here, right? We all voted for Obama, we’re all for gay marriage. We’re all for women’s rights.

Ayushi: [00:22:31] One shade of blue.

Danielle: [00:22:33] Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing could never occur here, right? We are evolved elite academics on the coast. It’s just not true, right? I’ve actually experienced far more micro aggressions being in California than I ever did in Michigan. So tying it back to a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that now has people there who do not have familiarity with people of color, who instead of deescalating whatever the conflict was, or having a conversation or just walking away, felt so entitled. And we’ve seen this happen over and over and over again in the news over the last couple of work. Felt that calling the police was the appropriate response, which as it can be a death sentence for people of color. And people know this. This stuff makes national news. I don’t believe that Permit Patty or Barbecue Becky didn’t know. Because the police have been a tool of control that white people have wielded since the abolition of slavery. So this is a tradition. When we talk about white people, whether there is a such thing as white culture, this is one of the characteristics of white culture. Which is using law enforcement. So tying all this back to planning, what are the implications in these rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, and the cultural shifts that are happening? What role can we take as planners in considering these challenges and nuances, and why people of color are so adamantly opposed to. Why there’s so much pain coming out of the Bay view, coming out of the mission. Because it’s experiences like this where we no longer feel safe in our own communities. And I provided links and resources because that’s what you are supposed to do to make people believe you. And I pressed send.

Ayushi: [00:24:28] Any good email of course has links and resources.

Danielle: [00:24:33] And I pressed send.

Ayushi: [00:24:33] Wow. To 200 plus people.

Danielle: [00:24:36] Yeah. Yep.

Ayushi: [00:24:37] Wow.

Danielle: [00:24:38] I did. And I felt good about it. And the response was overwhelmingly positive.

Ayushi: [00:24:44] Wow.

Danielle: [00:24:44] And there were people who did not read or were not able to read the truth in it. Instead hinged on whether or not it was anti police sentiment. Whether or not I was against. My cousin’s a police officer. From a personal standpoint yes, they’re a tool of oppression too. But that’s not what I said in my email, that’s not what I was talking about in my email. But of course they didn’t respond to me directly. It was then surfaced to leadership who had to then kind of address the email with me.

Ceasar: [00:25:27] Okay. I think there’s more to the story. But anyway. We’ll let it go at that. So what it brings up for me is, on the last thing you said which was bringing it back to planning. This question I think as we sit here really thinking about the question of what do people need to know, how do we build their capacity to actually build more robust engagement processes that really pay attention to the kind of equity, different identities, so that we can build a more inclusive processes. That we have to be intentional about that. And part of what I hear you say that there’s something that’s really important about familiarity in order to help people do that. So I’m wondering what that means though. I’m not asking you to have the answer, I’m really just asking you to kind of think with us with this idea about what does that mean in the context of places where.. It’s not that that familiarity isn’t available, but the pressure of work, the pressure of time, the pressure of getting it done is what people are responding to. What’s enough familiarity? What is it their familiarity allows you to be able to do that’s transferable to other situations so that it’s not about “Oh I understand, or I feel a little more comfortable around black people but I still can’t stand these other folks over here because I don’t know anything about them.” I’m always struggling with this issue because for me at some point I think yeah we do need familiarity with everyone. We do need to know that. And then at the same time I think wow, if that’s what we need in order to get there, then we’re never going to get there because we’re never ever going to have everyone exposed to everyone. So what is it we’re really trying to get at? What is it that familiarity enables in us, and then how can we provide that, trigger that in others? Without having to say “And then you need to-

Ayushi: [00:27:45] And then here’s XYZ.

Ceasar: [00:27:47] Yeah.

Ayushi: [00:27:47] Like follow the checklist. Right. Because that isn’t really, I don’t think, ever the answer.

Ceasar: [00:27:53] Yeah. Exactly.

