Rethinking Race: Steve Brigham’s Call to Action for a Just Society
Steve Brigham, a leader in public engagement and the co-founder of Public Engagement Associations, joins the podcast to discuss his book, "It's Never Been a Level Playing Field," which tackles the pervasive myths surrounding racial equality in America. He emphasizes the need for systemic change across various sectors, particularly in education, housing, and the justice system, highlighting that racial disparities continue to affect opportunities and outcomes for African Americans. Brigham shares personal experiences that shaped his understanding of race and community engagement, illustrating how his journey has informed his work. He advocates for actionable solutions, such as implementing universal early childhood education and reforming local zoning laws to create more equitable communities. Throughout the conversation, Brigham stresses the importance of ongoing activism and education to address the deep-rooted issues of systemic racism and promote meaningful progress.
With a wealth of experience in public engagement, Steve Brigham discusses the critical issues surrounding societal inequity in America. His career, spanning over two decades, includes facilitating numerous public engagement projects and addressing complex community issues such as affordable housing and transportation. Brigham's insights are rooted in both his professional expertise and personal experiences, including the profound impact of growing up in an all-white town and later embracing a diverse community in Washington, D.C. This journey ultimately inspired him to write his book, "It's Never Been a Level Playing Field," where he confronts eight racial myths that persistently shape public perception and policy.
Brigham unpacks these myths in this enlightening conversation, starting with the pervasive belief that America offers an equal playing field for all. He shares compelling data illustrating the stark realities faced by African Americans in education, employment, and justice, demonstrating how these disparities are deeply ingrained in societal structures. For instance, he notes that black adults earn less than their white counterparts at every educational level, revealing the systemic barriers that continue to impede progress. Brigham emphasizes the urgency of addressing these issues, not only to foster understanding but also to motivate action towards systemic change. He underscores the importance of recognizing the historical context of racial disparities and encourages listeners to engage in active dialogue about race and privilege.
Beyond raising awareness, Brigham advocates for practical solutions to rectify systemic injustices. He discusses the need for comprehensive reforms in education, housing, and the justice system, proposing initiatives like universal pre-K programs and inclusive zoning laws to promote equity. His emphasis on local activism resonates throughout the episode, as he believes that meaningful change often starts within communities. Brigham's message is clear: everyone has a role to play in dismantling systemic racism and fostering a more equitable society. The episode serves as both a call to action and a source of inspiration for those seeking to understand and address the complexities of race in America.
Takeaways:
- Systemic injustice persists in America, impacting various sectors and perpetuating inequality.
- Transforming local policies on housing and education can lead to greater equity.
- Understanding our historical context is essential for addressing racial disparities today.
- Encouraging community engagement is crucial for fostering dialogue and promoting change.
- Support for comprehensive educational programs can significantly benefit Black children and youth.
- The fight for justice, housing, and education requires simultaneous efforts across all levels.
Transcript
My guest today is Steve Bingham.
Host:He's a leader in the public engagement field who for the past 24 years has served with great success as facilitator, consultant, and designer of complex public meetings and community building processes on critical public policy issues.
Host: From: Host: ic engagement Associations in: Host:area.
Host:He has led more than 75 large scale public and stakeholder engagement projects in cities across the country and internationally in the past 10 years.
Host:His consulting has focused on local issues like land use policy, affordable housing, transportation, economic development, and public school redistricting.
Host:Redistricting, to name a few.
Host:Steve's work has increasingly tackled racial equality, equitability, equitable development issues.
Host:In his work and volunteer time, Steve is incredibly grateful for the two biracial children age 21 and 16, who has blessed his life daily.
Host:We welcome Steve to the podcast.
Steve Bingham:We.
Host:Well, Steve, welcome to the podcast.
Host:How you doing today?
Steve Bingham:I'm great, Keith.
Steve Bingham:How are you?
Host:I'm phenomenal.
Host:It's good to have you on.
Host:Looking forward to this conversation.
Host:This should be fun.
Steve Bingham:It should be fun.
Steve Bingham:It definitely should be fun.
Host:So I'm gonna ask you my favorite question of all my guests.
Host:You cannot escape this question, no matter.
Steve Bingham:Oh, okay.
Host:No matter who you are or how famous you are.
Host:But the question is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Steve Bingham:Okay, so probably from my mom, who's still living.
Steve Bingham:She's 92 and a half.
Steve Bingham:And you know, she always told me to follow my heart.
Host:Oh, I love that.
Steve Bingham:And so.
Steve Bingham:And so especially, you know, as you become an adult and you kind of get caught in the.
Steve Bingham:The rat race, it's like, no, follow.
Steve Bingham:Follow your heart.
Steve Bingham:Do what's important to you.
Steve Bingham:Do what has meaning for you.
Steve Bingham:Follow your heart.
Host:So I love that.
Host:That's.
Host:That's good advice.
Host:Good, sound advice from mom.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, absolutely.
Host:I'm curious, Steve, as you think about your life, there are always people in our lives who served as an inspiration, maybe even a mentor.
Host:Who were some people in your life that you want to kind of give a shout out to that were really meaningful in your journey.
