MY BACK IS STILL THE BRIDGE

L. DARA BALDWIN, MPA

L. Dara Baldwin, MPA (@NJDC07) is the Director of National Policy for the Center for Disability Rights and works on policy issues that include transportation, housing and community development. Ms. Baldwin has worked in federal policy for over 15 years, leading multiple policy campaigns that have resulted in the passage of laws. She serves on a number of boards including the steering committee for the Campaign for Housing and Community Development (CHCDF), the Board of Directors for the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and as a Co-Chair of the Transportation Equity Caucus. She anchors her work in ending systems of oppression through ending racism and creating a new world order. She lives in Washington, DC and is a staunch advocate for DC Statehood.

TAMIKA L. BUTLER, ESQ.

Tamika L. Butler, Esq. (@tamikabutler) is a national expert and speaker on issues related to the built environment, equity, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, organizational behavior, and change management. From speaking, to writing, to training, Tamika has worked with a myriad of clients. As the Principal and Founder of Tamika L. Butler Consulting, she focuses on shining a light on inequality, inequity, and social justice. She provides consulting, training, coaching, and public speaking for a wide range of organizations in the public and private sectors. Tamika received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Sociology in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is pursuing a PhD in Urban Planning.

ANITA COZART

Anita Cozart (@anitamhairston) is an urban planner who was raised outside Cleveland, Ohio and now calls Washington, DC her home. She currently serves as a Deputy Director with the DC Office of Planning. She has pursued a racial equity vision through many venues including municipal government planning, policy advocacy, graduate school instruction, volunteer board service, and for-profit consulting. She draws inspiration for her work from her faith, family, and the growing network of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who are the vanguard of the planning profession.

VERONICA O. DAVIS, PE

(@VeronicaODavis) is a self-described transportation nerd. She has experience in civil engineering and planning. Currently, she is the Director of Transportation & Drainage operations for the City of Houston. Previously, she co-founded and acted as the and Principal Planning Manager at Nspiregreen LLC. She is also one of the co-founders of Black Women Bike (BWB), and is on the Board for America Walks. She lives in Houston with her husband, daughter, and dog.

WESLEY LOWERY

(@WesleyLowery), the interviewer for this piece, is a journalist as a correspondent for 60 in 6, a short-form spinoff of 60 Minutes for Quibi. He was a lead on the Post’s “Fatal Force” project that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2016 as well as the author of They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement (Little, Brown, 2016). He is a former journalist with The Washington Post and a political consultant with CNN.

ABSTRACT This paper is an invitation to planning professionals to confront the roots and the impact of institutional and systemic racism in the planning profession, and begin to explicitly address these issues in their work. This paper features reflections and analysis in response to the question, “Does Planning have a White Problem”? The authors are four Black women who are leaders in the fields of urban planning, transportation, and public policy. Together they leverage their experience, observations, and writings to provide a pathway forward to recognize, reconcile, and repair the fractures in the planning profession as a result of its White Problem.

The paper describes four ways the White Problem shows up in the planning field:

1. Historical context

2. Planning education rooted in whiteness

3. Exclusionary words and terminology

4. Lack of empathy around racism

In response to the issues raised, the paper provides several calls to action for planners to address the profession’s White Problem:

1. Create and cultivate Brave Spaces to celebrate new forms of action and strategy.

2. Confront power and privilege and end practices that perpetuate inequities and marginalize Black,

Indigenous and People of Color.

3. Examine and end institutionalized racism in the planning industry.

4. Revise the planning curriculum to reflect the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

INTRODUCTION In developing this conversation, the authors found inspiration from a poem that illustrates the dimensions and the impacts of the White Problem in Planning. Below is an excerpt from the poem:

“I explain my mother to my father my father to my little sister My little sister to my brother my brother to the white feminists The white feminists to the Black church folks the Black church folks To the ex-hippies the ex-hippies to the Black separatists the Black separatists to the artists, the artists to my friends’ parents. Then I’ve got to explain myself To everybody I do more translating Than the Gawdamn U.N.”

