'Two Brooklyns, One Vision' initiative strives to heal racial wounds in two bordering cities

CATHY WURZER: Nearly three years ago, Daunte Wright was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center. It happened during the trial of Derek Chauvin. As Minneapolis was having a racial reckoning, the death of Daunte Wright sparked one in Brooklyn Center too.

Since his death, the city hired a new police chief, who has since retired. And Brooklyn Center has worked on proposing new policing reforms. Now, it's turning to its neighbor, Brooklyn Park. The two cities have launched a new initiative-- Two Brooklyns One Vision. Joining us right now are Marcellus Davis, the racial equity diversity and inclusion manager for the city of Brooklyn Park, and Cordell Wiseman, the recreation director for the city of Brooklyn Center. Marcellus and Cordell, thanks for joining us.

CORDELL WISEMAN: Thank you.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Thank you for the opportunity.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: On behalf of the city of Brooklyn Park, it's a pleasure to be here.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Say, for folks who are listening outside the Twin Cities metro area and are not maybe familiar with the geography, Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center-- a little confusing for some people. You all share a geographical border, right? How are both communities intertwined, though, beyond that, Marcellus?

MARCELLUS DAVIS: We share a number of transition for community members. Cordell and his team and my team in the city of Brooklyn Park also try to offer a number of opportunities for our communities. Let's say, for instance, we are trying to collaborate in some functions for upcoming Juneteenth this year, but a lot of our students that live in Brooklyn Park may reside in Brooklyn Center and vice versa.

So someone might like this club more than they like the other club. So there's always this transition. We are so close. And for those who do not live in our city, they can't tell Brooklyn Center from Brooklyn Park often.

CATHY WURZER: Right. Exactly. By the way, how did this idea start for the two cities to kind of partner together on this racial healing initiative?

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Myself or Cordell?

CATHY WURZER: I'm sorry. Marcellus, you, and then, Cordell, if you could talk about that.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: We thought that with the infestation and toxins of racism over the last hundreds of years for some, and some, most notably, in the last five years with the murder of George Floyd, the murder of Daunte Wright, the COVID-19-- all these things are wearing everybody down. These are racial traumatic experiences that deplete the inner soul.

These toxins hit us more so than we have enough racial healing opportunities. So we felt that the time was now for our community to put forth opportunities to garner the racial healing skills and tools to individually heal or collectively heal and then transform systems that create racial harm.

CATHY WURZER: Cordell Wiseman, what's the goal? What is your goal for this initiative?

CORDELL WISEMAN: Thanks for the question. My goal is, again, our community. Our kids-- we share resources. We share our youth, our community. They travel across the borders from not only our city, but to the city of Minneapolis. So the goal is that we become unified in how we serve our kids, how we serve our community, how we program, how we become one and be consistent with that those efforts so our kids have consistency in their life.

CATHY WURZER: And today, I understand, is actually a national day of racial healing. So how do you think racial healing might look like in the city of Brooklyn Center?

CORDELL WISEMAN: For me, again, I think what it looks like is our community can come together and talk about some of these issues that address our community around race and safe. And that's what we're trying to do in these series. We provide a safe engagement opportunity where people can share and talk about some of these issues that impact us.

We don't get the opportunity to talk about it. We don't get the opportunity to speak on it. So I think that helps those opportunities-- those help us. That helps us. That gives us the opportunity to talk and to give the community the opportunity to speak on those issues.

CATHY WURZER: There are probably, I bet, some pretty deep wounds with the shooting death of Daunte Wright. That happened in Brooklyn Center. Marcellus, how would you say that it had an impact on Brooklyn Park?

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Well, with our borders being so close, the impact of the shooting of Daunte Wright, of course, was felt in Brooklyn Park, as some of our police departments went over there to help. But as far as some of our resources, as far as trying to help with some of the healing, community organizations helped in those regards at Brooklyn Center as well. And of course, the people who sometimes have relationships from one city to the next, we were all impacted.

That's just one element of discussion. We have a perplexing racial achievement gap that many of our school districts are working hard to eradicate. We have encampments. We have health disparities.

Recently, we've been in the news for our Huntington Place and some of the work that we're doing in regards to make sure the living conditions for our residents is at the highest level for humanity. So these are things-- toxins of racism have always perplexed both cities. And what we are trying to do as government entities is take a responsible approach trying to address some of the harm that we have caused as government and trying to work with the community in trying to address things going forward, to transform systems.

CATHY WURZER: We should also tell folks who are, again, not familiar-- Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center are more than 50% folks of color-- two of the most diverse metro suburbs, absolutely. I'm wondering, because, Marcellus, you are Brooklyn Park's first director of racial equity, diversity, and inclusion, do you sometimes feel like your role in the boulder up the hill? Are you seeing any progress so far?

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Very good question. Every day, I get up going to work knowing that I'm trying to work myself out of a job. I also get up going to work understanding that government in the past has worked in incremental fashion.

That doesn't mean I get up any less inspired to do the work. I may not see the work that I am trying to help influence the lives of residents of the city of Brooklyn Park. But like my ancestors, the Shirley Chisholms, the Fannie Lou Hamers, the Ella Bakers, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, the Malcolm Xs, the Stokely Carmichaels, the Black Panther Party-- I get up and I do the work nevertheless.

So it's not about whether or not I see it. It's my responsibility to do it, whether I'm a city employee or I'm a community member.

CATHY WURZER: Cordell, are you seeing progress in Brooklyn Center?

CORDELL WISEMAN: Yes, we are. The progress comes in the form of our community and our government agencies all come together to really work on what we want Brooklyn Center to be. Our city manager put together a program, 18-month series that we all come together-- businesses, the community, the government agencies-- participate and really address these tough issues that's facing our community, talk about how we want to change, what our community should look like, how we should work together.

So for me, that's progress. We are all at the table. We're having some tough and crucial conversations. But the people that want to be there and look for those changes is there. And that's exciting. And to me, that's progress, because we hadn't been talking before.

CATHY WURZER: Say, before we go, we have got to talk about the event tonight. There is going to be a racial justice healer an organizer at this event, I understand. Marcellus, can you tell us about that?

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Yeah. Dr. Roz is a very known professor, activist, racial healer by the name of Dr. Roz, who currently works for Metro State, but is always in the community, was instrumental during the civil resistance in trying to perform healing circles and provide tangible individual and collective skills towards racial healing. He will be in our space tonight speaking about those skills, also summarizing some of the work that we started and learned about the When They See Us Netflix series created by Ava Duvernay, in which our first racial healing event, we had Dr. Yusef Salaam set the stage for us in what this initiative would look like.

So we're just going to wrap some things up from that particular one in this particular session, again, leave with some tangible skills towards racial healing. Again, leaving with some tangible skills with collectively coming together to address systems that are creating racial harm.

CATHY WURZER: I wish you both well. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time here to talk about this.

CORDELL WISEMAN: Thank you.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Thank you.

CORDELL WISEMAN: We appreciate you having us.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Thanks for allowing this platform for us to be able to speak about that. And we hope to see you and some of your listeners there tonight.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely.

MARCELLUS DAVIS: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you to you both. Marcellus Davis has been with us. He's with the city of Brooklyn Park. Cordell Wiseman is with the city of Brooklyn Center. Both work on the Two Brooklyns One Vision initiative.