City Looks at Race Relations

City councillors must improve communication with citizens on issues of racial injustice, members of the Cambridge Unity and Justice Commission said during last night's City Council meeting.

The commission, charged with investigating race relations in Cambridge, was created by Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 after the Rodney King verdict last spring.

It released a report on its activities and recommendations at the meeting.

The recommendations are based on citizen concerns raised during five community meetings held in different neighborhoods over the past year.

Citizens' Input

During the meetings, commissioners asked participants what they thought the city could do to improve racial and ethnic equity, what the commission could do, and what citizens themselves could do, said commission Chair Sylvia Saavedra-Keber.

Three of the main topics addressed both at the meetings and in the report were equity in education, physical abuse in law enforcement and control of city violence and racial bias.

Commission member Sheli Wortis said schools must begin educating children at an early age about the roots of prejudice.

Wortis also said schools must be more active in teaching languages other than English, recruiting teachers who speak these languages and using books that are inclusive and accurate in their depictions of diverse ethnicities.

Despair of Youth

Another commission member, Rev. Jeffrey Brown, said many of the city's problems with violence originate in young people's despair and disillusionment with society.

A sense of powerlessness, he said, "leads to subversive and destructive expressions of power."

To alleviate these problems, commission members suggested an increase in school and public discussion on violence.

The commission members said that racial bias and physical abuse in law enforcement, which citizens at the meetings had cited as problems, can be partially prevented by improved police training and better dialogue among the police and community members.

Commission's True Mandate

Reeves said last night that the commission's true mandate was to help Cambridge try to reach the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ideal of peace, referring to King's statement that "peace is not simply the absence of conflict; peace is the presence of justice."

Some councillors said they were troubled by certain sections of the report.

Councillor Alice K. Wolf said she was disappointed that the report did not pay more attention to discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation and gender.

In an interview after the commission's presentation, councillor William H. Walsh said the report is "not based on facts."

He said the document wrongly claims that the council and the Cambridge public school faculty are not diverse.

But Saavedra-Keber defended these sections of the report, and said that the commission's purpose was simply to bring to the council concerns raised by its constituents.

Hospital Loan Approved

In other business, the council approved a $40 million dollar loan order to the Cambridge Hospital for reconstruction costs.

The loan passed by a 7-2 vote, despite complaints from neighborhood residents that the extensive construction project would interfere with their daily lives and threaten their health.

According to hospital officials, the expansion is necessary because the current facility lacks adequate private space, inconveniences its patients with crowded emergency and waiting rooms and does not provide the most advanced equipment available.