 All right. Thank you. I am calling to order the African heritage reparation assembly meeting of Monday, August 21st at 201 PM with the extension of chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. We'll do a quick sound check to make sure everybody can hear and be heard and I'm going to start with you, Dr. Rhodes. I can be I can hear everyone and I can see everyone. Great. And we can hear you. Ms. Bridges. I can see everyone. I'm sorry. You can't see me, but just that's the way it is. We can hear you well. If you can hear me, I can certainly see you. All right. Awesome. And Dr. Shabazz, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Okay. And you can be heard and Hala. Oh, yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Absolutely. All right. Excellent. I love your neck. Is that a necklace, Hala? It's beautiful. Very powerful. Okay, so thank you. I know that Yvonne is unable to join today and Alexis was going to try to join us at some point. So we will certainly keep our eye out for Alexis. I am going to begin by reviewing just some general timeline information. So I sent a message stating that I hope that today will be our final day of deliberations. And this will give Mattia and I the opportunity over the next week before our meeting on the 28th to finalize a draft that we, I will hope be able to approve at least to the most extent that we can approve it on next Monday. And so I just before saying any more about that, I just want to pause and see if folks have any questions or concerns about that particular timeline. All right, great. So I should also add that Dr. Rhodes and I are scheduled to meet with Paul Backelman, the town manager, the town council president, as well as the chair of the finance committee on Monday, the 28th. We'll be meeting prior to our meeting. So that is the one piece that we'll still have to deal with at Monday's meeting next Monday's meeting and I've already alerted Mattia to that. So for just to give us sort of a look ahead at our next meeting, ideally we would approve a draft report. And then the report will be, as I said in the message I sent my mother in law who has worked on our graphics previously has agreed to work on the visuals for our report. So I would very much love to hear from members with respect to any particular visuals that you think would be important to include this can include pictures, it can include other graphs or other images that you think might support whatever is written in the report. And then I'd also like to approve next week when we meet if possible a media plan. I think it's really important that we as a committee are unified in whatever media plan we might we might have for when the report is published. So I have some thoughts and ideas and I also welcome your thoughts and ideas to that discussion next meeting. Are there any questions about any of that. Yes, Miss Burgess. You, what exactly are you meeting with Paul and Lynn about the draft that we're approving. Oh, so I heard the guidance here of the assembly I have not shared the latest draft with any leadership will be meeting with them specifically about the fund. So the recommendation that we have on the fund will last week we talked about the two abilities. So we'll just be meeting with them regarding that piece of the report. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. All right, any other questions or comments regarding any of that. All right, excellent. So, um, today I reviewed the report I reviewed some other information that I wanted to share with the group. And with all of that, I think there are some items that are going to be quick to go through, I think that I'm going to start with. But I would like to say that I think the biggest piece of our conversation today is related to the eligibility. So we have in our report defined a philosophy on eligibility, it is visualized with concentric circles. And it's important that this committee has a discussion about how it sees that eligibility criteria being grounded into the municipal reparations planned that we're proposing. So that will be sort of the bulk of our discussion but before that I just I wanted to go through a few other pieces. Starting here with the intro of our report. So, has everyone at this point had a chance to look through the report to some extent, the latest draft. Okay, great. Ms. Bridges, your hand is still up. I'm just checking with you. Okay. No worries. Okay. So, I, as I was reviewing some information. In particular, I've been and I highly recommend this book by the way and I don't know if you can see it but because I'm blur I have a blurred screen. It's called The Black Reparations Project. It's the latest publication by Dr. Darity and Kirsten Mullen. And it's a really interesting and very, very smart read and one of the things that I think I would like to include if there's no objection in our intro is information regarding the sort of trajectory of the, the national report for reparations and our own institution here UMass has conducted I think two polls now more recently regarding that and so Dr. Darity has some of that information in the book and I was hoping that we could just to show how the support for reparations has grown over the past 20 years or so and there are some important surveys that have been conducted that we can reference. Is there any objection to that including something, some language regarding that in the report? Okay, great. And then let's see here I made a list for myself. Okay, we do I'm flagging that we, and I should have said this when I first started next week we will need to finalize the committee charge that we hope to include as an in the appendix of our report. And that is our primary one of our primary recommendations. So just to consider how you envision that committee to look, and you can always look at other charges that are available on the town's website. And look at our own charge here. But I think what's important is to decide what we're recommending in terms of composition of the committee, and what the charge of the committee will be, and, and the purpose of the committee. So that's something that I'm not going to take the time now to go through but if you could take a look at it in the draft report and provide feedback either via email or for next week that would be great. So, one other important actually I'm sorry I'm skipping okay. I had made a note in the draft about including some language, particularly in the intro from Dr. Darity himself. And I wanted to share with you something from his book actually with Amherst is mentioned here in his book in this latest book. And in, in here he is discussing how a municipal, a municipality could never properly fully make recommend, make reparations. A town would not have according to Dr. Darity, the funds available to properly compensate residents. And so what he says about Amherst is Amherst, Massachusetts making overtures to replicate Evanston's program has a smaller eligible black population of about 2,000 persons, even so it would need 600 million to erase the racial wealth gap while having a current town budget of 85 million. And he's based on his, his estimations on what it would take for to bridge the racial wealth disparity for an individual which in his book he says is 300,000. I'm curious what I thought that was a really interesting piece