Danielle: [00:27:56] Yeah. So I think what we have to actually.. The jumping off point for this is what is the.. I’ve asked this question in trainings that I’ve done before with folks around implicit bias. How has it been advantageous or necessary for people of color to understand in a deep meaningful way, white people?

Ceasar: [00:28:19] Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ayushi: [00:28:20] Wow.

Danielle: [00:28:20] It has been an absolute survival necessity for people of color to understand white people. It has not been a necessity for white people to understand in a deep and meaningful way people of color, with the exception of being able to extract resources. So if we think about colonization and other sorts of strategies to exploit people. So with that said it’s not actually about solely familiarity. It is familiarity that breeds and generates empathy, humanity, and the seating of power. That is the gap that we’re not actually getting to, is what does it mean for white people to actually seed to care about and recognize the humanity that people of color so much that they’re willing to give up power? Not entirely. But to a minimum sharent of power so that we can live in an equal and just society. We’re heading in the wrong direction right now, which is scary for many reasons. But to me until we actually get to that point, which looks different now in our current situation. Because legally and as a function of a somewhat more just society over the last several decades, white people are actually feeling quite disempowered. How do you get people who feel disempowered to give up power? So that’s a whole other conversation for another day. But to me linking together familiarity or relationship without reallocation of resources that could be literal resources, like reparations, that could be relational resources. Such as access to sponsorship, or mentorship. It could be sharing air time in a conversation in a meeting. So so much of it is actually requiring white people to get out of the way, intentionally amplify, and create space for people of color to have a seat at the table. I don’t know if that’s the conversation that’s being had across the board.

Ceasar: [00:30:52] Yeah I would agree with you. I will say that it’s not the conversation that’s being had. I mean some places yes but certainly across the board, no. That’s not the conversation we’re at. And one we really do need to be at. I remember actually the beginning of this as we were talking, we were saying.. This is really one of the things we were talking about with Dasjon is really about lifting ourself up for our healing. And part of what I’m hearing in this, part of how this connects to there for me is that I think in order to actually step into that space of empathy, and to that space where you see the humanity in each other, and to be able to share power one has to heal some wounds inside themselves. In order to be able to do that. We had to figure out how to create those spaces that also allow for that. You were talking about this remember one other time. You mentioned this thing about people who work inside of bureaucracies, inside of government.. What is they need to feel their own humanity again? Right? There’s a healing that needs to be happening there as well as in other places. This might be one of the bigger issues in our society in some sense, is how do we heal from the trauma of what we have done to each other? Or what has been done to some and to others. What some have lost and thought they were going to have a didn’t get, and all of that in order to move forward.

Danielle: [00:32:23] Yeah. I mean that’s the thing is like white supremacy has hurt white people too. And I don’t mean that in the “Oh the poor white people.” Way. But in very real.. There’s this photo that Dr. Joy Degruy puts up in some of her trainings of a lynch mob. And in the foreground there’s a little white girl, she’s probably seven years old maybe. And behind her is the hanging body of a black man and she’s smiling. She’s smiling at this scene behind her. She shows this to make the point that white supremacy, while it has dehumanized people of color and say black people in the context of the United States in very specific ways, it has also disconnected white people from their own humanity. And to your point until that is addressed.. Until there are beloved communities popping up around the country, around the world, of white people deeply investing in redefining what white culture means. Because right now the characteristics of white supremacy culture are ones that continuously oppress everyone to different degrees. Until they’re able to step back and redefine what membership in this group means, and doing that through healing. Through connection, through brotherhood, we won’t be able to move past it. It has to be a critical mass of white folks too. To give you a very practical planning example and how we know that’s not happening.. So if we think about required setbacks on houses and how.. I’ll use example of a place like Oakland or San Francisco. The required setback from the front yard is much smaller than it is for the backyard. So that the idea is that the way that a city block will be structured is that your front yard is small and your backyard is very big. What this creates, or I’ll start by what this is shaped by, this notion of the american dream and owning your castle. And for white folks that has translated into walking in the door, the front door. Closing it and then your castle is everything behind your front door. So you socialize in the backyard, you have a pool in your backyard, you spend time in your home. If we look at other cultural traditions for a lot of latino folks, you have your parties in the front yard. Everyone’s invited, it’s a block party thing. For black folks sitting on the front porch. There’s a reason why there are racial epithets associated with black folks. Spending time communally in the front yard. Well if your front yard is small because white planners are determining what’s desirable in designing a neighborhood, white supremacy is literally baked into land use. In really deep and insidious ways. Having that level of conversation, having that surfacing, or pulling the wool off, or putting another lens on to recognize the cultural differences in the way that we even socialize, and the planning implications. Is something that is only possible when people have done enough inquiry internally, into themselves, how they were raised, how that relates to the larger culture. Who’s in the inner circle and who’s on the outside of the circle, and then who’s making decisions? Those magical ingredients, I think, are all necessary to create just a larger movement. I think incremental change is possible but I think we have to kind of deepen our understanding, or go beyond what we think is possible and actually figure out what we need to do that’s necessary to create the change that we want to see.

