The final Leadership Asheville Buzz Breakfast of the summer featured two speakers addressing the theme of “Racial Equity: How Do We Embrace It?” at Crowne Plaza  Resort’s Expo Center on Aug. 22.

The first to speak was Darin Waters, an associate professor of history and executive director for community engagement at UNC Asheville. He teaches courses in American, North Carolina, Appalachian, African-American and Brazilian history, specializing in the history of race relations in the U.S. and Latin America. He also is the co-host of “The Waters and Harvey Show,” broadcast weekly on Asheville-based Blue Ridge Public Radio.

The other speaker was Kimberlee Archie, the City of Asheville’s equity and inclusion manager. She was appointed a year ago as the city’s first-ever equity and inclusion manager. Her prior posts included family support director for the Unity Way of King County in Seattle, Wash., and deputy director of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.

The Buzz Breakfast series, presented each summer by Leadership Asheville, highlights what it calls important issues, new initiatives and new leaders making an impact on the region. Leadership Asheville, a program of UNCA, bills itself as engaging “participants in collaborative community leadership projects, providing personal leadership development and community education and orientation. Many of Asheville’s civic and business leaders are Leadership Asheville alumni.”

The program began with a three-minute video that made the point that “we all have to do our work so that we can be free together.”

Waters began by noting, “I want to begin as a historian with these words that you see on the screen.” He quoted from the Declaration of the 13 United States of America: “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....’”

Waters said all of his talk “was based on this (The Declaration’s ideas) and how well have we gotten to it.”

“Over my years as a historian and as a professor in a classroom, I have fallen in love with original documents.

“(Thomas) Jefferson, who was very optimistic about the future of the country, wrote in a letter: ‘Having sucked in the principles of liberty as if it was his mother’s milk, it is to the rising generation, not to the one in power. A change is already perceptible. In 1782, his optimism was interesting.”

However, Waters noted, “In 1820, in a letter to another friend” Jefferson wrote that “I regret that when I am now to die, the belief” in America’s founding principles “is not held by the unworthy sons” of the nation’s founders.

Next, Waters said, “I want to read briefly from President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, ‘“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”

Waters explained that “Lincoln had grown tired of this war (Civil War) … Somehow he knew that slavery was the reason for the war,” stating that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Then Waters referred to a document in 1866 — just after the Civil War ended — from freed slave Bailey Wyatt, regarding what he thought of the war.

“We now as a people desire to be elevated, and we desires to do all we can to be educated, and we hope our friends will aid us all they can,” Wyatt wrote. “I may state to all our friends and to all our enemies that we has a right to the stand where we are located. Why? I’ll tell you. Our wives, our children, our husbands has been sold over and over again to purchase the lands we now locates upon. For that reason, we have a divine right to the land.”

Waters asserted that “Wyatt didn’t need to read John Locke… He called it the divine right— the labor theory of value. In Bailey Wyatt we have a lot of what happened with Reconstruction.”

At that point, Waters asserted, “I’ll end by quoting rocker Bruce Springstein: ‘The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.’”

The second speaker, Archie, began with the oft-quoted observation: “The truth will set you free… but first it will piss you off!” 

She then noted that her “brief bio” in the Leadership Asheville promo “did not really” portray who she is.

“I am a black woman who grew up in a multiculture environment in the South — the south end of Seattle, Washington.

“From high school, I was bused across town to north Seattle, which was and still is, predominately white.

“I was on a cheerleading squad that was equally mixed.

“I grew up with friends who were white and other cultures.

“I grew up as many rock songs as R&B (rhythm-and-blues) songs. 

“My childhood prepared me to be a world citizen who respected a variety of global cultures,” Archie said.

“But I didn’t learn about living in an inequitable culture till my adulthood.

“I didn’t realize that I was living where I was was the result of red-lining.

“I didn’t understand the importance of James Brown… ‘Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud,’” until reaching adulthood.

“Once I learned about racial inequities, I was pissed,” Archie asserted.

“Since I learned about advancing racial equity, I’ve been working toward it,” Archie asserted.

“Since I learned about racial… it pisses me off.

“Once you understand how we got to this place with racial disparities, it will piss you off, too.

“What I will do is share a few on-ramps to the journey of embracing racial equity.

“Embracing racial equity is similar to sweat equity. It takes work. it takes some skin in the game. it takes action.

“Whether you’re new to the game, or have done it before, let’s get revved up.

She cited the following as the “three on-ramps to embracing racial equity:”

• Learn the truth

• Expand your worldview

• Use your advantage, privilege and power for good.

“Regarding learn the truth,” Archie said, “many people after attending workshop on equity say they didn’t realize that the founding principles of the country gave advantage to one group over others.... to the G.I. Bill, Social Security and even tipping... It is the impetus for the debate on immigration rights”

“You could participate in workshops, read books, watch shows, invest time…,

“As for expanding your world view, be open to seeing whiteness, she said. “Be open to seeing how whiteness receives advantage and oppresses people of color.” She warned that one could fall into the trap with “the inability to see whiteness because it is considered the norm…. It is to see that non-white is not a deviation from the norm.

“As a consumer of news on the local, national and global world stage, you should ask more questions about what you’re being fed. … Look for the non-Anglo perspective. Break down your world view and be open to others’ view.

“Third, use your advantage, privilege and power… for good. Embrace change willingly and enthusiastically.

“Be that change you want to see in the world,” Archie urged.

“In order to embrace racial equity, change needs to happen. Support people-of-color businesses. Hire people-of-color consultants. Remove barriers to participation. Compensate people for their knowledge and experience.

“Vote for candidates to those who support racial equity.

“And finally, support music, movies, TV and books by people of color. These are the ones who promote racial equity.

“Until people in power decide to share their power, racial equity will continue,” she said.

“Just as white men with power decided to share that power with white women in 1920, so it is important for people in power today to share their power and privilege.

“As you learn more of the truth, and it pisses you off, act to dismantle institutional racism to use your advantage, privilege and power… for the good of racial equity,” Archie concluded.

— By John North, Asheville Daily Planet