Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, coordinated by SOCR, is a citywide effort to:

• Create a community where residents and employees experience our cultural and ethnic diversity as an asset;
• Eliminate institutional attitudes, practices, and policies that result in racial disproportionality;
• Understand the challenges that cultural pluralism places on democracy and transform our civic and citizen engagement processes to address those challenges.

Goals
RSJI will focus on 6 key areas:

• Assessing the impact of race on our organizational culture, policies, practices and procedures;
• Creating an organization free of institutionalized racism;
• Transforming our business practices by aligning our personnel and contracting activities with our race and social justice goals;
• Reducing racial disproportionality in education, public safety, economic development, citizen engagement, public health and environment by increasing the relevance of City programs and services to our multi-cultural citizenry;
• Creating more inclusive citizen engagement;
• Implementing community building strategies to combat community splintering and factionalization.

The current situation
The City of Seattle has a long history of facilitating ethnic and cultural pluralism. The city’s Asian population has more than tripled since 1970; the Latino and East African communities grew sharply during the 1990s. Seattle’s African American community, which increased by over 300% after World War II, currently represents 8.4% of the city’s overall population.

Our racial/ethnic communities face challenges when it comes to civic engagement and access to City programs and services. In addition, newly arrived immigrants experience unique circumstances.

Work Plan
All City departments have submitted their RSJ strategic plans to SOCR as the first step of our organizational assessment. After reviewing the plans, SOCR will work with departments to refine their strategies, identify common patterns, and coordinate Citywide strategies.

Departments are responsible for implementation of their strategic plans, programs and projects. As an example, DON created the RSJ Neighborhood Matching Fund Project in 2003 as a pilot program to respond to the issue of citizen engagement, community building, and reducing disproportionality among communities of color.

Outcomes
Seattle residents should expect to see improved customer service, greater inclusion in programs and policies and increased sensitivity to the interests of ethnic communities. Some City programs may be redesigned or revised to meet the needs of groups that traditionally have not received the same attention as others. Outcomes include:

• Hiring/promoting employees who represent Seattle’s cultural and ethnic diversity.
• Significantly increasing the amount of business the City does with minority-owned businesses.
• Ensuring diversity in the City’s boards, commissions and neighborhood groups.
• Making City policy decisions that reflect our diversity.
• Using race and social justice as a standard for good business practice and government action.