Ceasar: [00:36:37] Really beautifully said. Particularly in the field of planning, it’s really raising the issue of how conscious the field needs to be about dismantling the way it contributes. The way in which it’s been informed by that white supremacy and systematic racism. And then to be in the conversation about how to dismantle that. Dismantling that doesn’t necessarily mean throwing everything away. But it means revisiting everything. Right. Yeah. Which is a really different kind of conversation and as someone who teaches in a school of planning, I can say that’s not the way conversations (inaudible) and equity are structured inside the field, the training, the preparation, the educational program. They are in some sense additive or supplements to the real work. As opposed to being the real work is how these things have gotten us to where we are in our fied, and then how do we rethink where we are in our field? And our field in a different way so that we can actually cast off this burden that’s really keeping us all down.

Danielle: [00:38:02] Yeah. We can’t just be talking about it in our community economic development classes or our workforce classes. It actually happens.

Ayushi: [00:38:09] We do.

Danielle: [00:38:10] Which is what we do. I mean that was my (inaudible) in planning school too. We were in a real estate development class and she’s like “If land is so cheap in downtown Inglewood why are people not.. Why are developers not building in downtown Inglewood?” And everyone’s like “Location of transit.” And I’m like “White supremacy.” Structural racism is why people are not choosing to build there. But she didn’t know how to respond to that because that’s not the conversation that we were having in our performer class. But it is the one that we needed to have. One of the things that I was really interested in the planning department is a part of our racial equity strategy is what other strategic partnerships or what other requirements that planning departments like ours.. I think it’s important that we do this in partnership with other planning departments, need to demand of the fields that need to be prioritized to ensure that programs, planning programs, respond and prepare their students to meet the new needs of the field. Which have not changed but the conversation has evolved so we can be more straight forward with it. We’re dealing with the same stuff that we were dealing with with new neckties on basically. And I think that there’s a lot of power in thinking about how APA is exclusionary and we could go on a whole other.. I’m going to write an open letter about-

Ayushi: [00:39:35] That’s the American Planning Association.

Danielle: [00:39:37] Yeah. The American Planning Association. How exclusionary that particular professional association is. Planning departments, particularly major planning departments that folks really want to work in, like San Francisco and LA and others like that, and schools. The accrediting board, all can actually come together and make a pretty powerful statement about what we really need in 2018. Given what we’re pushing up against. But as far as I know people are maybe doing it off in silos if they’re doing it at all. And that conversation hasn’t been centralized in any one place. Commitments have not been made to the communities that need it most about how we as a field are going to evolve to meet those new needs. That’s a space I’m really interested in cultivating. Had I stayed longer at the planning department I probably would have tried to get that going next. I don’t think it’s too late for me to take a role in that. But that has to happen and now, right?