Steve Bingham: ho started an organization in: Steve Bingham:It was a national nonprofit focused on giving citizens greater voice in policy and decision making, whether at the local or national level.
Steve Bingham:She was just really kind of A brilliant thinker, brilliant facilitator, and I learned so much from her and I still look up to her today.
Steve Bingham:When I did my book launch party about two, three months ago, she was in the audience.
Steve Bingham:Even at 80 years old, she's been kind of an inspiration to me for 25 years, both in making sure citizens and community members have voice, but also just what it means to facilitate an excellent conversation and to think critically about policy issues.
Host:Oh, that's so much fun.
Host:I got a chance during my doctoral work to go visit dc.
Host:One of our tasks was to go to DC and see how the sausage is made.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:It's kind of ugly.
Host:It is ugly.
Host:But it was fascinating because you got a new appreciation for, I think, how difficult making good policy is and to evaluate whether your policy is doing is helping or harming and it's really accomplishing its intent.
Host:So it was a fascinating lesson for me about you just can't make a policy and then just leave it without coming back and assessing whether or not the policy is actually doing what you hope it's going to do.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:Because there's a huge difference and sometimes gap between intent and outcomes.
Host:Right, exactly.
Host:So let's get into your book.
Host:What inspired you to write?
Host:It's never been a level playing field.
Steve Bingham:So I, so there's kind of the long story and short story and maybe I'll tell the middle story.
Steve Bingham:I, you know, so I, I grew up in an all white town in Connecticut, in a town probably not different than a lot of towns in Iowa really.
Steve Bingham:And when I was in high school, so my, my dad had started a non profit in the aftermath of King's assassination, Kennedy's assassination, he started in our all white town, bringing young or teenage black and Hispanic boys to our town which had one of the top public school systems in the state to live there for three years, sophomore, junior, senior year, so they could graduate and have a greater opportunity for going to a good college, etc.
Steve Bingham:And that program is still going on 55 years later.
Steve Bingham:So for the very first time when I was in high school, had three black friends.
Steve Bingham:Up until then, none.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:Got to know them, got to know them as people, which you know, as a white person growing up in an all white world, it's like, are they really different from us?
Steve Bingham:You know?
Steve Bingham:You know, are they, are we better than them?
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:So it really kind of humanized for me and allowed me to develop real personal relationships.
Steve Bingham:And then when I went away to college and then off into the workplace for the next 10 years.
Steve Bingham:So this is like late 70s to late 80s.
Steve Bingham:My world once again was predominantly white, sometimes almost exclusively white, where I went to college, where I went to work.
Steve Bingham: And so when I came to DC in: Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:And, and there were a lot of, for the first time in my life, kind of meeting middle class, upper middle class African Americans who were also in my workplace, who I went to grad school.
Steve Bingham:They were in my grad school.
Steve Bingham:So it was much easier to kind of integrate if you chose to.
Steve Bingham:And I chose to.
Steve Bingham:So I, I, you know, made friends, had great colleagues, met my then fiance, wife, now ex wife, who's African American.
Steve Bingham:And so my whole journey in D.C.
Steve Bingham:over 37 years has really been about kind of getting, getting to know African Americans, getting to know the issues around race and kind of why there's such racial differences with regard to outcomes and even opportunities.
Steve Bingham:And so it was really kind of a self learning for me over my many years here.
Steve Bingham: When the pandemic hit in: Steve Bingham:And so, and I literally started the day that they shut the state down.
Steve Bingham: ,: Steve Bingham:And I, I wrote continuously for a year, had a long, kind of unwieldy draft and then over the space of the next two and a half, three years, I revised it significantly and finally published it last July.
Steve Bingham:And it really is, it's.
Steve Bingham:So it's called, it's never been a level playing field, overcoming eight racial myths to even the field.
Steve Bingham:And so it really looks into great depth the history of kind of what has become myths and kind of what and to dispel each of them.
Steve Bingham:And then the last part of the book really is looking at.
Steve Bingham:So I'm a supporter of reparations, but I don't believe they're going to happen in my lifetime.
Steve Bingham:What do we do in place of reparations that will repair harm, provide redress to some degree and really transform American society?
Steve Bingham:So it is a much more even field for African Americans.
Steve Bingham:So that's, if that's my middle story, I can't even tell you what my long story would be.
Host:No, that's really good and helpful.
Host:I am curious.
Host:You talk about, you have eight myth Eighth myths in your book, which of those you think is the most pervasive myths that you discuss?
Steve Bingham:So, so I have eight myths, and I think the first and last one are really kind of capstone myths that undergird the whole kind of mythical enterprise.
Steve Bingham:So the first myth is America provides an equal playing field for all, which, you know, I.
Steve Bingham:Throughout the entire book, I look at housing, health, education, economy, and show how that's just not true.
Steve Bingham:The second myth that I would point to is the concluding myth is that systemic racism doesn't exist anymore.
Steve Bingham:I think a lot of people prefer to believe, oh, yeah, there's still bigots out there, but, you know, there's.
Steve Bingham:There's no systemic racism.
