SWAMPSCOTT — The town will hold a virtual forum at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss the community’s role in addressing and dismantling systemic racism.
This forum will be facilitated by Tamy-Feé Meneide, Swampscott’s Critical Partner in Anti-Racism.
“I’m very excited to partner with the town so we can all engage in this ‘heartwork’,” said Meneide at the Select Board Meeting last Tuesday. “We’re really going to be examining and asking questions to unpack the town’s approach to becoming a more welcoming space for all.”
The conversation will be framed around the article, The Groundwater Approach, published by the Racial Equity Institute, which uses the metaphor of fish in a variety of bodies of water being poisoned by a contaminated groundwater supply to show the effects of systemic racism on the African-American population.
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald sees this poisoned groundwater throughout Swampscott in the lack of diversity caused by systemic problems in housing and hiring practices.
“A lot of it is about the economics of Swampscott,” said Fitzgerald. “The cost of housing can be a huge barrier. The zoning and the lack of affordable housing all plays into a system that makes Swampscott exclusive.”
According to the 2016 Swampscott Housing Production Plan, as of October 2015, only 3.7 percent of the 5,795 year-round units were considered affordable by state standards, well below the recommended level of 10 percent affordability.
Swampscott, according to data from World Population Review is 95.16 percent white, 2.78 percent mixed-race, and less than one percent black.
Graham Archer, who was appointed as the town’s first Black Fire Chief in 2019, pointed out the role that a racist history played in the development of homogenous suburbs like Swampscott.
“It goes back to redlining, it goes back to mortgage-lending policy, it goes back to the way suburbs in America have developed,” he said. “I think a lot of people labor under the assumption that our communities just self-segregated over the years. But there are external factors that drove this lack of diversity.”
He hopes that the recent vote for the Police and Fire departments to leave the civil service system will help diversify the departments and lead to a further diversification of the town.
The decision to exempt police and fire from the civil service system was passed by a 178-54 vote margin at the Special Town Meeting last month. Archer hopes that the hiring system which will replace it will be less restrictive and more inclusive toward minorities.
“By changing our hiring process, we can take a more proactive role. Instead of just being reflective of the demographics of the community we can be aspirational,” Archer said. “We can hire people of all backgrounds and a certain percentage of those people hopefully will like working here and will move here.”
Archer plans to attend the forum, and is looking forward to the discussion.
A similar conversation took place several months ago and Thursday’s discussion will be building on the ideas that were brought to the table then.
“We have a lot of wonderful citizens that are working to become more educated and to learn more about the structural barriers to equality and inclusivity,” said Fitzgerald.
Residents interested in attending are asked to register for the forum no later than noon on Dec. 2.
The forum will also be aired live on the Town’s Facebook page and on Swampscott Cable Access Television and online on the Cable Access page.