This poem, This Bridge Called my Back by Donna Kate Ruskin, is made up of less than 300 words yet speaks volumes of the daily existence of being a Black woman in the world and in the planning industry. The authors of this article are all strong, proud Black women. We know all too well that in a country built on the foundation of white supremacy and anti-Blackness where less than half of planners are women and less than six percent of planners are Black, those of us at the intersection of those identities often carry a heavy burden (Data USA 2019). Black women planners play the role of the bridge between white planners and stakeholders. We play the role of the bridge between government agencies and communities. We play the role of the bridge between clients and consultants. We play the role of the bridge between colleagues and neighborhoods. We play the role of the bridge between academic institutions and students. Then we have to explain ourselves to everybody. In that role as a bridge, we experience a tiredness that Ruskin describes in her poem as “sick of filling in your gaps.”

Our ancestors passed down the need to protect and nurture, which today means protecting communities of people that look like us. White planners have the privilege of solely focusing on the project or plan, whereas Black women have a constant tension during the plan or project. We know we have to do the technical work based on principles we learned in planning school, but we also have to translate, codeswitch, bridge build, and protect our people. We do more translating than the U.N. and it is exhausting. This need for Black women to do the technical work and emotional labor in this industry is a problem--a white problem.

For far too long, people in the planning industry have been complicit in playing their roles and allowing oppression, racism, and anti-Blackness to thrive. Rather than suffering silently and alone, the authors of this paper decided to join one another in conversation about the white problem in planning. In October 2020, CBS journalist and bestselling author, Wesley Lowery, facilitated a conversation to help us organize our thoughts around the major issues we believe contribute to the White Problem in Planning. This interview provided a venue to unpack our belief that history, education, words, and a lack of empathy and consideration have preserved white supremacy in planning and to discuss solutions for how all planners can contribute to addressing the white problem in planning.

Together the aforementioned poem and the interview provide inspiration for an approach to organizing our reflections on our lived experience and analysis of the planning profession as described in the rest of this article.

CONTEXT - LEVELS OF POWER Wes Lowery began the interview by having us articulate the goal of planning in its ideal. How is it supposed to function? In the past, who has been in control of the decision making? The goal of urban planning is to create places that celebrate our humanity, facilitate our wellbeing, and help us sustain ourselves today and in the future. These are broad goals because planning is a broad discipline. Once you get past this breadth and get into the depth, the levers of power in planning, land use, and public space in the United States have been controlled by white, land-owning men since this country was “discovered.”

Starting with settler colonialism, the United States has manifested a destiny built upon white centered ideas of

who belongs in a space, who can move freely between spaces, who should have access to certain spaces, and who should be relocated to another space (Smith 2012).

Even in 2021, the leadership in the planning industry continues to be made up of white, cisgendered, straight, able-bodied white men with privilege tied to their race, education levels, wealth, and access to resources. These leaders often make decisions that shape the future and define the goals of well-being without incorporating or listening to the perspectives of Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color (BIPOC), people living with disabilities, and other historically oppressed and marginalized people who have unique needs, strengths, and priorities. Rather, BIPOC people are often seen as bridges to cross as people in power work to actualize their planning visions. The way the planning industry is constructed, led, and works centers whiteness. As Robin DiAngelo describes in White Fragility:

“Whiteness itself refers to the specific dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white people over people of color. This definition counters the dominant representation of racism in mainstream education as isolated in discrete behaviors that some individuals may or may not demonstrate, and goes beyond naming specific privileges (McIntosh, 1988). Whites are theorized as actively shaped, affected, defined, and elevated through their racialization and the individual and collective consciousness formed with it (Whiteness is thus conceptualized as a constellation of processes and practices rather than as a discrete entity (i.e. skin color alone). Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and my myriad levels. These processes and practices include basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all, but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people.” (emphasis added) By engaging in planning practices and enacting planning policies that center whiteness and build on the ideals of white men, officials may believe that they are planning in a way that includes basic perspectives and experiences when in reality they are planning based on experiences of place and space that are only afforded to those who are able to experience them in white bodies (NACTO 2021).

Racialized people and those in oppressed groups often silently suffer under the weight of the white problem in planning. This is particularly true for planners at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities. Selfdoubt and imposter syndrome seep in as their backs become heavy with the oppressive weight of serving as a bridge between multiple communities.

Scholars Rita Hardiman and Bailey Jackson state that oppression exists when the following four conditions are found (DrWorkBook 2021):

1. The oppressor group has the power to define reality for themselves and others;

2. The target groups take in and internalize the negative messages about them and end up cooperating with the oppressors (thinking and acting like them);

3. Genocide, harassment, and discrimination are systematic and institutionalized, so that individuals are not necessary to keep it going, and;

4. Members of both the oppressor and target groups are socialized to play their roles as normal and correct

HOW THE WHITE PROBLEM MANIFESTS IN THE PRACTICE OF PLANNING The White Problem in Planning manifests in a variety of ways. In this paper we demonstrate how it shows up as it relates to history, education, words, and a lack of empathy and consideration.

