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Arlington Unity Council chairman and UT-Arlington sociology professor Jason Shelton. (Courtesy photo | University of Texas at Arlington)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/image1-1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/image1-1.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Once upon a time early in the last century, the Texas Ku Klux Klan held state conventions and other meetings in Arlington, camping on a farm that’s now a mix of university campus and suburban homes between Fielder Road and Davis Street.These times are not those, and Arlington is no longer remotely that kind of place, but the city’s creation of a Unity Council to study and make recommendations to promote and encourage greater equity does invite sociological contrast.Quick recap: Back in 2020, the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota sent ripples of anger and anxiety through the country. The tragedy served as a catalyst, prompting Arlington City Council to commission a hard look at the city.Specifically, the council was interested in equity strategies that could be implemented to promote greater equality in what is now a sprawling majority-minority city with more than 400,000 residents.The newly created Unity Council was made up of 15 members of the city’s Community Relations Commission and an additional 13 members appointed by the mayor and council members.It was essentially a task force: Review the state of the community equity-wise, make recommendations to City Council about what could and should be done to improve equity, then disappear.The chair? Jason Shelton, 48, a sociology and anthropology professor at UT-Arlington and a national expert on intersections of race, class and attitudes about various political and social issues in this nation.His selection was fortuitous both in his background and leadership inclinations. It’s a simplification, but his approach boils down to collecting as much data on issues and attitudes as possible from both Unity Council members and the community. From there, he encouraged the percolation of ideas to produce an overall slate of recommendations after the group began meeting in 2020.The goal: Create a workable equity plan that included strategies to eliminate racism and other forms of discrimination and to advance unity in Arlington.“We all have our emotions,” Shelton says. “But in the end, what does the data say? And how much does data track with those opinions and emotions? And I think what data does is allow us to see broader patterns. And if we’re ever going to address social problems, and this is a theme in sociology, that you’ve got to address social problems with data and facts and draw logical conclusions. And that’s what we’ve tried to do.”The Unity Council divided into five subcommittees focused on economic disparities; education and workforce training; housing; health and wellness; and police and criminal justice.Nine months after its creation, the Unity Council produced a presentation about racial disparities in Arlington, along with 57 recommendations to promote racial equity, all of which the City Council accepted. Those recommendations included the hiring of a chief equity officer, which the city followed through on with the selection of Troy Williams in 2022. The Unity Council’s efforts may have made a bigger splash nationally than locally in terms of attention. In March 2021, the National League of Cities selected Arlington as the winner of its 2021 Cultural Diversity Award for the work of the Unity Council — the top recognition in the 200,001-500,000 population category.The council also made another critical decision, that being to make the Unity Council a permanent fixture. Though the original ad hoc group was dissolved after making its recommendations, the permanent Unity Council is now made up of 10 members, including a youth representative. Shelton remains the chairman.Which brings up a critical question: How are those 57 recommendations faring?An updated report is expected soon, but at least seven recommendations are complete, 34 are in progress, and 16 have not yet been initiated. Examples of completed short-term recommendations are expanding free Wi-Fi at public parks and libraries, hiring a permanent chaplain in the police department, and hosting a job and resource fair in East Arlington, where unemployment rates are highest.For Shelton, the work goes on.“I’ve always said that the Unity Council is a reflection of our community,” he said. “There are Democrats there. There are Republicans there. There are independents and there are people who are the hard left, hard right. There are people who are rich, poor and middle class. “But everybody lives here,” he said. “So how do we find that idea of the middle ground? I ask my committee not to compromise their values, but I ask them what they can live with and what they can’t live without. What is it that we can find the middle ground on?”O.K. Carter is a columnist at the Arlington Report. You may contact him at o.k.carter@arlingtonreport.org.