of information that he included in this book and just the discussion overall and I'm wondering if folks would be open to really putting that out there, you know, directly in the report in the introduction of the report and in referencing Dr. Darity, and then it would move into why we believe that municipal reparations is why we support it. Dr. Rhodes. Yeah, let me see. Can you hear me? Yes. All right, so I, you know, that quote is, is fine but I really want to make sure that everything that we start off with. And that is Amherst specific that people know we're talking about amherst. I can see that reference being made later on but I certainly cannot see it being made in the first page or two because again, people from Amherst want to hear about what we think about amherst. And yes, the other parts that play into it is the national scene, but you know, if I'm Joe blow out there in the street. Hey, I don't want to hear it. I want to know what we're doing here in Amherst and why we are doing it here at Amherst. Okay, let me just make sure I understand. So I think what you're saying Dr. Rhodes is that the piece about the national growth in support for reparations is something that you don't see necessarily being included upfront in center in our introduction. Yes. How do you feel about the place where I've marked perhaps we referenced Dr. Darity's work. I thought this was a good way using the quote from his book. That was a good way to sort of tie it to Amherst. But is that separate from your thought about the overall national support, or do you are you saying that you'd like for both of those to come at a later point in the report. Again, I just that an opening paragraphs, the opening pages, etc, really have to be for my from my point of view, focus upon us here in Amherst and what we are doing and why we're doing it. Okay. Well, I think Dr. Shabazz maybe was going to add to that as well. Dr. Shabazz. Sorry about that. I had a guest. Dr. Shabazz, did you want to add to that or were you The only thing that I would add is that as well my concept for the introduction as well is to really hone in on our, our work, our efforts to educate and to develop a commitment to reparations. And the kind of tie in. I really think necessary to address in the intro if we're in agreement is that we hope that what we propose and what if, as the town adopts a municipal reparations plan along the lines of what our report provides, that it will make a contribution toward the realizing of the, of a black reparations initiative or project nationwide and the specifics about the funding piece of this could be, you know, developed could be mentioned in the section of our report where we go into our funding recommendations and in order to kind of clearly situate why the $2 million kind of endowment fund. And whatever other initiatives that the town can muster through CPA, or through other financial sources to help advance the reparative justice proposals where we make, and that the community will make in the future that that is not. comprehensive, full or true reparations. And then that is a point where the, the, the, the dirty quote or whatever could be, you know, or that we could reference that as part of the argument that we clearly understand that the, the piece we're recommending here will not make whole the 2000 or so black residents, it will not restore the dignity, it will not, it does not acknowledge the harm, the intergenerational harm that has been experienced at the magnitude that it must be. Okay, and I think that would be perfect there but I think in our, in our introduction to the plan itself, it should be more about highlighting the nature of of our work the nature of the project as we, as we received, as we were charged by the town and as we are here to deliver this very succinctly. That really resonates with me. And I think that's a rather very skillful way of including it to support why the funding that we have is not, is not nearly adequate. So, I very much support that. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. And Ms. Bridges, I did see that your hand was up before I come back to Irv. I just wanted to check in with you. Hi, just was when after Shabazz spoke I was just before he spoke and what Irv and he was talking about with Sandy. I just, I, because he was, went to school, he was in Amherst for years. I just wanted to agree that yet that his quotes should be included. I'm not, I'm not quite sure if it should be. I was for it being in the introduction just because of it being him, just because of his book just because he's from Amherst. And, but I guess it can be put in either way but I think it really should be included. Awesome. Yeah. And maybe there's a way to do both actually without coming away from our central purpose that we have any production. Great. Yeah. And, you know, I Dr. Shabazz on Black in the Valley last week was talking about the report that I think I've shared with the committee that Dr. Darity was involved in when he was living in Amherst. And I did wonder about whether we wanted to include that in the appendix. I've sent that to you all, but that's a that's a side piece and you can approve or not that when you see the final report. Dr. Rhodes, is your hand still up or okay. Yes, it is. And as you can well imagine this whole committee stuff has come front and center. And I am under siege at this point in time with things that I got to deal with. And not only that I am remarkably saddened by the situation, more depressed than I thought I would ever be about a situation. So I got to sign off, but I got some things I got to deal with. Okay, Dr. Rhodes, no problem at all. Great. I wish you we wish you the best with that and thank you. Thank you for being a leader in that situation. Thank you guys. Okay, Ms. Bridges is your hand. Yeah, I just wanted to ask one more thing. Is this I mean to put Sandy's words and whatever is this something that we need to ask him if it's okay to do, or we can just go ahead and do it. I think that's a really good question. So I've been in touch with Dr. Darity, and he knows I have the book and he, he knows I've read it and I think if I think given, I think because he like you said Ms. Bridges grew up here and has this connection here. It feels like it would be important to just at least to at least let him know I think if it was somebody else, and we were doing this report, it probably we can quote really whoever we want to if it's already in their book and like, you know, but I think that there's just a piece that you're probably feeling and and so I, I have been in touch with him. I think he's probably expecting that will include some quotes from his book, but I can certainly let him know again. Yeah, I saw a sister of the weekend. Oh, wow. She's trying to get him to come up here shortly. Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Dr. Shabazz is your hand currently raised. Yes, I am. I haven't seen the text you're referring, you're referencing Michelle so I'm not sure what's going on but up until now, at least I thought the figure was 800,000 per eligible person 300 is a substantial come down so I'm a little worried in terms of, you know, kind of what I need to read up a little bit or understand better what's going on. Not that it matters specifically to the question of, you know, the quote or how we engage the quote but I am a little concerned with what may be that that we're that some things may be changing that I'm not that I'm not aware of. That's all. Yes. So, I will send you. In fact, Dr. Shabazz, I have a copy of this for you. But it's it's page 201 of this newest book local reparations and he says to illustrate this we assume conservatively that the average payout per individual needed to bridge the racial wealth disparity is 300,000. There is a footnote here so I'll make sure you get this so that, you know, because I think I also thought that number seemed lower than what I had previously heard so and maybe I'm missing something here so I'll make sure you see it. So that that's good. Okay. All right, there was one other piece that we haven't discussed as a committee that I think deserves some discussion here in terms of a possible recommendation. And this is health and health disparities, and we haven't spoken in our report to health or to public health or to the state of public health and Amherst, or to how we see this influencing black residents in Amherst. So I just jumped on and looked at the board of health and I wanted to share with you quickly. Let me see if I can just give me one second here. Here we go. Okay. So the board of health has a statement that they released. Can everyone see my screen. Yes. Okay. In 2021 the board of health released a statement of on racism and public health. And they made some sort of. They made some recommendations in terms of actions that the community might take regarding race and public health. And one of those actions was to put together a community assessment which they have completed as of June and I've just requested from the former chair of the public health a copy of that. I haven't seen the final report. I'm not sure if others here have had a chance to see it through other work that you're involved with. But I'm wondering what this committee feels about at least supporting in our report, this statement on racism and public health and then also potentially pulling something from the community assessment. And I just so I just want to open the floor up for discussion on this. And as I do that, I'm going to email this to you all right now. And so the floor is open. I'm going to stop sharing. Actually, I'll keep sharing so you can take a look. So any comments on including health or the support of this in our report. And Jennifer, I just, I don't know if you're still there, but I know we've, we've, I think we've spoken about health as well. So if there's anything that you wanted to add, I really would much appreciate your input. Dr. Shabazz. Oh, Jennifer, were you did. No, I was saying I'm here. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but I feel like we've spoken about this more than once. And so I just, if you had anything that and it doesn't have to be now, but if there was any input that you had on this, I would be grateful for you to share it with the committee. Will do. Thank you. Okay. Dr. Shabazz. Yeah, the only thing that I'm sort of specifically interested in relative to the, the comments. I like the idea of endorsing and supporting this initiative or, or these recommendations from the public health so I'll answer that part of your question with a with a resounding. Yes. I'm only thinking of how we might then further go a little further than what's presented here to towards specifically looking at black and looking even more particularly at the issues of health. To having experienced intergenerational exposure to from slavery on down to to contemporary racism. And two things come to mind as maybe part of the additional study or discussion that might take place in the future. And one is looking at the, the report that came out from Johns Hopkins Medical, along with Cobra, that it's in our genes, not saying the exact correct title of it, but I would like for future work done around public health and around racism as a public health emergency to, to look at that document to study that document and to think about what the implications might be to our health care policy and public health policy and, and in our various town departments. Secondly, the idea specifically of slavery post traumatic slavery syndrome has been discussed and debated a lot. And I think the joy to try a work has, you know, I think was even referenced in the California task force statewide task force and some, you know, that could even be an additional place to look at what some of their deliberations in California around the idea. There's pros and cons to, to the idea that certain kinds of intergenerational stressors were are developed and passed on through the through society of that have roots in slavery, but I just would say if there's a way to perhaps in, in the statement around our support for this initiative and these recommendations to also call for more specific look at the intergenerational dynamics, specifically of anti black racism. Excellent. Yeah. That's great. And I was just trying to find the report I did read that when it was released in 2021 and it was very powerful. And as soon as I find it, I will send that to the committee as well as to Mattia. Thank you. Are there any other comments at this time about health when I have I just sent you the, the statement from the board of health so that you'll have that and then when I have the community assessment from Nancy, I will also send that along. One additional, please. Yeah, that I'm thinking about relative to the work that you all put together in reparations for hammers and Anita sorrow findings and as well as ash part well when they attempted to find data, and they could find nothing or found very little that was disaggregated to the question of a black exposure or or or black differential differentials relative to the whole that we just don't have that kind of disaggregation by ethnicity by ethnic or racial ethnic background. So it would seem to me, perhaps we will that if we could see language that would try to capture that point in terms of recommending that our health authorities here locally, at least explore ways to try and track and capture this data, whether at the community center, whether in other activities. I think there's nothing about it that would make it illegal, particularly if it's voluntary if itself reported. I can see no downsides to it. People don't want to there. Nobody's holding a gun to their head to disclose how they how they might identify, but it's simply to provide the opportunity that if folks want to identify that they are black, if they are of, you know, of from the background of as a free as a free black person in this society from from their genealogy. And, you know, it then kind of dovetails the work that we're talking about supporting through the Jones library or through whatever research centers that enable us to kind of get a picture of the, the genealogy the background of who live here, who were who are in that in that first circle in that first second circle of of our concentric circles in terms of families that tree that goes back to the era of shadow slavery that and and we're in fact, an ancestor who experienced shadow slave enslavement, it would go along with that to kind of track where where people are reporting if they care to report that that they are from from such a background or not. Absolutely. Miss