1. HISTORY - WHO TELLS THE STORY

Wes Lowery asked the authors about planning history, and specifically posed the following question: Who has controlled how the goals and ideals of the planning profession have been defined? History, who tells it, and what it’s like to root a plan in history are things planners should be thinking about any time they start a new project. Whether it is the “American

Dream” outlining an ideal life for white Americans or the development of the highway system, there is a part of history that is intentionally excluded.

The work of proving that racism and racist systems are part of transportation and urban planning is complex. White leadership has repressed and denied its role in this work for many years. In most conversations about creating equitable transportation systems, “the experts” planning and implementing these programs are usually white and in particular, white cisgendered men. Most of the people doing this work have little to no knowledge of the horrific historical destruction that slavery has done to Black people. They are also not aware of how that historical knowledge is paramount to the successful creation and implementation of all of their work. But this does not stop us from doing what is necessary to create equitable systems that provide safe travel and movement for BIPOC.

Transportation is the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, as it was the Montgomery Bus Boycott that started the movement. There is absolutely no way any genuine transportation policymaker, program developer, or planner can work to create change in transportation (or any other issue) and not recognize that race is at the core of this work.

2. PLANNING EDUCATION - GUARDRAILS OF THE PROFESSION

Wes Lowery stated that “Education is often the guardrails of any profession.” He asked us about planning education. Who defines the heroes of the profession? Who gets erased? How does race enter the space of how planning is taught? If you go to any academic institution’s website you will notice that the professors--especially tenured professors--are not reflective of the diversity in this country. However, they do reflect the lack of diversity in the industry. If we hope to change those in leadership and decision-making positions in the planning industry, we cannot ignore the role that academic institutions play in defining who the heroes are in the planning profession.

Planning education is rooted in heroes who are white men. Traditionally trained planners can name Robert Moses, Ebenezer Howard, and Daniel Burnham as key leaders in the profession. We were taught how Greco-Romans designed their empires. Jane Jacobs is mentioned when someone brings up women leaders in urban studies. However, planning education rarely explores the design of the BanTu States or empires of the Mayans. The contributions of Benjamin Banneker are rarely, if ever, given proper treatment, particularly that he assisted Pierre L’Enfant in designing the District of Columbia in the midst of the enslavement of Black people. We are not taught about the collaborative design of Freedmen’s towns. Transportation education does not feature the vast network of underground tunnels that Harriet Tubman and others used to get enslaved Black people to freedom as far North as Canada and as far South as Mexico.

Professors are increasingly including more equity focused work in their planning curriculum across the United States (Dill, Levine, and Barajas 2020) and Canada (Back Voices 2020). Scholars are now focusing both on the burdens that lack of access to transportation can create, as well as the benefits that viewing transportation distribution as a form of justice can bring to individuals and communities (Martens 2012). Following this scholarship, many practitioners have become more intentional about applying an equity framework to transportation decisions (Bradford 2019). In the active transportation space, there is explicit recognition of the way BIPOC people have been invisible in urban planning decisions (Agyeman 2020). While this scholarship is growing, however, there is still a large gap in mobility justice-related advocacy and research centered on the experiences of BIPOC people by BIPOC people. Black geographies scholarship is deeply impactful, but still not mentioned in planning spaces as much as it could be to deepen understandings about space and race (Brand & Miller 2020).

At a minimum, planning must be more intentional about incorporating Critical Race Theory into the field. Critical Race Theory considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which

embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order (Delgado & Stefancic 2017). Understanding and confronting racism and anti-Blackness in every aspect of planning education is essential to overcoming the white problem in planning.

3. WORDS - UNSHARED LANGUAGE

Wes Lowery stated that “often terminology is assumed to be a shared language.” He posed the following question to the authors: Are there terms that mean one thing in the white-centered planning world that may be different in BIPOC communities? Words defined by white people often mean something different to BIPOC individuals. Planners use words to give something meaning using a lens of whiteness that is irrelevant to and exclusive of the lived experience of BIPOC communities. “Safety” is one example. For many planners, “safety” means eliminating traffic-related deaths and serious injuries. Every so often people will discuss “vulnerable populations” or protecting women from street harassment. However, the murders of Elijah McClain, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown reflect how unsafe and vulnerable Black boys and men are as they move and exist in the public space. Breonna Taylor shows us that Black women cannot even expect “safety” in their own homes.

