Maine’s new Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Maine Tribal Populations sent a letter to Governor Janet Mills on Thursday outlining immediate steps the administration should take to address systemic racism in Maine.
“The events of recent weeks reaffirm the importance of this commission,” said state Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), the interim chair of the commission.
“The brutal killing of George Floyd on May 25 has reignited a global conversation about systemic racism and the ways in which anti-Black racism has structurally impacted the health and well-being of Black people living in the U.S.,” reads the letter signed by the body’s eight commissioners. In addition to Talbot Ross, they include Penobscot Nation tribal ambassador Maulian Dana, Mano en Mano director Ian Yaffe, Maine Equal Justice policy advocate Joby Thoyalil, labor unionist Garrett Stewart, Maine Center for Economic Policy analyst James Myall, workforce development specialist Bruce King, and Coastal Enterprises president Keith Bisson.
The commissioners also said the administration must address the disparate impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on communities of color. Racial disparities in infection rates have grown each week since the Maine CDC began releasing race and ethnicity data in late April. Black Mainers are now nearly 25 times more likely than white people in the state to have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Maine’s communities of color have been demanding for weeks that the Maine Department of Health and Human Services address the significantly disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on their communities,” the letter reads. “The fact that the pandemic is having a disparate impact based on race is not surprising, given the structural racism that is evident throughout the institutions that make up our society.”
The permanent commission was introduced by Talbot Ross and voted into law by state lawmakers last year. The commission has a similar mandate as Maine’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, established by lawmakers in 1964 to address gender inequality.
The race equity commission is tasked with understanding where and how the state’s existing economic policies exclude or reinforce the economic disparities seen in communities of color, including Indigenous and new immigrant populations, and then advocate for policies that center those communities.
The letter recommended that Mills take the following actions:
- Provide emergency CARES Act funding and technical assistance to Black, Indigenous and People of Color. While the CARES Act aims to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, it should fund both immediate response efforts and efforts to build, strengthen and support the social infrastructure of the most affected communities. Funding should relieve the current predicament while setting communities up to address more permanent solutions.
- Support LD 2094, “An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act.” This bill is representative of the kind of self-determining process we believe needs to take place, one that is led and intimately informed by the communities seeking justice from systemic racism.
- Empower the Commission with the resources it needs to be most effective. While the Commission has an immense charge and state law empowers the Commission to use a variety of tools, such as research, public hearings and introducing legislation, it is currently unfunded.
- Direct state agencies to begin collecting and publishing data that is disaggregated by race, ethnicity and tribal status wherever possible. Agencies should then begin tracking disparities in their areas of jurisdiction.
- Support a “truth and reconciliation” process conducted by this Commission and the Maine Human Rights Commission. The purpose will be to build a body of knowledge upon which all Maine people could draw from in seeking a way forward that no longer perpetuates the racism and discrimination that is inherent in our systems.
Commissioners say they expect Mills to be receptive to the initial recommendations.
“We are encouraged by the governor’s recent statement that she hopes to work with the commission, in our advisory role to the executive branch, to identify ways state government should proactively address the factors contributing to racial disparities in Maine,” Yaffe said, referring to Mills’ recent statement in response to the racial justice protests.
“The permanent commission is one way we can ensure this historic moment becomes a sustained and thoughtful set of changes and structural reforms,” Dana said in a statement.
Photo: State Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross speaks at a press conference at the Maine State House in 2019. | Beacon
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