bridges. Um, I just wanted to ask. She was are you talking about when you're talking about the bank center. I know ash very well. But when you're talking about the bank center are you talking about the people, the members, the seniors. To report what if they're from that if they're black if they're whatever because we have they have because not really downstairs and not really with them I helped them before that I work for directly with Mary Mary best but they have when we put members in. When they first become a member. Part of that when we're putting their name their date of birth is their race. So, is that is that what you're talking about. You know, thank you for the question. I think the senior center, and even other agencies all across the board. It would be good to have an inventory of which ones do what you're describing the senior center does and which ones don't. And to kind of recommend that that yeah, we might all provide that opportunity for folks to self disclose if they wish. I really had in mind I guess what is it called the most anti the most anti health center I really had in mind more that when I reference the bangs not not so much. You know, the senior center operation but you raise a good point and it's good to know that data is already being collected at least on the level of race. I think that finally I'll say this. I'm wondering if we may ponder the way and I can talk to Chiara and look a little more into it, but ways in which one can very succinctly also identify that they believe they have an ancestor who was enslaved I know. In Florida, they use the term free people and freedmen and freed women that they come from the free people. There are others that are using historical black American, there are some that that are using ancestral black American to signal that they are here for multiple generations that go back to before 1865. But whatever that language might be maybe that is is the additional piece that we might want to recommend as part of an Amherst plan that all agencies consider, you know, even in addition to asking how people identify may wish to identify specifically or ethnically, how do they specifically identify if do they specifically identify as having African ethnic heritage that goes back to the era of enslavement or an ancestor who was enslaved. Dr. Shabazz, thank you for that and Miss Bridges, I just I want to pause us for a moment. We normally have two periods of public comment I haven't called the first, and I see Matias hand is up in the audience. I want to check with Matia because she is so thoughtfully observing all of our meetings and just want to make sure. I'm not sure if she's coming in for public comment or for sort of more of a technical issue. I also see that Jennifer's hand is raised and I have the same thought about checking in with Jennifer. So let me check in with you Jennifer and then I'm going to call public comment, and I'm going to take Matia first and we'll see what Matia has Jennifer. Okay, so I was just going to say that I'm on the board of the Hilltown community health centers and so that information is voluntary, but I don't know how they go about giving it out to the community so I can find that out. Excellent. Thank you. That would be great. Okay, so while we bring Matia in I'm going to just read the public comment statement. And I will say there's just a couple people in the audience and so if we need a second period of public comment I'd be happy to call it later in the meeting if somebody else arrives or if somebody else would like to speak again but maybe consider this our double up here on our public comment for today. And let me read that during the public comment period the chair will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself state your name pronouns and address residents are welcome to express views for up to three minutes and we normally do not engage, although in this case we may clarify or answer questions accordingly. So, I see Matia, Matia, welcome. Hi, thank you can you hear me. Yes, very good. I wanted to, in reference to what Dr. Shabazz mentioned about the previous report, the reparations for Amherst report in which Anita Sorrow contributed a section on health, the thing that came forward in that section as being a key driver of disparities in health care is a lack of providers of color, and that that is, and that folks practicing medicine locally are well aware of that problem locally and so if that is consistent with the needs assessment document. And when that arrives, I wanted to ask, would you guys like me to center that in our, in what we say about public health here that like that is a known problem locally providers are acknowledging that that's a problem and that is nationally a driver of health disparities in care access. So, so do we want to center that in any any conversation here on public health in the report. Excellent thank you Matia and I see Dr. Shabazz as his hand up. I can wait till later if you needed to finish up with other public comments. I do not see any other hands raised, but I'll just say again that if, if you'd like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand function. And I will check in again before we close the meeting so that if there is something that arises in the meantime, attendees will have an opportunity to make public comment. Michelle, can I say one more thing. I you're still on yeah we yep there's no one else with their hand raised so please yes I just want to make sure that before the conversation closes today that we are going to touch on or you guys will provide guidance on the eligibility section for me to do this coming week. And that's it for my comments. Thank you. Absolutely yes that is sort of what I was hoping would be the bulk of our discussion and that's up almost next. So absolutely. Okay, thank you so much Matia and Dr. Shabazz did you want to respond to. I would certainly support a centering around that that question of disparity in reference to providers. I think the evidence for that is, is clearly there I know from my work on the UMass campus, which, you know, provides the bulk of our black population. For the year the black student body that is there. It has come up in year after year from students, the, the lack of available, for example, mental health care providers on on the faculty on the, I mean, just as part of UMass. And the, the, the, the providing of counselors. They have one of the fixes to that was to contract our counseling group out at UMass will contract with providers from Springfield, who periodically come in and provide counseling services, especially for African American students that are educated they would prefer they would like to have a counselor to meet with of their own ethnic background to with whom they could, they could speak with. And, and so the, you know, it, it's, it's a stark issue just in that one area concerning African American students. So I think that is definitely a matter we would want to amplify from that original report under this broad area of health that you Michelle have have so wisely, you know, asked us to to visit upon today. Thank you. Excellent. All right, that's great. So there's just one other piece that I wanted to throw out there. And this is something before we talk eligibility. This is something that I saw in the California reparations