Committed to Diversity: Prairie Village Diversity Committee meets to discuss long term goals

The Prairie Village Diversity Committee — a City Committee dedicated to developing recommendations for the City Council to attract residents not only of diverse races, but also nationalities, religions and sexualities to Prairie Village — held their second meeting April 21 where they discussed priorities, including implicit bias training for city employees, affordable housing and cultural events.

The Diversity Committee, formerly a temporary group known as the Diversity Task Force, was approved as a permanent City Committee by the City Council in January 2021. When Prairie Village mayor Eric Mikkelson first formed the task force, he instructed the group to compile a list of 28 priorities to present to the City Council. Their top priority was to become a permanent committee, as members felt it would bring formality to the group and help streamline ideas to the City Council. 

“There’s a structure in place for committees that allows us to access the resources of the city and gives a formalized relationship to the committee,” Diversity Committee Vice Chair Tucker Poling said. “So it’s not just a project, it’s an ongoing priority. It’s anti-racism, and inclusion is a process, not just a destination. So, anytime you formalize and institutionalize something, I think it just raises the level of investment.”

Now that the group — a compilation of 12 community members of different races, religions, socioeconomic standings, gender identities and sexualities — is a permanent entity following the standard city committee schedule of meeting every other month, they are able to focus on long term goals.

After the first committee meeting in February, the group secured a $10,000 budget from the City Council and hopes to receive an additional $10,000 specifically for implicit bias and diversity training. With this budget, the committee is researching professionals who would be available to deliver this training to City Council members, the planning commission and city staff. The goal of the training is to create a space for city employees to learn about the effects of their unconscious racial biases and address otherwise uncomfortable questions about how they contribute to systems of racism.

“It’s about making people aware of aspects of racism, aspects of white supremacy, that are not obvious — biases we don’t know we have, biases that don’t involve someone having hate in their heart or their mind,” Poling said. “Also educating on experiences that people outside the dominant power structure have that you have no idea. As a white person, I’ve benefited a lot from hearing experiences from people of color that would have never crossed my mind. I’ve never walked into a mall or a public space and had to be conscious about who I am. It’s a privilege that I have psychologically taken for granted.”

Due to COVID-19 safety restrictions, the training will likely take place online. However, Diversity Committee Staff Liaison Tim Schwartzkopf does not necessarily see this as a disadvantage. The online platform could help attendees feel less hesitant when asking uncomfortable questions about race, since they won’t be directly facing their colleagues. 

In addition to bias training, the committee and City Council are exploring ways to introduce more affordable housing into the community. According to Poling, this housing could take the form of alternative structures, such as a room over the garage or smaller accommodation in the backyard, geared towards someone who lacks the resources or abilities to purchase a house in Prairie Village. Larger structures like apartment high rises could also be built to give people of diverse socioeconomic standings, ages and races more living options.

In order to achieve these proposals, the committee and City Council would have to initiate changes to the strict zoning laws of Prairie Village, especially due to city restrictions against structures over two stories.

“Concerns [people have about building affordable housing] could be that property values are important, and there’s a standard in Prairie Village,” East parent and committee member Dr. George Williams said. “But people who want good schools for their kids, I mean, that should be available for everybody. And that’s the reason why my wife and I moved into this neighborhood — we couldn’t afford private school, but we could afford a home where we could take advantage of the great school district, just like anybody else. And so keeping that available to people from all different groups [is important].”

These disparities in housing originated in the 1930s and 40s when redlining and racist deed restrictions banned people of color from purchasing homes in Prairie Village. The discriminatory language can still be found in the deeds today.

When the task force was first formed, they researched ways to expunge this language from the deeds. However, with language already added to the deeds condemning the racist covenants and prohibiting the enforcement of them, it was found that, legally, there was not much more action to take against the deeds, according to Mikkelson. Additionally, community members argued the language should not be removed, as they believe it could erase the past. 

“Just going back in the records and pretending like it never existed is just not something we can do easily and many suggest we shouldn’t because, like any part of the past, it aides learning,” Mikkelson said. “We shouldn’t forget.”

Rather than using resources to expunge the racial covenants, the committee discussed placing plaques in parks and public spaces that educate about Prairie Village’s history with discrimination. At the April 21 meeting, committee member and Prairie Village resident David Magariel expressed that the committee should educate resident about how the city’s history led to it being so segregated before trying to change the makeup of the population.

To further educate city residents, the Diversity Committee voted to partner with Stand Up for Black Lives Prairie Village to host a Juneteenth awareness event. The event will focus on educating youth by involving elementary students in a poster-making competition to illustrate what freedom means to Black Americans. A celebration will be held on June 19 to showcase the posters, listen to a program of speakers and participate in sidewalk art and other family-friendly activities.

Before the committee’s next meeting on June 16, members will further research these priorities — for instance, contacting companies that provide implicit bias training — and prepare information to present to the rest of the committee. Mikkelson encourages any community member who would like to provide input to contact a committee member whose contact information can be found on the committee page of the Prairie Village website.