MANSFIELD — Beth Castle has a clear message for Mansfield residents — and to the City Council that she believes failed those residents Tuesday night when lawmakers rejected a resolution designating racism as a public health crisis.
“This was an opportunity for the elected leadership to SHOW leadership. It was a gift that was sadly rejected and exposes what it exposes,” Castle said. “Now the people of this city have the chance to make the change we all know we need.
“Join us, but we are not asking anymore,” said Castle, a Mansfield native who earned her Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University and has devoted her career to social activism.
“Now is not the time for us to be distracted over arguing what a word means. It gets us fired up. Congratulations, Mansfield, you won … you won in a national lottery of bad political moves.”
Rather then be devastated by City Council’s 5-4 rejection of the non-binding resolution, Castle and other members of the Voices for Change, Activism and Leadership are using it as fuel for their fire as they move ahead with plans for a community-based task force to tackle the city’s issues resulting from systemic racial inequality.
Richland County State of the African-American Community Report
“We are a group of nine, diverse strong women,” said Crystal Davis Weese. “Collectively, we will not lose momentum. (Council’s vote) isn’t going to stop the things already in place and things we have planned.
“It’s just going to awaken more people to those who have consistently tried to ignore the problems created by racial inequality.”
Deanna West-Torrence, founder and executive director of the North End Community Improvement Cooperative, said the City Council vote revealed who the effort can count on — and who it can’t.
Voting against the resolution were council President Cliff Mears, Laura Burns (1st Ward), Jon Van Harlingen (3rd Ward), Jason Lawrence (5th Ward) and At-large Councilman David Falquette.
Voting in support of the resolution were Cheryl Meier (2nd Ward), Alomar Davenport (4th Ward), Jean Taddie (6th Ward) and At-large Councilman Phil Scott.
The vote came despite the fact Richland Public Health has agreed to participate in the effort and that similar resolutions have been approved by more than a dozen city and county governments in Ohio and many more across the country.
“Everyone’s cards are out there on the table,” West-Torrence said. “We can see them now. It would have been easy to make some assumptions about the support we were getting. You never know who is in your corner.”
The group of women hopes to have the task force assembled by the end of August and meetings underway by mid-September. The idea is to form subcommittees for particular topics, including health, mental health, housing, employment, education, business, and criminal justice.
Race in Richland County Fact Sheet
The hope is to gather interested residents, subject matter experts and institutions with an interest in a topic to participate in the subcommittees.
Problems will be discussed and analyzed and solutions developed that can be taken to elected officials and other leaders for potential implementation.
The numbers are stark, based on a study released in January by NECIC examining the “State of the African-American Community.”
— Twice as many Black households in Richland County are on foodstamps as White households.
— Just 3.8 percent of homes owned in Richland County are owned by Black residents, although Blacks make up 19.2 percent of Mansfield’s population.
— There are about 68 percent of Black men in the county who are simply out of the workforce.
— The unemployment rate for Black men is three times his White counterpart and its twice as much for Black women compared to Whites.
Dr. Donna Hight, a professor at OSU-Mansfield, said VOCAL and its supporters have been given the opportunity to role model what leadership looks like.
“This is what happens when you get a group of strong women together, transparency, honesty, acting with integrity. It’s never easy for anyone, but we are role-modeling a different way forward,” Hight said. “We are not ignorant to partisan politics, but we cannot be driven by it.”