report and I thought it was an important. It was really important, I thought. And what it is is, they are recommending that an individual claims process be be created so that there's, for example, a family like the Coleman family, who they have a harm that they can find that occurred here in Amherst, and perhaps the sort of initiatives that we're putting out there and recommending that the fund support don't narrowly sort of get at what that particular harm was. I want to recommend to the successor body that they considered the development of a claims process so that one could come to the successor body and and whatever the process might be that they develop is able to make a particular claim I think it's, I'm sure that there would be, I'm sure I can already I already know that there would be some concern about this, this sort of recommendation, but I'm curious what the rest of the committee feels. Dr. Spas. And Alexis welcome. Can you hear us Alexis. Yes, thank you. Okay, I'm so glad you're here. And I got your message Hala. So I'm keeping an eye on you. Okay. All right, Dr. Spas. Well, very briefly, I just will say, I've wrestled with such an idea as well, Michelle. And the idealistic side of me would say yes, let's do something and then the practical or shall I say realist in me says, you know that I don't see much, especially in recent experience that would suggest that this would go anywhere tangibly and to that extent I would reference for example, the July 5 incident, in which when it finally got down to it. And the town manager, you know, said, I, that he feels at least in his reading of his power that his hands is tied, unless a lawsuit or unless something was done through the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination that he could not and it does not feel it within his power or authority to address a perceived incident of ray anti black racism or perceived incident of racial discrimination with in terms of here is some here is a stipend here is some money to go and have yourself checked out if there was any kind of mental health arm here is some money to try to at least symbolically say we understand what happened that night. There was a there was an error there was something that we don't agree with we don't think it was is is correct something was said that was not correct. There were done that should not have been done. You know, that even where he might believe it. He doesn't have the authority, unless there was a lawsuit initiated, or at least some letter from a lawyer saying I threaten you with a lawsuit before he could do anything. Well, if that same kind of logic would prevail with our successor group or our community. Black town meeting group, say, hey, we see an incident here, we think it, it has manifestations of anti black racism structural racism, and we think the way to make it right and to promote reconciliation is to give X dollars to the harm, the harm individual or individuals. It comes back to, oh, but no, we don't know that there's a harm or we'd have to adjudicate that there was a harm, or we'd have to have a thread of a letter of adjudicating that there was a harm before we, we can do anything. I'm left in, I'm in a real difficult place. In terms of yeah on the one hand let's go ahead and recommend it anyway but on the other hand if that's not anything that the system, and we're talking about the structure of power and the structure of authority in our town. It's not something that the structure of authority would be prepared to deal with on some good faith basis, then I don't know I say one final thing. When as the Civil War was ending. The Canadian troops occupied areas. When black people were still being directly harmed I'm talking about being whipped by people who asserted, they were still their owner, being things being stolen from them, things being being told they had to do such and such work. You know, rape, the imposition of in so many different forms, and people would then make complaints to the troops. The troops could, you know, adjudicate. And then so there were military courts and then later, as they began to rebuild the court system after the war. They would try to bring things through the courts, but this was a very deep problem area in terms of the, the capacity for communities to to try and reconcile because again, so much of the population still had the view that black people were black human black people did not have the same rights as everybody else or the same capacities as everybody weren't like everybody else. So it, it seems to me, we are almost. This is a legacy relative to our structure of power and structure of authority. This is kind of a legacy going all the way back to there that you know, our report what we're saying could break through to the community that you need to break out of this prison of the of the legal structures and be able to say, I can hear it from the community, I can hear it from black workers, if where they see harm, and could then find ways to do more to address it than what the chief of police at the time said he would do which is to buy everybody a pizza, you know, buy some pizza and let's have a, let's have a pizza party. That's where that's where I'm at on this it'd be nice to put something in like that but if we don't. I'd like to hear others view of whether that could have any practical resonance. Thank you Dr Shabazz yes let's keep the floor open on this I also as you were speaking I thought about the Human Rights Commission and part of their charge is to receive individual complaints. And so perhaps our recommendation can be that when such complaints involve a resident who identifies as black that the the successor body would be made aware of that and there would be some collaborative effort to make whatever recommendation is made through the Human Rights Commission. That's that's an alternative or way I think of. So I'm going to go to Jennifer, are you speaking technical or are you speaking. I was going to speak on what you just said about the HRC. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, I mean I don't I guess we could ask the individual if we could share the information with the successor group because it's confidential information right and then. There are recommendations that it's kind of hard because the HRC doesn't have like authority to necessarily do anything but typically if you get a phone call from the HRC director or assistant director. Something changes so it's, you know, a little bit sticky but I would suggest talking to the HRC members about it. That's a great idea. Do you know if they have an upcoming meeting. They just met last Wednesday so they don't oh they're going to be at the council meeting tonight but I don't know if that's the right place to have that conversation. My other thought is, you know, Ronnie and Liz, hey good are the co-chairs now and so they're always willing to talk. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, I know Ronnie and Liz good. Okay, I'm going to go first to Ms. Bridges because her hand was up and then down and then Dr. Shabbat. I just, when you mentioned the Coleman family for a claim, I'm just thinking you, I've heard you say the Coleman family a lot. I'm thinking that there may be, I'm sure there are more families besides the Coleman family that haven't been mentioned. Or I don't know if you know of more black families that were in their same position. I don't miss Bridges but this is exactly where if there were, how would a family, you know, it's hard enough to come out and address these matters, even with people maybe that you trust but how about to address them with a government, a town government, you know. So that's sort of where I was, that's exactly what I was thinking about. That's something that has to be further discussed, I guess. Yeah. So let's sort of think on that and see how we might want to address it and, and also think about that, you know, some of this that we can't necessarily tackle with the time we had left. We can certainly leave as, you know, recommendations to the successor body. Yeah, I want to amplify how that we try to think of strong language for the successor body to try and be a space for adjudicating claims where specifically involves instances of anti black racism or perceived anti black racism. Understanding this, the HRC would only be empowered if I understand correctly relative to the charter, they'd only be empowered to speak to, or questioning issues of abuse of power or discrimination for internal town committees. So if we take, for example, the case of the, I see Jennifer's hands up maybe I can be rescued from from making a mistake here. But the case of the Coleman family, for example, doesn't involve malfeasance, necessarily by town, any town department per se, it concerns a private entity that being Amherst College. Or in the main the main culprit being Amherst College so I wonder. So it's stress to me. I don't think we necessarily ought to chase the HRC connection quite so much as to really empower the, in our recommendation the successor body to be empowered to initiate investigations around claims. That's a great point. Yeah. I just want to hop in there. Yeah, we can just say that the HRC hears cases of any form of discrimination from anyone who works lives visits or owns a business goes to school in the town of Amherst so there's no limit to what cases they hear. And really the way that it's set up now the HR director and myself are the ones that are handling the case. The case is at this time and we report them to the HRC only because we're trying to protect the complaint if like we don't want them to have to be in a public meeting. Yeah, to express that that and so the HRC members commissioners and the HR director and myself are working on how we can revise that so that the HRC commissioners can be more involved. Okay, so are you saying just to clarify that if somebody felt they have been harmed by let's just say a bank in Amherst. I'm just coming up with that that they could make a claim through the Human Rights Commission for that to be explored and investigated. Yes. So, as the HRC report, the state of the HRC report that's going to be read tonight at the council meeting states I think we had about two, if not three Amherst college complaints we've had. We had the ones that were internal but we had them for Amherst college as well. So, not everyone knows about this mechanism to use right to utilize this is where they can put a complaint so that's at least at minimum good information to get out to the community that this is a way that you can file a complaint. Absolutely. If that if that's all that we do just to, to, I think, illuminate that mechanism is available. But, and I think whatever we can recommend for the successor body to be empowered as well as is equally important. So, the other thing that I just this thread I wanted to put together is the work that the department is doing where we're already recommending truth and reconciliation so if we come back to Dr. Shabazz's example about the July 5th incident. If there had been some something in place that was sort of methodical that would have provided the feedback around, you know, what an apology could have done in that circumstance and it had an apology been made. Immediately, how that might affect have affected the trajectory of what occurred and how, how painful that experience was for our entire community, all of our community. And so, I just, we want to maybe think about the tie in there and under that particular recommendation, how we might even include more specific language about that sort of piece of the communication, the power of an apology, the power of an apology, you know, in our community. Okay, so I see Kiara's hand is raised and I'm going to go ahead and just say this is our second period of public comment. I'm going to bring in Kiara and then we're going to jump into the eligibility and that will be sort of the remainder of our time together today. So Kiara, I think you're being, you're coming over. And I am just needing to check into something very quickly. If you, I'm going to go on mute for just one second, just a recess for one second please. Jennifer, are you able to bring Kiara over. My apologies. I, I, there was a call that came in from the high school and my daughters over there doing a tryout for volleyball. So I just wanted to make sure that there weren't any emergencies. Kiara, I'm not sure. Let me see if I can bring you in I think there you are. All right. Welcome Kiara so sorry about the delay. Hi there we go. I don't know if you can see me or not but I just wanted to comment on how you might designate ethnicity or disaggregating your, your data. Just from the federal as well as on Massachusetts on Massachusetts level. So, earlier in the year, the Office of Management and Budget federally they put out a call that they were going to be revising statistical policy directive 15 which is how they list out race and ethnicity on all federal documents and how they designate things there. And so they had a process where people were, you know, submitted their public comments, and they had actually three town halls where predominantly to the attendees were black Americans. And they also have all the written comments that were received. And one of the most common designated that black Americans preferred was black American in terms of an ethnic identifier. Other ones were of course we're American Friedman American Negro foundational black American etc terms like that. And really the one of the most important and common desires was that actually the current race, I'm sorry the current black or African American race category actually be dismantled all together and that will be replaced with categories like a designation for black American for Caribbean for Sub Saharan African so that each, each group would have at minimum a minimum reporting category, which would prevent any, any individual groups data from being swallowed up into this just generic black category where you don't, you don't be able to see those specifics. And that was the most important thing. And on the state level. There is a bill in the house that's being proposed to actually do the same thing on the state level. And that is house bill 3003. And of course they will have to follow whatever the OMB ultimately decides which probably will come out probably next year, or maybe 2025. But right now what the state is is trying to do is also do desegregation at the state level. But what they're looking at that they're following the current OMB standards, which basically is that the races, black or African American and then they would identify