Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee

The CRC Fights for Inclusion and Equity for All

Pictured here are four CRC members during a mediation training session. Vanessa Clarke (top), Arun Nair (right), Bonnie Foster (bottom), Yvette Townsend-Ingram (left)

By Angela Lindsay

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee (CRC) has been diligently advocating for the people who live in the Charlotte region for the past 60 years. The CRC works to prevent discrimination and build harmony by advocating for diversity, equity and access for all.

“Many of the challenges that our community faced decades ago are still happening now and CRC’s work remains critical,” said CRC executive director Willie Ratchford, who has worked with the group for 41 years, including 27 as executive director. “CRC’s mission, in part, is to ameliorate the current effects of past and present discrimination and racism,” he said.

During the national civil rights movement in the 1960’s, Charlotte Mayor Stanford R. Brookshire bolstered the local efforts to guarantee equal protection under the law for all by transforming the Friendly Relations Committee to the Mayor’s Community Relations Committee (now the CRC) to help improve race relations. The 45-member team is comprised of professional staff members and volunteers who are appointed by the mayor, Charlotte City Council and the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners.

When mounting tensions were bubbling up throughout the country in the 1960s as Black people demanded justice and equality, like many other

Vanessa Clarke is the Chairperson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee.

Willie Ratchford is the Executive Director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee.

cities and regions in the country, Charlotte experienced its share of tensions brought on by civil rights protests and negative responses. “During this period, Committee members and staff often found themselves in the role of mediators between opposing groups,” Ratchford wrote in a 2018 CRC newsletter. “As a resident of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community, you have rights,” he said.

To help ensure that Charlotte area residents maintain their rights, the CRC accepts formal complaints from Charlotte residents who feel they have been discriminated against in housing.

The Fair Housing staff of the CRC document and investigate citizens' complaints and conduct standardized testing of alleged violators' facilities. The staff work with the appropriate state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help resolve the complaints.

“When someone is in the midst of a housing crisis … they are often already at a breaking point,” CRC Chairperson Vanessa Clarke said. “There is no more mental energy to expend,” she said. “For those people, the CRC has and continues to be here for them.”

The CRC, along with the City of Charlotte Office of Equity, Mobility and Immigrant Integration and four other community groups issued a statement in support of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in response to the surge in violence against those groups. “We will work across our community to create a more equitable and inclusive Charlotte-Mecklenburg where violence is not a part of our ethics or our values,” the statement says. It also says: “We must turn our pain and grief into action, our words into advocacy and acceptance, and our divisions into community.”

“One challenge that continues to impact our community and the work of the CRC is the multiple divides that seem to be so prevalent in our country and in our community,” Ratchford said. “We have moved away from having different opinions to having different facts,” he added. “Recent events, like the George Floyd verdict, have made us all aware. If we are smart, we will use this awareness as a foundation and platform to move to actions that will honor and protect us all, regardless of identity.”

Clarke says she wants community members to know that the CRC staff and volunteers, who are also from Charlotte neighborhoods, are passionately working toward creating a community that is equally enjoyable for all.

“The word community is more than just a part of our name,” Ratchford said. “The CRC remains committed to building a more fair and just community that supports constructive dialogue, increases understanding, inspires action and promotes harmony.” P

It’s never been easier to Get the Facts About Senior Living

at Windsor Run

Order your FREE brochure to discover all the amazing benefits of Windsor Run, Matthews’ premier senior living community. It’s packed with over 40 pages of information about apartment homes, amenities, financial value, and more. Order your FREE brochure today!

Call 1-800-983-7609or visit us at WindsorRunCommunity.com.

We’ve got a brand-new look! Windsor Run has updated our logo. We’re the same great community with a fresh, new look and feel! Matthews WindsorRunCommunity.com

14649956

Facing Down Hate

Against the AAPI Community

By Vanessa Clarke

AAPI Hate FAST FACTS

Here is Lynn Lorenzo-Polk (middle) as a young girl with her mom (sitting), dad (top) and four siblings in the Philippines. Lynn Lorenzo-Polk (right) and her friend, Del Fallar, protest anti-AAPI hate in Marshall Park in Charlotte.

Over the past several years, smartphones and social media have played an incredible part in bringing justice to victims of hate crimes. People around the world have seen, in what may be one of the most prominent cases of social media influence, the video of the George Floyd killing which inspired millions of people around the world to stand together. That video transformed social media from a place to vent about microaggressions to a place where egregious crimes against humanity are reported.