Steve Bingham:And for me, the whole book is kind of laying out all the different systems that continue to be racist, discriminatory, exclusionary, that lead to the kind of the differences and gaps in inequities that we see.
Steve Bingham:And, and so, so, for example, the overarching myth, America provides an equal playing field for all.
Steve Bingham:The thing that I lay out primarily in that, in that myth is if you look across every single sector, public sector, private sector, different levels of government, different private sector industries, if you look at who's leading Those, it's often 9%, 95%, 98% white, and often there it's white men, not even white women.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:And so it's like, if we really had an even playing field, how do we explain the fact that whites and especially white males continue to, to dominate and sometimes like almost exclusively in almost every single sector?
Steve Bingham:So that's kind of a major way I try to dispel that myth.
Steve Bingham:And, you know, the last one really is around.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, there still is bigotry and bigots throughout our nation.
Steve Bingham:African Americans confront them almost every day, whether, you know, subtly or not so subtly.
Steve Bingham:But, you know, our systems of education, we're still, we still see major gaps in outcomes because the vast majority of African American students, K through 12, go to high poverty, low opportunity schools.
Steve Bingham:Why is that?
Steve Bingham:You know, kind of the other thing that I really try to explore is we're still, still dealing with major residential segregation by race in this country, despite the fact that the civil rights laws, the Fair Housing act, all these other things, we're still hyper segregated in most places.
Steve Bingham:And that segregation means that in wealthier communities, mainly white, higher opportunity, higher wealth, better education, and vice versa for African Americans.
Steve Bingham:So it's like, how can we not have systemic racism because we're still so segregated in so many arenas of our lives.
Host:It's funny, when I, I wrote, my first book that I wrote was actually a Bible study on how we heal race in America.
Host:And I was kind of talking to a church audience.
Host:And it's really hard to talk about race in the church because the church doesn't want to deal with some common realities that are part of the church and the issues that we struggle with because we're, even though we are a, but not secular organization, we still have some of the secular influences in the church.
Host:And I actually had to, I found that it was easier to abandon the term systemic racism and replace it with systemic oppression because then I could talk about it and look at it without having to unpack what systemic racism is.
Host:And I say, what's oppression?
Host:It is when one group imposes will on another group.
Host:And then all of a sudden we could have a discussion because then you can look at it and not be triggered, at least initially, but look at the issues that are there.
Host:Like you talk education.
Host:I mean, I grew up serving congregations In Detroit, in St.
Host:Louis, inner city of Milwaukee, Chicago.
Host:And the education was not the same.
Host:The levels were not the same.
Host:And you pointed out, and it's a struggle to really help.
Host:It was one.
Host:So first thing to have a kid one day, ask him, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Host:And what she said, it really doesn't matter because I'm not going to live past 25.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:That's a common thing you hear in DC.
Host:Right.
Host:And so it's to not understand that that is a part of the mindset.
Host:You don't understand.
Host:Why, why aren't you reading more books?
Host:I read books for.
Host:What was it going to get me if I don't see opportunity somehow along the way?
Host:So I'm just, I appreciate you bringing out some of those points.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Bingham:And yeah, it shows up in every aspect, every sector of our lives, including in faith based institutions.
Steve Bingham:Right, right.
Steve Bingham:I mean, the history of the Christian church and the Catholic Church was highly racist and discriminatory and exclusionary for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:So, yeah, you don't, you don't just all of a sudden get rid of it.
Host:You don't know.
Host:And actually looking at.
Host:I'm reading, I read a book for, for a review I just did on the history of black Lutheranism.
Host:Blacks and Lutheran Church, Missouri Senate.
Host:And there was still, even with that, a history of you can come to church, but you have to sit up in the balcony.
Host:You can't sit below because that's where white people are sitting.
Host:And this is happening in Church.
Host:And so we don't like to look at the history because we want to believe that we're better than society around us.
Host:But we still struggle with the same issues, that mindsets, the myths are still there that divide what we can be and who God has created us to be.
Host:So I'm curious, as you look at these myths and how to intersect and kind of reinforce each other, how does, how did the basis for the system look at the system and all these myths and how they kind of have ingrained themselves into our systems.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, one of the things I say is, you know, system systemic racism hasn't disappeared.
Steve Bingham:It's still a Gordian knot, right?
Steve Bingham:It's like, how do you untang all these different systems that have different histories, different policies, different practices, and they intersect and interact with one another.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:And so, you know, it's.
Steve Bingham:It's not an easy thing to address.
Steve Bingham:You know, one of the things that I'm focused on right now, I write a weekly newsletter looking at both the history, the legacy, as well as solutions.
Steve Bingham:And one of the ways that we in America can fundamentally change over the next 10, 15, 20 years to desegregate neighborhoods is change how we think about land use and zoning at the local level, municipal, county, what have you people.
Steve Bingham:Oh, that's so kind of what does that do?
Steve Bingham:But our systems of zoning in America that date back 100 years were to keep whites and blacks separate, right?
Steve Bingham:And it was to build single, detached, single family, detached homes primarily in white or wealthier neighborhoods, and not allowing multifamily housing or smaller houses or duplexes or triplexes.