statistics for all subgroups and the what they're using to designate ethnic black Americans those whose ancestors may have been enslaved United States. They're not free ancestors, but they're using the term African American, which speaks to the problem of why people are wanting to just to completely get rid of that that aggregate category because if it's still called black or African American, then those who are ethnically African American who designate that their data will still be swallowed up into the generic category so you won't actually get get that data you'll get it for let's say Haitians or Cape Verdeans but you won't have it. For those ethnic black Americans so that if that passes right now it's in the House Ways and Means Committee but if that passes, it will go into effect in January 2025. And which would then of course apply to all municipalities as well including Amherst. So, I would recommend, you know black much you would at least the honor the most popular one which was black American in terms of ethnicity. The freedmen term is more so a political or legal status identifiers not not so much ethnic rather rather more so political. That was the most popular and most desired among black Americans across the country we have a black American heritage flag. And that is that is what's most accepted among you know every day people is black American so I just wanted to offer that. Thank you so much. That is very very helpful and really curious about the bill that you mentioned as well. So we could will look, we should look into that. Yeah, they had a hearing on it last month. But it is it is moving along but they have not we did submit edits for it for them to consider, you know the black American, I think we submitted black American or American Freeman in combination. But those were not were not recognized at this point so it still is in this current form as it is. So I mean it's, it doesn't really help. Americans if it passes, but it would help other groups to have their data uniquely collected. If you have a good link, we'd appreciate it. I will send that. Thank you Chiara. Thank you so much. All right, so I don't see any other hands for public comments so at this time I'd like to jump into the question of eligibility and as I said, we through the very. thoughtful work of Dr Shabazz and the position paper that he had shared with us early on in our process. Then we developed the philosophy of the concentric circles. And now we really need to discuss how that philosophy that we're sort of plopped into the report right now. How does it, as Mattia put in a note in the report when the rubber meets the road, how does it actually provide a lens for for the way that the fund is being used the initiatives that are being decided and and how will the successor body use that lens to determine eligibility. And I wanted to just before the floor opens, we have a recommendation right now in the draft report regarding providing resources for folks to determine their lineage and we haven't really talked much about that here and so I'm opening the floor now to any suggestions about this and I, in the meantime, will bring up that part of our report so that we can look at it. Okay, I just, I'm just seeing a note that Ms Burgess has to leave and so we'll still have a quorum as long as Alexis and Hala can stay present. And so I am going to just check in quickly. Hala and Alexis do you have another 10 or so minutes for us to complete this discussion. Yes, yes. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz. Is that true for you as well. Yeah, I think we should try to push to 330 if we can. Okay, great. So if anyone wants to take the floor while I'm pulling this up. But that would be fantastic. And if not, you just take a second while I, I'm going to pull this up to share. I'll jump in to offer a few a few tweaks or reminders of a few tweaks. So one on the, so anyway, the basic concept or theory of eligibility we lay out here involves three aspects it involves identity, it involves residency, and it involves the, what's the other one it I don't have it before me, but let me address the residency one. So one tweak we set about residency is that those who have been are presently are residents is the priority of our Repair to Justice program. So someone that is not that it that has never been a resident and is not a resident would not have, you know, real standing in the program that we are, we are initiating those who are currently a resident have, of course, then considerable standing that we are doing, but we are not completely excluding those who have been a resident, but are are are are not presently a resident that they are not excluded from consideration but again they are within the concentric circles at a at a wider level of consideration, then then those who are currently resident and I think, for example, some of the points we made was for someone like Reynolds Winslow or someone like the Edwin driver, or folks who who once were here or attempted to be here, but ran into obstacles and ran into anti black racism that that those cases those stories are nonetheless important to what what Repair to Justice is all about. In the question of lineage in the question of lineage then that our plan prioritizes those with a direct lineage to people who were enslaved in the United States, people of African descent who were enslaved in the United States occupy the center of our concern or at the center of our concern that does not then exclude people who are black, but and have experienced racism in Amherst since the since the period of shadow slavery was ended. Whatever you would call that period or when slavery was ended that they are there, but they may not but they are at a wider level of in terms of the the concentric circle idea. So, within the lineage standard, the, there is a certain centrality, given to those with an ancestor who was enslaved in the United States. But we are not excluding from the conversation, those who experienced anti black racism, but experienced it outside the United States for those who experienced anti black racism in more recent years who whose family come over in the 20th or 21st century, but we're not an experienced it here in Amherst, but again don't have that direct lineage they're not excluded from consideration or concern, but they are not at the center of our program. And finally, there is the identity standard, and even here what we say is, is that one who identifies as black, but may not exclusively identified as black. At the center of our analysis are those who identify as black, and who can meet, for example, the Darity standard of have proof of it, going back, you know, 12 years before our reparative justice program that they identified as black. But again, those who may have just awoken yesterday to their having black ancestry and don't have proof within 12 years, they would not be excluded from consideration, or you know someone who is of mixed race and the actual amount or you know connection with in their own background, their own lived experience and their own genetic background to a black ancestor, maybe very, very distant. Right. And Alexis gave us stories about, you know, about how that could be possible. And where does that person stand, who is now prepared to claim, because they now have the evidence they now have the information, but they may not have been raised in that distance from from birth. Okay, so all of that then is just a little bit more of the tweaking and the deeper contextualizing of these of the centering kind of model around eligibility that looks at both the lineage standard, the identity standard and a residency standard. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. And I wanted to note that Ms. Bridges is still in the meeting she was able to move something so just to because I'm sharing screen it might not be obvious. One of the questions that I have for this committee is, you know, I curiosity really that comes to mind for me. Dr. Shabazz, are you still here? Oh, I think we might have just lost. Hang on, I'm just going to stop our share real quick so I can see my screen better. Okay. It looks like we might have lost Dr. Shabazz. And I would just ask Jen just to keep an eye in the attendees in case he returns. Yeah, that would be great. So the one of the questions that comes to mind for me is just one quick second please. I'm just going to recess one second. That was Dr. Shabazz. He is coming back. He just had to move locations. So the question that was occurring for me was if we look at that the circles here and we I'm not sharing any more, let me share again. If we look at the circles and we consider sort of how many people in Amherst would, you know, we be talking about in each of these layers of the circle. And I think that I've spoken with Dr. Shabazz about that. So maybe when he comes back on, we can revisit that. But I'm so I've heard what Dr. Shabazz has said, and I'm still, I still want us to continue to explore this question of how. Welcome back, Dr. Shabazz. Can you hear us? Okay, so the question that I was just asking is if we were to look at each of these layers of the each circle, how many people are we talking about in Amherst? And I don't know if we can, you know, of course, we can't be exact by any means. But is this any part of the discussion that we want to have in the report? And then again, how are we saying that this eligibility model impacts? Let's just think about some of our recommendations. Youth empowerment, youth education, affordable housing, entrepreneurial grants, business grants. How would this model, you know, it's important that we justify why we've included this here. And that's my concern is how would this model act to determine, because I don't think we would turn anyone away that within the framework of those recommendations that we're making. So where does this actually become relevant? And even if it doesn't somehow become relevant, it's still important, I think, for this committee to make a position and state a position on this. If I might offer my thoughts on that. So first of all, let's say, as we've been talking that the amount might be 100,000 or 50,000 between 50 and 100,000 one year that were eligible to be distributed. And let's say in the first six months, you gave away 50,000 and now you're in the second half of the year, and you've got 50,000 more to give. But you've got a number of proposals or a number of requests. Okay, somebody's got to go through those and see what you could do relative to those requests for that remaining 50,000. Well, at some point then the, you might have to make some priorities. Do you give $150,000 grant to to one request, or do you try to split that that 50 up. And then you might, in making the calculus in terms of who might get out of the multiple requests, this framework might come into play to say, hey, these are all very good requests, but based upon the residency standard and the lineage standard and the identity standard, we might say we're going to prioritize more somebody who's living in Amherst, who has ancestry, who is a black American that is with ancestry going back to slavery times, and who is, you know, has the black has self identifies and has the black lived experience. It involves those people who are going to benefit from the grant that's being made first and foremost, as opposed to another group that was, you know, looking for something that might be a benefit, say, to, you know, BIPOC and non BIPOC. It might involve a request from someone who's not even living in Amherst that is making making the proposal. I'm just, you know, I'm just saying, you might that's where the the the model might come into play and helping folks think about so everybody's being heard. Every request is being looked at. Everyone is, you know, is within this framework, who meet this framework has eligibility, but you then are using it to kind of see where you might have spend your limited resources in a given year. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Are there other thoughts on this. You know, I was just thinking about our charge and, you know, one of the primary questions that was that was, you know, asked of us and the charge was to determine eligibility. And I think that eligibility is something that, you know, when I'm reading Dr. Darity's book, the black reparations project again. It's a really, really great read. It, it just sort of highlights that this question of eligibility has been around for a long time and it's something that's being talked about amongst scholars and all sorts of people. And again, just trying to clarify how, you know, the, the significance of the question as it relates to our report and I'm again, really very much in support of including this model and welcome additional feedback over the next week from folks if there's some other ways that we think we can ground it. Even more than what Dr. Shabazz has just offered, which I think is fine on its own. And I think there might be an even deeper thread here that we can that we can include in the report so I'm still doing that processing to So just again wanting to check in before it's about, it's just a close to the time that we've really pushed to the max here. And our next meeting is the week from today on the 28th at our usual time, and Mati and I will endeavor to get as much of what we've discussed today into the report. We'll also be sharing with you shortly the sort of supplemental report which includes the recommendations that we've made to other institutions. We had to include some footnotes and things there and so we'll be sharing a draft of that with you all. And if there are, I was hoping to pull folks to see about getting together to do a group shot. I would. I really would love to have a group shot in our final report and Yvonne is the one that I need to check in with to see if she's local I think everybody else is pretty much around raise your hand if that's not true or just let me know offline. We'll send a poll out for that in terms of trying to get together for a group shot. And, and then of course I have a plan for us to get together. Once we're all completed with this as well that I'd love feedback on. So any other comments or questions right now or any member reports or anything else that is important. All right. Well, thank you. It was really a great meeting and a lot was I think we've deliberated upon a lot today and kind of getting sad that our work is coming so close to an end but the community I think is really eager to see to see the work that we've been doing so Peace to everyone and I'll see you all next week and I'm adjourning at 329pm. Thank you. Bye bye.