Words have meaning and language is critical in creating and implementing policies and programs that affect people’s lives. The white problem in planning around language is the lack of care and knowledge about language use and how terms are harmful to the point of causing death in BIPOC communities. Infusing equity into this work is difficult when white people must always be comfortable in order to feel like they can participate in a process. Should anything generate distress to that comfort, whiteness and fragility often result in describing the source of that distress or discomfort as problematic and dismissing it as such.

A number of the words used in the discussion of race, racism, discrimination, marginalization, or disenfranchisement are about actions and harm done to BIPOC people. Many white people in this work (and all work) that do not want to acknowledge this history feel that “times have changed for the better.” They do not value or recognize the trauma associated with being BIPOC in this country.

Furthermore, there are terms that mean different things to different communities yet are used as if they only have one meaning. For example, using words that draw on engaging the seven senses (e.g., mobility, safety, and walkable) is ableist behavior that does not acknowledge that these words might mean different things for people with disabilities.

There are a number of words and phrases that consistently show up in planning spaces that are meant to represent inclusion and present a façade of care but are actually discriminatory and exclusionary:

• Empower: The word empower is a verb and means to give someone power or the authority to do something (Oxford Dictionary). No white person can empower BIPOC communities.

This concept of “giving authority” must end as communities have always owned and always will own their power. This is a part of the domination and savior complex entrenched in all white people’s outreach programs.

• Engage: This is a verb that means to occupy, attract, or involve (Oxford Dictionary). It is a word used to interact with the community. There are no BIPOC communities that want to be occupied; they are not attracted to white-led programs and this is why they are not involved. If the goal is to work jointly on a program then the word to use is collaborate – a verb that gives neither participant leverage.

• Enforcement: This is a noun that deals with the verb of enforcing which means compelling obedience (Oxford Dictionary). When white people use the term enforcement to compel obedience, it can only mean one thing and that is the use of law enforcement or police in every

program they create. Safety as a white concept in transportation and urban planning equates police coming to the rescue. The data on law enforcement harming and killing BIPOC bodies is clear. Any program that involves providing safety for the community must eliminate any aspects of enforcement that rely on law enforcement.

• Mobility: This is a noun that refers to the ability to move or travel around easily (Oxford Dictionary).

Many planners define mobility as using forms of the transportation system to get from place to place. However, people with disabilities may define mobility as the ability to move from room to room in their own home or to enter a building or a public restroom.

• Walkability: This is a term that is often used, and the definition of which is often debated. Many planners define walkability as ease of moving from one destination to another on foot. However, a focus on walkability excludes people in wheelchairs and other mobility-assisting devices.

• Safety: This is a noun which means the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury (Oxford Dictionary). Community safety programs created by white people more often cause the harm to and killing of BIPOC. This is because of the lack of understanding and knowledge that being protected for BIPOC is not engaging with law enforcement. Even more frustrating and problematic is the lack of ability for white planners to accept that their definition of safety is not shared by BIPOC communities and that there are other ways to provide safety that are not connected to enforcement.

Wordsmithing may not solve systemic racism in the United States. But a lack of attention and inability to decenter whiteness in the language planners use prevents us from confronting racism and moving towards equity.

4. LACK OF EMPATHY AND CONSIDERATION

One of the reasons Wes Lowery was selected to facilitate our discussion and help guide this paper is the truth he examines in his book “They Can’t Kill Us All.” Although many white journalists covered protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown, Wes as a Black journalist provides a glimpse into the tension of reporting the story while also being affected personally by that story. Specifically, the authors were asked: how does the ethnic background and racial makeup of the people who hold power in planning spaces relate to the ability of the industry to be empathetic and responsive to the needs of various communities?

Not unlike Wes’s experience, we experience a tension between being a professional and implementing planning principles and being Black, with the understanding of how Blackness is perceived.

BIPOC people know that race is a major factor in our safety and in our ability to succeed as we move about our cities. Planners do not always discuss that all systems in this country are based and founded on racism and white supremacy that is harmful to Black bodies. This must be recognized and discussed in order to create change.