Steve Bingham:And so that's one of the ways zoning remains exclusionary.
Steve Bingham:So how do we, at the local level, like in my county, it's now over the last six, seven years.
Steve Bingham:I live in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Steve Bingham:How, how do you create a more inclusionary zoning ordinance so that these neighborhoods can become more economically integrated, racially integrated, and that folks who traditionally are kept far away from amenities like good grocery stores.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:Or access to transit now have an opportunity to live in more racially mixed neighborhoods, more economically mixed neighborhoods with greater access to amenities.
Steve Bingham:And as you, you probably know, there's a major housing crisis, especially affordable housing crisis all across America.
Steve Bingham:I'm sure it's happening in Iowa, too, where we just have not built enough homes over the last 20, 30 years.
Steve Bingham:And that's why people are paying far too much for the housing they have.
Steve Bingham:So we need to build more.
Steve Bingham:But it's also a matter of where we Build and what kinds of housing we build.
Steve Bingham:And if communities are willing to do that, like the thousands of community across the country, we will be looking 20 years from now at more racially integrated, economically integrated neighborhoods.
Steve Bingham:It won't be easy because there'll still be a lot of pushback.
Steve Bingham:It's like, oh, I didn't buy my $700,000 home to have people who don't look at, look like me, you know, have a apartment building right next door.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:Or even in my, or in my ward.
Steve Bingham:So it's not like, oh well, we'll just change all the zoning everywhere and things will be far better.
Steve Bingham:There's going to be a lot of pushback, there's going to be a lot of resistance.
Steve Bingham:But as I've been looking at this, there's a hell of a lot of communities that are coming to this realization and beginning to make changes in how they zone what can be put where and really trying to make these neighborhoods more racially equitable.
Host:So we've talked about two things that are really important.
Host:Housing, education.
Host:We haven't talked about justice system.
Host:But if you look at those three because I think those three are critical and they're all interconnected.
Steve Bingham:Absolutely.
Host:Which of those three would you say if we could fix this one first would have the greatest impact.
Steve Bingham:So say you can get housing, education and just justice.
Steve Bingham:Justice, you know, it's so, it's so hard and I guess, you know, my easy way out is there are so many different groups, organizations, people working on changing different systems that it's not just oh well, for the next 10 years let's just focus on education and justice is going to have to wait.
Steve Bingham:I think we have to work in parallel.
Steve Bingham:You know, it was disheartening to me after the, all the George Floyd murder protests that there was this real energy to change justice systems, change policing systems.
Steve Bingham:And when you look four years later, not a whole hell of a lot happened because again, there was the, you know, one of, one of the things that we see in America.
Steve Bingham:And this is myth 7 and I'll actually read it to you.
Steve Bingham:Embracing Blacks Access to rights, Progress and power myth.
Steve Bingham:The days of restricting the rights and progress of black people are long gone.
Steve Bingham:And I think this is the justice thing was a perfect example of that.
Steve Bingham:It was like there's this we, yes, we need to dramatically reform how we do policing in America, especially in cities.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:We need to change the justice system in terms of what you can get prosecuted for in sentencing and how long you can keep people and then when they when they come out, what, what, what resources do they have access to?
Steve Bingham:And the whole mass incar.
Steve Bingham:Incarceration fiasco over the last 40 years.
Steve Bingham:So, so I, I think it's, it's.
Steve Bingham:I guess the, the, my answer is we need to be changing these all simultaneously with pretty, pretty significant sense of urgency because all of them are embedded with kind of almost automatic resistance to change.
Steve Bingham:And so we just got to keep on it.
Steve Bingham:And you know, there's lots of school reformers out there, there's lots of justice reformers out there, public health etc, and even, you know, all of those pushing over the last 20 years for some of the things that I talk about in the book.
Steve Bingham:You know, the progress is always incremental and not guaranteed to stay in place.
Host:Right, exactly.
Host:Because you fix one, it's like, it's like putting your fingers in a dam.
Host:You put your finger in one hole, another one pops up.
Steve Bingham:Right, exactly.
Steve Bingham:It's whack a mole.
Host:It is whack a mole.
Host:I had a guest on my podcast years ago who was in the justice system and he says, you know, some things that we people don't, people don't really realize is that when you get, stop for, for a particular crime, if you don't have the money for it to get out of jail, and it's may, it may be a small amount, but if you don't have access to that or know how to get that, you go to jail, you lose your job and every, all of a sudden your entire life is destroyed for something that could be very minor, that most people never go to jail for.
Host:And so he talked about it's, he wasn't necessarily promoting cashless bail, but he was saying we need to figure out a different processing system when people are engaged in activities that put them in front of the justice system without the proper resources to deal with what they're facing.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, you know, it's some, some scholars call this the, it's the criminalization of poverty.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:It's like, and you know, again, it happens to black people, white people, Hispanic people, Asian people who are of lesser means, but it happens disproportionately to black people.
Steve Bingham:And I just finished in December writing a three part series looking at Ferguson and how did Ferguson get to be what Ferguson actually is and kind of what's also happened since.
Steve Bingham:And when the Justice Department took a look at what was going on in Ferguson, what they found was, and this was true in municipalities throughout St.