Ceasar: [00:40:40] Well now for those podcasts, but I can say to you one thing. We’re actually opening up that conversation in our department this year. And really starting a whole process to really redesign from the ground up. Really what should a two year program look like given what the world is today, and what it needs to be. And I’m part of designing that process and I think it would be extremely important to have someone like you, and some other folks inside of planning departments. To talk about “Look this is what’s happening on the ground. This is what we need people to be able to come prepared to do.” Because right now most of that is still embedded in the old ideas of what folks do when they walk out the door of a graduate program. In ours some people go right into planning, or people go into other fields that are allied to planning. They go into all kinds of things but they’re bringing the same skill set. Right? Into these other spaces. And I think that skill set if it’s done right, doesn’t matter where you land at because it’s needed in so many places.

Danielle: [00:41:49] Yeah totally. Its interesting because my pathway to planning was actually.. I joined UCLA at their masters and Afro american studies program. And planning to me was the opportunity to add some of the practical skills that I needed.. That were one interesting to me but also that I needed to be competitive at the time in 2008 when I was getting ready to graduate. And the workforce at the height of our recession, and I never though I would work for a city. [inaudible]. Cities are slow, y’all are behind the times. And absolutely both the skills and the knowledge and theory and history that I learned in both the Afro american studies program and planning have been such a perfect marriage for me. Which is why I’m like a huge advocate for creating pipelines from ethnic studies programs into planning. It’s like I tapped gold mine of people who have an equity frame, if their program is done the right way. Have an equity frame that would enrich our planning programs in so many ways. But those pathways are not necessarily there, unless you as an individual create them. So yeah I think that-

Ayushi: [00:43:07] My hair is rising, I love that idea so much.

Ceasar: [00:43:10] Yeah me too.

Danielle: [00:43:12] Yeah.

Ceasar: [00:43:12] Well I know we’ve kept you longer than we said we were going to. And we’ve kept you, what three times now?

Danielle: [00:43:20] Fine by me. I love talking to you.

Ceasar: [00:43:22] But this has been absolutely wonderful. Is there anything you want to say in closing?

Ayushi: [00:43:29] I’m just so grateful on a personal level to be able to call you a friend, and very grateful that you’ve taken the time out now so many times to speak with us. So thank you Danielle, really.

Danielle: [00:43:40] Yeah. My pleasure.

Ceasar: [00:43:42] Yes thank you so much. Any last words you have for us?

Danielle: [00:43:46] I don’t know man, keep fighting. Don’t get dissuaded by the news. The suite coming out of supreme court, the only option is to keep fighting. So that’s what I’m going to keep doing, and an invitation to you all to keep doing the same.

Ceasar: [00:44:02] Thank you. I accept that invitation. Take care Danielle.

Danielle: [00:44:07] Alright thank you.

Ayushi: [00:44:11] Well, that was amazing. Ohh..

Ceasar: [00:44:12] Yeah, I know. We could have kept going but

Ayushi: [00:44:16] I know…

Ceasar: [00:44:17] You know you gotta stop somewhere. Yeah,

Ayushi: [00:44:19] Unfortunately!

Ceasar: [00:44:19] Save more for other people.. (Laughter)

Ayushi: [00:44:20] Right. I mean it was amazing just to I feel like hear how she embodied this value of ways of expression. You know, there’s so many ways that I felt like just how she carried herself in the conversation, the way that she spoke with such confidence about her work and about her role in all of this work was powerful. It’s always been powerful for me to hear. It’s kind of why I look up to her. You know, she’s just that much older in her career and it’s inspiring for me as someone who has not yet started in, you know, the planning world to understand how our own position and role in approach makes such an impact on the outcome that we get whether it’s within our office, which is something that she you know mentions a lot about, or whether it’s in the community as you’re working to elevate these voices in the community.