For many white planners, working on projects and plans is a job and maybe even a passion. However, in many plans the community is boiled down to merely numbers and percentages. Even with a lack of engagement of the community, projects march forward. Often BIPOC communities are labelled “hard to reach” because they do not engage on the terms of the planner by attending a night meeting during dinner time at a location that is not accessible by public transportation. Or the relationship between the planner and the community is transactional, where the planner engages a community for the first time around a project versus around the needs of the community.

MOVING FORWARD TO ADDRESS THE WHITE PROBLEM IN PLANNING Too many people think understanding the problem is where the work ends. Instead, understanding a problem is the first step in moving beyond it. There then have to be concrete actions taken to change course and do things differently. Everyone has a role to play in dismantling the white problem in planning. Those who are not racialized or members of oppressed groups cannot fade into the

background and put this work on the shoulders of BIPOC planners, planners with disabilities, queer planners, or any other planners in marginalized groups. Too often these planners are asked to do the free labor of serving as a bridge. This is particularly true for planners at multiple intersections of historically oppressed identities, and Black women often lead the way. We are tired. Our backs are weary. How can you help? During the interview, we explored several calls to action, resulting in the four suggestions outlined below.

1. CREATE AND CULTIVATE BRAVE SPACES

Any spaces created must recognize that we do not own this land and honor the Indigenous people whose land was stolen and is now being occupied. Upon acknowledgement, collaboration with Indigenous people, and acceptance of this fact, one must then work to create spaces that are inclusive of all and provide the tools necessary for all to fully participate and to self-determine their own outcomes and goals. It should be noted that ensuring accessibility of these spaces for people with disabilities is an essential outcome.

Brave spaces are created and maintained by a transparent commitment to practices that allow difference and celebrate new forms of action and strategy (Sisk et. al 2020). This requires that those with privilege show up in professional planning spaces as their full selves and with vulnerability. Gone are the days of seeking out safe or comfortable spaces. Instead, courage is needed to bravely exhibit open vulnerability. This means taking risks, making mistakes, taking responsibilities for wrongdoing, and continuing to try--not freezing in inaction from fear of getting it wrong. Black women do not have the privilege to separate their personal and professional lives. Everywhere we go, we are Black. Those in power see it and use it against us with racist tropes and unreasonable expectations (Asare 2021). So those with the privilege to separate their personal and professional lives must find a way to be their full selves in each space, embrace their fears, push through insecurities, and take part in dismantling the White Planning Problem.

2. CONFRONT POWER AND PRIVILEGE

Urban planners must push against conscious and unconscious practices that perpetuate inequities and marginalize BIPOC communities. This calls for confronting and shifting existing power and privilege through open conversations that are based in truth and reconciliation. The association for the planning profession issued a charge consistent with this call in 2019, saying: “Planners need to examine and become aware of their own blind spots and implicit biases, and their relationship and intersectionality with power and privilege in the societal and organizational structures” (APA 2019).

In 2020, people engaged in deep conversations about structural and systemic racism in all aspects of life. This is the first part of moving toward an end to systems of racism and oppression, and must continue. Many want to just get to that place of ease and put this all behind them. They do not understand that it took hundreds of years for the United States to get to this point and there are no “quick fixes” for dismantling these horrific and harmful systems. It is like being in any relationship where someone who has been harmed desires an apology prior to resolution.

This work must start with a process of truth and reconciliation where the oppressors (white people) acknowledge the harm done to BIPOC communities and the people who make up these communities. Until there is recognition and acceptance of structural and systemic racism in this work, progress will not be explicit or accomplished. The paradigm of white privilege encompasses the fact that white people hold the power and until that power is released there will be no end to racism.

Practically, for any planning policy or process being considered those involved should ask two questions: 1) who will be most impacted by this, and 2) are the most impacted people part of the group making the decision? If the answer to the second question is not yes, this is a clear indication that there is a power and privilege imbalance. This is a problem--a white problem. It must be challenged and confronted and any decision should be questioned and reassessed.

Focusing on the most impacted populations, while not as common as it ought to be in the planning profession, is smart planning. The road user most vulnerable to injury is one waiting to cross the street. When traffic engineers time a crosswalk signal to allow people with limited mobility to cross the street safely, then all road users benefit. BIPOC individuals, who have been denied power and privilege, live in communities which are over-policed and underinvested in. If white planners want initiatives to yield better blocks, neighborhoods, cities and regions, centering the aspirations and needs of BIPOC people is the first step.