Steve Bingham:Louis County.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:The, the whole policing and court system is based like 35% of the town's budget is based on ticketing people, right?
Steve Bingham:That's how they, and then it's fees on top of that, right?
Steve Bingham:And it's like, so like you said, you get, you know, you're working a minimum wage job and you get a ticket or something, or you do something wrong and you end up a night in jail or two days in jail or what have you.
Steve Bingham:And then you don't show up for work, so you lose your work.
Steve Bingham:So now you have no means to pay.
Steve Bingham:And then, you know, once the, the ticket or fee is due, you don't pay it.
Steve Bingham:Then there, you know, it gets doubled or tripled or, you know, and so then there's no chance that you're ever going to pay it off.
Steve Bingham:And so people are sitting with, you know, court summons and everything else and it, and, and you know, this was happening.
Steve Bingham:90 plus percent of the people who were caught up in this in Ferguson were black, even though they're 67 or 70% of the population.
Steve Bingham:So it's not that white people in Ferguson also weren't, weren't dealing with it, but they were dealing with it, you know, in less, much lower proportions.
Steve Bingham:And so how do we change that?
Steve Bingham:So, so it's gotten better in Ferguson.
Steve Bingham:It's, it still hasn't gone away.
Steve Bingham:It's still a, you know, important part of the budget, but it's much less.
Steve Bingham:There's now a black police chief.
Steve Bingham:There's, there's now a majority black school board.
Steve Bingham:Before there was only one black board member.
Steve Bingham:There's now a majority black city council.
Steve Bingham:Whereas before there was only one member, there's now a black mayor.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, things are changing in Ferguson for the better on all those fronts.
Steve Bingham:But there's still, you know, the criminalization of poverty happening there that has not gone away in Ferguson and, and the communities around it.
Steve Bingham:So yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing to me what we don't know, especially for me as a white, until you really begin digging in.
Steve Bingham:It's like, you know, I'd never heard of Ferguson before Michael Brown was murdered, right?
Steve Bingham:And all of a sudden everybody knows about Ferguson, but it's like, how did Ferguson get to be the way it was?
Steve Bingham: n was an all white town until: Steve Bingham:It was a sundown town.
Steve Bingham: So if you were Black up until: Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:And like many places, once blacks began, were able to move in, whites began moving out.
Steve Bingham:But whites kept hold of the political power.
Steve Bingham:White Police chief, white mayor, white council, et cetera.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, things change and things don't change.
Host:It's funny you mentioned Ferguson.
Host:My congregation served in a neighboring town.
Host:Walnut Park, Missouri.
Steve Bingham:Yep.
Host:And the story of our church actually was that it was pretty much a stable white community.
Host:And all of a sudden they changed the housing rules in Walnut Park.
Host:And so all the blacks started moving in and the whites tried to move out, but the members of the church still owned their houses, were kind of.
Steve Bingham:The property and the.
Host:Yeah, yeah, the houses were.
Host:The houses were the basis for the loan.
Host:And so they stayed until the church was paid off, then gave the keys to the.
Host:The black members who were there, and then they all moved.
Host:But it was an interesting.
Host:It was interesting.
Host:So they kept control of the church and, and how the church operated.
Host:Operated, yeah, to make sure that the bills got paid until they all left.
Host:But it was interesting because I, I knew that Ferguson community because I lived next to it.
Host:And I knew when the George, when the Michael Brown thing happened, that was not the community that I knew.
Host:And there was a lot of pain there that people.
Host:And I always tell people, when you look at the things that happen sometimes with people rising up in anger over what's happening in our community, you need to know the backstory.
Host:You need to know there's a much deeper reason and probably hurt there that no one's paying attention to.
Host:And sometimes the only way to get attention is to let you know exactly how angry they are about either the housing or the justice system or, or all of those things that are impacting their daily lives.
Host:Like, no one choose to live in a crime ridden, poverty infested community.
Host:They don't.
Host:They don't.
Host:When people say, just get up and move, well, it's not that easy.
Host:You just can't get up and it's not easy.
Steve Bingham:That used to be the.
Steve Bingham:So I had a good friend that I lived with in D.C.
Steve Bingham:for six, seven years before he moved out west.
Steve Bingham:And you know, he always used to say, you know, we would talk about the poverty, and he said, well, why don't they just move?
Steve Bingham:It's like, well, it's not that simple.
Steve Bingham:You and I can move.
Steve Bingham:A, we're single, B, we make a decent salary, right.
Steve Bingham:And we can be mobile, but a lot, you know, you may not have a car, you may not have any savings, right.
Steve Bingham:You may be behind on, on your bills because, you know, It's.
Steve Bingham:There's like 101 reasons why you're not able to move, or you got three kids and it's too, you know, you can't hire a mover or whatever the case may be.
Steve Bingham:And, and I think a lot of people, a lot of white people, a lot of people of means.
Steve Bingham:It's just like, well, you know, nothing's keeping them there.
Steve Bingham:They can move, they choose to stay there.
Steve Bingham:And it's like, yeah, it's not that simple.
Host:And I think sometimes we fall into the.