Ceasar: [00:45:10] Yeah, you know, we talked about this whole kind of design principle of Designing for Multiple Forms of Expression and, you know, I’ve always kind of mostly thought about it in terms of well, you know, you’re creating the container, creating the space for people who may speak a different language or people who may be a little shyer, or you’re creating this, you know, just so that people feel comfortable communicating way they do.

Ayushi: [00:45:35] Yeah

Ceasar: [00:45:35] And what happened today really in listening to Danielle was to realize: actually there’s a way that we need to kind of honor our own multiple ways of expression. And we need to be able to hold them.

Ayushi: [00:45:48] Yeah

Ceasar: [00:45:48] and authenticate them and that that actually models something for other people,

Ayushi: [00:45:53] Right

Ceasar: [00:45:53] you know, Because we’re complex people, right? And people who are involved in planning have to work with a very complex public.

Ayushi: [00:46:03] Right

Ceasar: [00:46:03] and think our ability to kind of show that, right?

Ayushi: [00:46:06] Yeah

Ceasar: [00:46:07] that you know one I can be, you know, very technically oriented, but I can also hold emotions and talk about them. I can also be soft-spoken when I need to and I can speak with power when I need to, all of those things become a really important part of our own recognition that in order to be fully understanding we have to tap into our own whole range of expression.

Ayushi: [00:46:31] That’s incredible. I don’t know that I’ve thought before about individual authenticity being a sort of mirroring of this complexity in the public sphere.

Ceasar: [00:46:44] Yeah

Ayushi: [00:46:44] And I think that’s just an incredible way of almost aspiring to individual authenticity, right, is making sure that even within yourself you’re honoring the variety of needs and complexities that you otherwise have to learn how to cater to in your professional work environment.

Ceasar: [00:46:59] And it’s doubly complicated for women

Ayushi: [00:47:02] Right

Ceasar: [00:47:02] And for people of color.

Ayushi: [00:47:03] Right

Ceasar: [00:47:03] Right?

Ayushi: [00:47:04] Right

Ceasar: [00:47:04] Because there are a lot of risks for owning your own authenticity.

Ayushi: [00:47:09] Endless amounts of risk (Laughter) and and I think the way that she pushes through despite knowing all of those risks

Ceasar: [00:47:16] Yeah

Ayushi: [00:47:17] is what really stood out to me in in our conversation with her, you know, I mean, she makes it so clear that she spent so much time being thoughtful about her own positioning and the way that she as a result can then take a colleague out to lunch and explain to this colleague why biking is not possible for her, you know because of you know, physical albeit invisible disabilities because of her being a woman, because of her being of color, because of so many other reasons that she goes through, She lays out for us. And even just the strength required to lay out these identities and how they impact her is a really powerful form of honoring these complexities that I think are often under-heard of.

Ceasar: [00:47:58] Yeah, under-heard of and it’s… I don’t want to say it this way, but I’m going to say anyway, I want to say it’s a gift she has

Ayushi: [00:48:05] Yes

Ceasar: [00:48:05] but I think it’s it’s also something all of us can learn to do.

Ayushi: [00:48:09] Oh, yeah.

Ceasar: [00:48:09] And I think anyone who’s in this profession who’s planning, who’s engaging the public, you know, the more you can work on that muscle yourself the better you’re going to be at it.

Ayushi: [00:48:19] Yeah

Ceasar: [00:48:19] You know. So, this was wonderful. Thank you so much for introducing her

Ayushi: [00:48:26] Yeah

Ceasar: [00:48:26] to us and to our audience. Hopefully we’re opening a broader world to her

Ayushi: [00:48:31] Yes

Ceasar: [00:48:32] and to this issue.

Ayushi: [00:48:40] Thank you all so much for listening. This has been The Move at MIT. Please follow us along at themove.mit.edu and send us an email: themove@mit.edu,

Ceasar: [00:48:51] And we’ll see you next week. Bye. Bye.

Originally published at https://themove.mit.edu on October 16, 2018.