3. EXAMINE AND END INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM IN ALL AREAS OF THE INDUSTRY

Achieving equity will not occur without talking about race. We must start with race. We cannot say that Black Lives Matter, hire Chief Equity Officers, start diversity task forces, and proclaim that our work is not racist if we are not willing to discuss racism and how it appears in our projects, organizations, and individual actions. The twin crises of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism have shown us that structural racism impacts everything — from who has access to healthcare, to who is privileged to work from home, to who gets to exercise on their neighborhood “slow street” free of fear of death. If you say you care about equity yet are afraid to mention race, then you are not truly committed to this work. Wanting to believe racism does not exist will not make it disappear.

If that makes people uncomfortable and want to retreat to conversations about diversity and inclusion, then that is a problem--a white problem. Now it is more important than ever that planners understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not interchangeable terms. Moreover, inclusivity is not just everyone feeling like they belong.

“This is 2020. If that is your definition of inclusion, you are behind. To catch up, realize that true inclusion requires a shift in power. Diverse people are beyond just needing a seat at the table, we need to be at the head of that table. Beyond that, we need to have full participation, decision-making power and culture-setting ability to tell people who are used to having a seat at the table to pick up their chair and meet

the community wherever they are — including the corner, the temple, the stoop, and even on the bus. Inclusion means that people can show up as their full selves, with dignity, and with the ability to guide, lead and wield power with anti-racism firmly centered” (Butler 2020). Professional associations can be agitators for ending institutionalized racism. For example, in 2020 the medical profession recognized racism as a threat to public health and issued a policy declaring police brutality to be “a manifestation of structural racism disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous, and other people of color” (AMA 2020). The association further committed to advocating for policing reform and community-driven public safety practices.

For planners, the American Planning Association (APA) and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) have significant influence over the policy and practice within institutions that carry out planning functions. In fact, the AICP Code of Ethics includes language upon which the profession can build out a strategy to end institutionalized racism within the planning field. The code states: “We shall seek social justice by working to expand choice and opportunity for all persons, recognizing a special responsibility to plan for the needs of the disadvantaged and to promote racial and economic integration. We shall urge the alteration of policies, institutions, and decisions that oppose such needs” (AICP 2021). However, when urged by a 2020 open letter from hundreds of planners to call for the defunding of police generally, and particularly in the context of planning-related initiatives, the association declined to take on this issue (Planetizen 2021).

Moreover, APA and AICP provide continuing education and thought leadership for the profession. What if the webinars, newsletters, and journals produced by these organizations consistently included a focus on the ways that planners explore the impact of historic racial injustice on BIPOC communities and ways to orient planning strategies toward ending institutionalized racism? What if national conferences and other high-profile activities of the associations made a public commitment (backed by

a strategic plan) to build their efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, and move toward an explicit focus on ending institutionalized racism? This would certainly go a long way in beginning to address the white problem in planning.

4. REVISE THE PLANNING CURRICULUM

This is the moment to educate current planning students on the role that BIPOC people have had in building cities, as well as the systematic oppression of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. A first step is to examine the curriculum of core classes of undergraduate and graduate planning programs. This examination of curricula should be grounded in the wisdom, voice, and innovative ideas of current BIPOC students, alumni, scholars, and practitioners. This examination should explore the extent to which the curriculum includes scholarship of BIPOC academics and references history of urban development from communities from the continents of Africa, Central America, and South America.

Planning programs often include content intended to prepare students for professional practice. What if this content reflected the wisdom and experience of BIPOC planners and community members? For example, case studies highlighted in planning courses would lift up BIPOC-led city-building efforts. Studio courses and professional projects would focus on serving BIPOC leaders as clients. Centering BIPOC voices and experiences early in the education of the urban planner is an antidote to the whiteness problem of urban planning. This approach would yield cohorts of emerging planning professionals prepared to confront power and privilege in the academic setting and ready them to bravely take an active role in dismantling the racist institutions that guide the profession.

In addition to a reorientation of the planning curriculum, another important area of focus is research affiliated with planning programs. Many planning students receive their initial professional experience through academic research centers. Moreover, research from these centers informs the point of view that planners develop about BIPOC communities and the members of these communities. What if these centers focused on advancing research that includes approaches such as participatory action research and disaggregating data by race, both of which include a focus on highlighting data and trends as they impact BIPOC people? These actions would help to ensure that the planning academy contributes to ending the white problem in planning.