Host:I can find a successful story that came out of that situation so everybody can do it.
Host:That's also kind of minimizing the hurt and the challenge that it is to do that.
Host:It's not everybody can't do that.
Host:Everybody doesn't have those opportunities.
Host:So picking the one or two stories of success doesn't mean that everybody has that opportunity.
Steve Bingham:Absolutely.
Steve Bingham:Yeah.
Steve Bingham:No, I mean, yeah, that's one of the things.
Steve Bingham:It's the whole.
Steve Bingham:What is it?
Steve Bingham:Horatio Algers, Horatio Alger story about pulling yourself up your.
Steve Bingham:Anybody can do it, right?
Steve Bingham:If so, so yeah.
Steve Bingham:And it, it, so it's, it's, it's this, it's the individual myth in America versus, you know, what it takes, you know, it takes a village to raise a child.
Steve Bingham:You know, it takes a village to have a successful community.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Host:Yeah.
Steve Bingham:It's not, it's not just about, you know, every, every single person pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.
Steve Bingham:It doesn't work that way.
Host:I'm curious, as you did research for this book, what was the one thing that you found that was most shocking for you?
Steve Bingham:Man, I had shocks every week.
Steve Bingham:I told someone the other day, you know, I thought I knew a lot going into writing the book and researching the book.
Steve Bingham:But you know, when you really delve into it and I wrote 12 different chapters covering very different complex topics.
Steve Bingham:I feel like I didn't know 70% of what I wrote about until I researched it and figured out how to put it to paper.
Steve Bingham:But I guess what I would say is, you know, so let me just read a couple statistics that were just like, are you freaking kidding me?
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:So black adults are paid significantly less than white adults at every educational level from those who lack a high school diploma.
Steve Bingham:White and black without high school diploma usually make 20% more all the way up to college and advanced degrees.
Steve Bingham:So it's like, okay, how is this level playing field if same same level of educational accomplishment, but when they get in the workplace it's so different.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:So that was one another is that that nearly 50% of black students attend a high poverty school, almost, almost always a low performing school compared to 6% of white students.
Steve Bingham:So is it really fair between our white students and our black students in America?
Steve Bingham:The black unemployment rate has been double the rate of whites for 60 years.
Steve Bingham:And most of that time, right, it was at above 10%.
Steve Bingham:Where if you, if, like, if whites are at 10%, then you're looking at a deep economic recession.
Steve Bingham:But because it was blacks, it was like, well, whites unemployment rates 5%.
Steve Bingham:So we don't have a whole lot to worry about.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:So, and then the final one, and this gets to the justice system.
Steve Bingham:Blacks make up 15% of the country's drug users.
Steve Bingham:They're 13% of the population.
Steve Bingham:But there are 37% of those arrested for drug violations.
Steve Bingham:There are 59% of those who are convicted for those violations, and they are 74% of those sent to prison for a drug offense.
Steve Bingham:Level playing field.
Steve Bingham:It's a different justice system for black people.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, it really is.
Steve Bingham:And that, that to me, kind of it's like, wow, holy crap.
Steve Bingham:How is that, how is that true?
Steve Bingham: But it in: Host:So your book has a call to action.
Host:And I'm curious, what are some of the solutions or some of the call to actions you identified from your work and your research?
Steve Bingham:So I broke it up into four chapters.
Steve Bingham:So even though I had eight chapters around myths, they're so tied together, right?
Steve Bingham:So one was how do we transform the educational landscape for our African American youth?
Steve Bingham:So the first, like for an example, fund universal birth to three pre K3 and pre K4 programs.
Steve Bingham:That's gonna, it's gonna benefit everybody, but it's gonna disproportionately benefit black children.
Steve Bingham:Right now, I think it's something like 4 to 5% of black young black kids go to a high quality K3, K4 program.
Steve Bingham:Wow.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:So, so how do we fund this either at the federal level, state level, local level, some combination so that every kid from the time they're, you know, their parent has to go back to work after three or four months.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:How do we make sure that they are in high quality, universally funded programs from the time they're three months old to the time they're ready to go into kindergarten, especially for black students.
Steve Bingham:That would make a fundamental difference about readiness for school and kind of the whole pathway beyond.
Steve Bingham:Then I talk about providing a black new deal for African American high school graduates.
Steve Bingham:It's like if you know something is waiting for you in terms of kind of guaranteed paying of some kind of post secondary education, whether that's a trade school Whether that's a traditional, you know, college or university, that, that, that will be taken care of for you.
Steve Bingham:Your listeners may not know.
Steve Bingham: The New deal in the: Steve Bingham:Same thing with the GI Bill.
Steve Bingham:So it's like, when are we finally going to say we have done to the African American community so many wrongs that there are specific ways we can do right?
Steve Bingham:And to me, some kind of black New Deal for African American high school graduates makes a lot of sense.
Steve Bingham:Tripling Pell Grants, increasing federal Title 1 funding of schools, you know, where the majority of black students attend Title 1 schools.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, you can't be on an equal playing field if you have so many things strikes against you and then you're not getting the sufficient funding required to make a high quality school and provide high quality education.
