The second in a four-part series of “Black In Edmonds,” is set for Saturday, Aug. 22 at 1 p.m. This program features a discussion with elected leadership and Black families. “We will discuss policy and decision making with some of our local elected leaders and its impact on those who are Black/BIPOC in our community,” the program announcement states.The program is moderated by Alicia Crank, a member of the Edmonds Planning Board, vice chair of the Snohomish County Airport Commission and Chief Development Officer at AtWork!
Panelists are:
-Karin and Eric Butler: owners of HunniCo/Hunniwater
-Adam Cornell, Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney
-Rhienn and Mark Davis
-Deborah Kilgore, Edmonds School District Board President
-Susan Paine, Edmonds City Councilmember and former Edmonds School Board member
Zoom registration is limited. The event will also be live streamed on the Alicia In Edmonds Facebook page
In part one of the series, Crank brought a group of five Black residents together to have a frank conversation about being Black in Edmonds. You can read our report of that discussion here and watch the video here.
Thanks, Alicia Crank, for continuing this Important and eye-opening conversation. I found the first one painful to listen to but illuminating and extremely valuable in helping me to understand the experience of being Black in Edmonds. I am looking forward to learning more and to exploring what I and other White people can do to promote the changes in attitudes, behaviors and policies that need to occur for Edmonds to be experienced by our Black neighbors and guests as a friendly and welcoming place. Thanks also to all who join these conversations with open hearts and a willingness to listen to and learn from others whose experiences may differ from our own.
I am very grateful to Alicia Crank for generously initiating these sessions, yet thoroughly bummed not to be able to attend the next one. Also want to echo Kathleen Sears’ thoughtful sharing re the value, importance, and impact of new learning re the very personal experiences of Black people who are our fellow Edmonds community members. Keeping my fingers crossed for next time.
This is great. The first conversation was very eye-opening. And, WOW! This is upping your game! I’m looking forward to hearing from our elected public servants!
This coming Saturday at 1:00 PM!
Thank you!
Thank you to all of the people who put in the hard work to make this happen. This sounds like a very interesting and engaging event. It is certainly a tremendous benefit to our community to have this continued discussion.
I appreciate Alicia Crank and all of the other participants who have donated their time, insights, and discussion of personal experiences to this critical issue.
Fantastic! Thank you Alicia for putting your time and effort into this and thank you My Edmonds News for publicizing it.
Looking forward to the day when this type of forum or event is unnecessary because we all accept the fact that “Race” doesn’t really exist beyond the concept of the human race and we judge each other on our actions and treatment of each other rather than our skin colors, accents or places of origin. Our history is not good, but our future can be, thanks to people like Alicia getting all this hurt and misunderstanding out in the open; so our wounds can finally heal. In my opinion, much information (mostly misinformation) about “race” has been perpetuated by people trying to subjugate other people for some perceived personal gain, like slavery in Colonial times or providing jobs and opportunity for the “right” people in Nazi Germany for example. Greed is pretty good at cancelling out humanity.
I’ve added one more person to this Saturday’s conversation. Steve Woodard. Steve currently serves on the Mountlake Terrace City Council and is the Dean of Access and Completion at Edmonds College. One of the topics we will discuss is centered around equity in education.
Alicia. Thank you for all of the work you do for Edmonds. You shouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting but you do. The first video was very eye opening. I’d been looking at Edmonds with my white perspective and I had hoped it was better for POC. The disturbing things in our community have obviously been going on for a long time, it’s seems that the racists are getting louder these days.