Although hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders increased by nearly 150% during the pandemic, hate crimes against the AAPI community in the U.S. predate this latest rise in violence.

The Center for the Study of Hate Crimes and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, examined hate crimes in 16 of the largest U.S. cities in March and reported that while such crimes in 2020 decreased by 7 percent, hate crimes targeting Asian people rose by nearly 150 percent. "I don't think that there's anything new with the kind of racism that's been targeted at Asian Pacific Islanders," Tyler Diep, a former California politician and Vietnamese immigrant, told Voice of America in May. The difference is that the media and people in the U.S. are paying more attention to it, he said.

The City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County released a proclamation supporting the AAPI community in April. More than 67,000 members of the AAPI community live in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, the proclamation states. Signed by Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and George Dunlap, chairman of Mecklenburg County commissioners, the proclamation says: “Collectively, we condemn violence, hate and discrimination, and stand against harmful acts whenever they occur, because as a community, an attack on one is an attack on all.”

3,800

The number of hate incidents reported against Asian Americans from March 2020 - March 2021

Source: Stop AAPI Hate

150%

The percent in which hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders increased during the pandemic.

Source: The Center for the Study of Hate Crimes and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino

Hate hits close to home

A member of the Charlotte area’s AAPI community, Lynn Lorenzo-Polk, lives a peaceful life with her husband of over 20 years, Jim Polk, and spends her time gardening. Lorenzo-Polk, a retired pharmacist and Gastonia, N.C. resident, emigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines over 40 years ago after her husband of 12 years died. She moved from Buffalo, N.Y. to North Carolina for a new start.

Lorenzo-Polk said she was a shy and quiet woman before she was involved in a traumatic car accident that transformed her. That’s when she discovered that “God had a purpose for her,” she said. She then became an activist and advocate for rape victims, literacy and anti-racism. Lorenzo-Polk has volunteered with such

“Of all the good that the law can do, we have to change our hearts. We have to change the hearts of the American people. Hate can be given no safe harbor in America.”

—President Joe Biden

organizations as the Women's Shelter of the Gaston County Democratic Center and the Domestic Violence and Rape Crises Center. She is also a former president of the Filipino-American Community of the Carolinas, Inc. (FACC).

Once when Lorenzo-Polk was walking through an area mall, she passed a group of teenagers and one of them spit at her, Lorenzo-Polk said. Instead of walking away in shame, she ran up the stairs after them as they tried to get away. Once she caught up to them, she recognized that, “these were kids and probably learned that type of behavior at home,” she said. Lorenzo-Polk decided to use this as a teaching moment.

“Just because you are white and I am brown, does not mean that you are better than me,” she told them. After she shared a little more of her thoughts with these young people, they seemed to understand and then apologized to Lorenzo-Polk. “Then I was greeted with applause from the crowd that had gathered around,” she said. Lorenzo-Polk did not report the crime to authorities.

Recently in 2021, a white woman who was not wearing a mask and was not maintaining appropriate social distancing from Lorenzo-Polk, yelled that she did not have to wear a mask and told Lorenzo-Polk to “go back home to China.” Lorenzo-Polk calmly told the woman, “I am not from China, I’m from the Philippines. We are in a pandemic, so please keep your 6 feet distance.” No place for hate in America

President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act in May, making it the first action Congress has taken to address the increase in attacks against Asian Americans that have happened during the pandemic.

Vice President Kamala Harris, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica and India, spoke before she introduced the President during the ceremony. “I have seen how hate can impede our progress. And I have seen how people uniting against hate can strengthen our country,” Harris said.

“Of all the good that the law can do, we have to change our hearts,” Biden said during the anti-Asian hate crimes bill signing ceremony. “We have to change the hearts of the American people. “Hate can be given no safe harbor in America.” P

Lynn Lorenzo-Polk and her husband, Jim Polk, Jr.

Compassionate Care for Women

Rochelle Monique Brandon, MD

Mallard Crossing Medical Park 10310 Mallard Creek Road - Suite 101D Charlotte, NC 28262-4563 704.510.1600

www.brandongynecology.com

ENTREPRENEURS WORTH WATCHING

CUSTOM SCHOOL APPAREL

704.966.6064 NatalieNataliaCo.com