Steve Bingham:So that's just in the education arena.
Steve Bingham:But you know, we talked about transforming housing and zoning law, enacting comprehensive environmental justice.
Steve Bingham:People may not know the Supreme Court passed a law 100 years ago, 102 years ago now, that basically allowed environmentally polluting facilities to be placed either in or adjacent to black communities.
Steve Bingham:And that continued to happen for decades.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:And then same thing happened.
Steve Bingham:It was like when, oh, we need to put highways through our, through our cities.
Steve Bingham:Well, let's put it through an inner city neighborhood, completely disrupt the neighborhood.
Steve Bingham:But for those who are left behind, they're inhaling all of this car and truck exhaust.
Steve Bingham:Right?
Steve Bingham:So it's like there, there are so many things that need to be done on an environment, environmental justice front.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, deploy a public banking system either through, you know, like the state of North Dakota has a public bank that everyone has access to.
Steve Bingham:We could make a postal office banking system.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:Where there's a postal office in just about every community in America right now, I think it's over close to 40% of the underbanked and the unbanked in America are African American.
Steve Bingham:So they end up having to deal with predatory lenders and predatory, you know, financiers just forgetting, you know, like paying my rent this this month or my utilities this month.
Steve Bingham:And oh, but we're going to charge you, you know, 50% interest until you pay it back.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:So that keeps black people from staying above water and even being able to build wealth.
Steve Bingham:So what if we have a very different banking system that serves everybody as opposed to the banking system that we have now, which in the last 20 years has seen a lot of bank branches get pulled out of African American communities and a lot of other high poverty communities.
Steve Bingham:So I try and address kind of each of the areas that I talk in my book, talk about in my book and say, what would make a transformative difference?
Steve Bingham:It's not reparations.
Steve Bingham:Nothing can be reparations.
Steve Bingham:But what do we need to do to address specific places where we know systemic racism exists and try to undo it in a, in a very significant way?
Host:So from my time in DC, I discovered that nothing gets done without a lobbyist behind it.
Steve Bingham:Right, right.
Host:So who's gonna, who's gonna be the lobbyist for what?
Host:These ideas.
Host:I mean, these are good ideas, but how do you, how do you get politicians to actually pay attention to the issues at need to be addressed?
Steve Bingham:Well, let me put it this way.
Steve Bingham:If the election had gone differently in November, there would have been a lot more openness to a number of the things that I talk about in the book.
Steve Bingham:I feel like in some ways, at least at the federal, national level, we're going to be holding our breath for a lot of these things for at least another four years.
Steve Bingham:Unfortunately, I think there are things that can be done at the more local level.
Steve Bingham:And I think a lot of people, including myself, at times feel very detached from what happens at the national level.
Steve Bingham:It's like you engage in an election year, you vote, and then it's like they're going to do whatever they're going to do.
Steve Bingham:But at the local level, like I said, we can change housing and zoning laws, we can change the way school boundaries are drawn, we can change the way schools are funded.
Steve Bingham:Like in the state of Maryland, there's a whole, I forget the exact name, but it's like a transformative blueprint for success for all schools and all students in the state of Maryland.
Steve Bingham:And it's like a 10, 15 year plan with significantly more money invested in student success, More rigorous curriculum, higher quality teachers, after school programs, you know, and on and on and on.
Steve Bingham:All the things that we know we should be funding so that all kids can be successful.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, that's happening at both the state and the county level in Maryland.
Steve Bingham:That can happen in other places.
Steve Bingham:You know, I was listening to a podcast a couple years ago and talking about changing the policing system, right?
Steve Bingham:Well, it's like, you can't change the policing system at the federal level.
Steve Bingham:You can, you can do consent decrees like they did on The Ferguson Police Department.
Steve Bingham:But you know, those last a long time and they don't always do what you need them to do.
Steve Bingham:But every, every policing system gets the vast majority of its funding from the local municipality or county, right?
Steve Bingham:So it's like if you want to change the policing system, work on that in your town or your county so that we make sure that, you know, they abolish chokeholds, we make sure that police are properly trained, we make sure that police are well trained in de escalation techniques that they're not continuing to get, you know, military apparatus in order to, you know, you know, it's like every police department now wants to have a major SWAT team and you know, the latest weaponry that comes out of the Pentagon or whatever the case may be.
Steve Bingham:It's like we really need to look at especially what, what are the police practices that jeopardize African Americans and what can be done at the local policing level.
Steve Bingham:Whether that's changing the practices and procedures or it's putting in office new county council members or new county executive or a new mayor that, that is supportive of, that those things can be done.
Steve Bingham:Again.
Steve Bingham:You know, the, the challenge here, it's like you, you'll see progress in different places.
Steve Bingham:Right.
Steve Bingham:And not in others.
Steve Bingham:But for some of these things it's like if, if we're serious, let me at least make my home place far better.
Steve Bingham:Far, far, far more.
Steve Bingham:Just far more equitable.
Host:I love that.
Host:I gotta ask my, gotta ask you this question is my second favorite question to ask my guest.
Host:Okay.
Steve Bingham:All right.
Steve Bingham:Comes at the end.
