Saint Paul Mayor, Melvin Carter on equity

and so oftentimes we do this work as though we're starting from scratch we're not starting from scratch we're starting from burial we're starting from intentional dismantling of that economic ecosystem that you were just talking about and so we're not putting something together we have to put something back together that was intentionally destroyed by governments by businesses by non-profits by the people who sat in all of our seats before us so one thing I've learned is that we know well what Equity isn't we know well how to sit in a room or see a policy or see a tweet and say that's not equity but we don't always know what Equity is and you can't build something you can't project something you can't create something on the basis of knowing what it's not I will tell you as a parent who is tired of trying to find teachers who look like my child I will tell you as somebody who could spend this whole morning telling you stories of being pulled over by the police when I know I wasn't speeding I could tell you as someone who knows what it feels like to pawn literally everything in your apartment and still not make rent that I am tired of talking about equity so we got to figure out what Equity means that a long time ago in a former life I went to business school at Florida a m University and my dean of my business school knew what she was talking about when she said the word equity as a matter of fact all of you private sector folks in the room know what you're talking about when you say Equity you're talking about money because the the the first definition of equity let me give you three things that characterize equity for us as far as our guiding definition in Saint Paul the first one is participation in an economy Evan if I own equity in a company that just basically means if that company has a good quarter I have a good quarter too that's the starting point if we're going to be an equitable City that means that as our Skyline grows as our tax base expands somebody should have an easier time feeding their children somebody should be able to pay the rent Equity means transferable appreciable assets Equity means ownership of transferable and appreciable assets and I just want to get us out of the space where when we in our social justice life talk about Equity we don't know what we're talking about come on