CONCLUSION

“We were trying to wake the country up and wake the world up too…. How can you ask someone to live in the world and not have something to say about injustice?” – John Carlos (Carter Magazine) This quote is from an interview about the Black Power protest executed by Tommie Smith, Gold medal winner, and John Carlos, Bronze medal winner, at the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico City. The image of these two men is iconic as they stand on the podium with their medals around their necks, multiple symbols of activism to “wake up the world,” their eyes to the ground and black leather gloved fists held high in the air. That pose is a sign created by the Black Panther Self-Defense Party that means Black Power and is still used today. This act of intelligent, enlightening, and peaceful demonstration was met with anger, backlash, and years of pain for both men.

This moment of using an opportune time--being on a platform in front of the world--to tell their truth cost these two heroic Black men dearly. It is one example of the pain, anguish, and trauma many Black people go through every day as they work to convince white people that almost every system in this country that exists was created by white land-owning racist men and therefore is harmful to Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. This is acutely the case in trying to create and implement equity within the field of planning.

As highly educated, worldly, and renowned activists, planners, policy and change makers, we are four Black women who are respected for our prose and organizational and people skills and seen as competent and successful leaders in our respective fields. We are the epitome of the phrase “Black Women get things done.” But for the many years that we have been involved in transportation policy

and urban planning, we have been the object of ridicule, harassed for telling our truth, and questioned about our knowledge and descriptions of the tyranny that is embedded in this work and the workforce. We have also been the victims of racism and racist systems for daring to bring this language and these beliefs to the forefront of our work. Like Smith and Carlos, we have endured the mockery, backlash, and anger by many--particularly white people. This is a problem--a white problem.

The work that is starting today--because of the horrific pandemic we are trying to survive and the horrible shootings and murders of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and too many other precious lives lost to name-- builds on a foundation created over many years by numerous BIPOC activists. This is the beginning of work that must have a strategy with long term plans, because it took centuries for this country to be aroused and it will take many years to bring this to an end.

It is always the right moment to educate the planning students who will lead tomorrow and the people in offices today about the systematic oppression of people of color. This is the moment to look at the racism institutionalized into our nonprofits, planning firms, academic institutions, and government agencies, and hire a workforce that reflects the diversity of our communities at every level and in every position. This is the moment to invest in continual and consistent education of our employees. When we allow our colleagues and ourselves to live in isolation from those most impacted by our work, our language reflects this and our work lacks impact.

If people in the planning industry want to tackle the white problem in planning, they should start by listening to Black women. We are often the most impacted, but also the most ignored. We’re told to calm down and are painted with stereotypes because people assume we simply do not understand how things work. This devalues and dismisses our lived experiences and ignores the fact that we often have to have twice the technical skills of our non-Black female counterparts to even matter. Rather than dismissing us and our ideas while riding on our backs as bridges, those in planning should start by first considering that we do know how things work, we have ideas, and we are here to help. We might do things differently than you are used to, but different is not always wrong. In fact, to overcome the foundation of white supremacy that planning is built upon, doing things differently is a must.

We invite all planning professionals wondering how to think about equity — and those trying to ignore equity — to consider this article and the ideas presented in it, integrate them into your work, and make yourself realize that the time to do what is right, just, and equitable is always right now.

As a result of being sick and tired of serving as the bridge and having to explain our Blackness to everyone along the way, many of us have moments of resonating deeply with Ruskin when she says later in her poem: “I will not be the bridge to your womanhood. Your manhood. Your human-ness.” Planning has a problem--a white problem. We will not be the bridge to you recognizing that problem or our value. You must do the work to be part of the solution. Get off of our backs.

END NOTES

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2 Community change and resident needs Designing a Participatory Action Research study in Metropolitan Boston | Elsevier Enhanced Reader. Retrieved March 22, 2021 from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1353829218300716

3 Unlocking the Insights of Disaggregated Data | PolicyLink. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.policylink.org/equity-in-action/webinars/ disaggregating-data_8-19-20

4 Confronting Power and Privilege. Tamika Butler. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from: https://tamikabutler.medium.com/confronting-power-and-privilege3ba686a504ce

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors attest that they have no financial interest in the materials and subjects discussed in this article.