Steve Bingham:All right, you've been holding on.
Host:What do you want your legacy to be?
Steve Bingham:Hmm, that's a tough one.
Steve Bingham:You know, especially, you know, it's a question I've been asking myself for several years because I'm 63, hopefully I won't be working at least for pay for too many more years.
Steve Bingham:But I still, I've got a, I've got a 16 year old sophomore in high school.
Steve Bingham:So, you know, know I'll be at it for at least another six or seven years.
Steve Bingham:So I guess I would say my legacy, I'd like my legacy to be more.
Steve Bingham:I'm able to introduce more and more white people to the history of racism in America and why that still impacts us today in significant ways and take seriously some of the ideas that I propose for what we can do to change.
Steve Bingham:So that's one.
Steve Bingham:And I would say I'm hoping that my legacy in state of Maryland and in particular Prince George's county, which by the way is a majority African American county that I can continue to do my work and my volunteer work in ways that change the systems locally so that this county is more just and more equitable.
Steve Bingham:And then I just want to.
Steve Bingham:I want to be a good dad for my kids the rest of my life.
Host:There you go.
Host:I was actually in your county not long ago, about.
Host:About a year ago.
Host:So.
Steve Bingham:Okay.
Steve Bingham:What were you doing there?
Host:I was there for a conference and so I was at Pastor Jenkins Church in.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, that's where my kids grew up.
Host:Yeah.
Host:No, it was a great experience to kind of see what.
Host:Walk again behind the curtain of what happens in the church.
Steve Bingham:Absolutely.
Steve Bingham:Yeah.
Steve Bingham:No.
Steve Bingham:First Baptist of Glen Arden.
Steve Bingham:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Bingham:No, he.
Steve Bingham:He's great.
Steve Bingham:They do a lot of really good work in the community.
Steve Bingham:They do and have a really big impact, a really big following.
Steve Bingham:So, yeah, he, he's.
Steve Bingham:He and other pastors in Prince George's County, I think are.
Steve Bingham:Are an important force to make sure we residents really kind of leverage in what the, the churches in Prince George's can do.
Host:Exactly.
Steve Bingham:They're a major influence here, for sure.
Host:They definitely are.
Host:As we wrap up this great conversation, I really have enjoyed our time together.
Steve Bingham:Me too.
Steve Bingham:Me too.
Host:What key takeaways do you want to leave with the audience who hear our conversation today?
Steve Bingham:So I guess one key takeaway is either get active or remain active on the issues you care about, whether locally or beyond.
Steve Bingham:We have.
Steve Bingham:We continue to have mountains to climb, especially with the most recent election where I don't think this administration or this Congress will be very favorable towards a lot of these ideas, but not give up the fight and to take the fight in places where you can make change.
Steve Bingham:And then, you know, I'd love it if more people would read my book.
Steve Bingham:So you can find my book.
Steve Bingham:It's never been a level playing field on Amazon.com whether you like Kindle paperback or hardback.
Steve Bingham:And then I, you know, I'd love more people to.
Steve Bingham:To read my regular newsletter.
Steve Bingham:So I, I write on a writer's platform called Substack S U B S T A C K And the title of my newsletter is Leveling the Field.
Steve Bingham:Finally Leveling the Field.
Steve Bingham:Final.
Steve Bingham:I'm cranking stuff out on a regular basis to hopefully continue to educate and inspire people.
Steve Bingham:And I'd love to be able to increase my readership.
Host:Well, Steve, thanks so much for what you do and thanks for writing the book and tackling some tough issues.
Host:If we don't have the tough conversations, nothing ever changes.
Host:So I appreciate you having the courage to make and take on these tough topics.
Steve Bingham:Well, I appreciate the time that you've given me here.
Steve Bingham:And I love the name of your podcast, building Bridges, because without a doubt, if we don't do that, we're not going to get very far.
Host:And it was based on what actually happened in Ferguson, is that right?
Host:It was because that's when I wrote my Bible study, because of what happened with the situation in Ferguson.
Host:It didn't really take off until what happened with George Floyd, though.
Steve Bingham:Right, right, right.
Steve Bingham:Interesting.
Host:Interesting to have a conversation until we were all sitting at home.
Steve Bingham:Yeah.
Host:Because Ferguson far away.
Host:Unless you lived.
Host:Unless you lived in the St.
Host:Louis area.
Steve Bingham:Right, right, right.
Steve Bingham:Yeah.
Steve Bingham:No, no doubt, no doubt.
Steve Bingham:But, yeah, people were.
Steve Bingham:Had nothing else to do.
Steve Bingham:So it's.
Steve Bingham:All right, let's talk about this then.
Host:Right, Exactly.
Steve Bingham:What's got to happen.
Host:Well, I'd love to have you back on again.
Host:I think we have a great conversation that we started and we can continue to have some good resources or give to people to think about and to make a difference in their local communities.
Steve Bingham:I'd love that, Keith.
Steve Bingham:So just give me a buzz whenever you want.
Host:Well, blessings to you.
Steve Bingham:All right, to you, too.
Steve Bingham:Thanks, Keith.
Steve Bingham:Take.
