The work of Normalizing is to make conversations and analysis of race and power normal, and also to build capacity of people, both within the City and outside, to see through an equity lens. This work formed the critical first step Brion took in the work, bringing together communities who organized and pushed the City to begin examining their relationship to race to define the work, and the first steps of the Office.

In looking back, I found this Statesman article about his hire informative. In particular, they wrote, "The office will work with community groups to ensure equal access to city programs and services." I will not pretend this view is something we've fully weeded out yet, but the progress in moving from that as a starting point, to where our City has embedded our definition of equity within the City's long-term planning document, Strategic Direction 2023, feels at least like a step.

On this front, we have also achieved a 5-year contract with the People's Institute to host Undoing Racism (and are working to develop a similar one for Joyce James’ Groundwater Analysis), and trained over 700 people in that workshop, a number that includes:

• Staff from 44 City departments and offices
• Directors from 25 departments
• Numerous other City Executives, including City Manager Spencer Cronk
• Nearly 300 additional people from community organizations, non-profits, and other major institutions
• A further 400 people on the interest list, waiting for the opportunity to attend the workshop

I've said before that in joining the Office, I had no idea what this work meant, and that was probably the best for me, because if I had I'm not sure I would've accepted the position. Coming in, I understood the work in the Office to be about transforming systems, and I thought this meant operating in a high-level, intellectualized and distant space.

But I didn't understand that the work of transforming systems necessarily has to begin with the work of transforming lives, chiefly your own, but also working with people to learn and build toward a shared vision of justice. And if you had told the version of me from March 2018 how much this work meant getting to know people and building fellowship with strangers, I would not have been so interested, or thought myself capable. Thankfully, by the time I realized it, I was in too deep to turn away.

That's the work of organizing, to not throw the analysis at people, but to value and work with them so that the growth happens both ways, that you both get clearer on what the problems are now, as well as what the way forward is.

In reaching people, we have the EAT, which includes 400 members, not just names on a listserv but more than that. Some highlights include:

• Before the pandemic, we were having to look at a new location for meetings, as the Team had outgrown our usual space
• For our annual Forums, we've reached more than 200 participants both years
• More recently, in our virtual environment we were able to bring 325 people, across 5 languages, together for the COVID-19: Multilingual Town Hall

We can't tell you all how important you are in our work, both as a means of holding us accountable, but also the power and assurance it gives us to know we're backed by such a powerful, dedicated group.

We call this the “meat” of the work. This is where we really dig in and critically examine what the City does to either advance or impede racial equity. The central part of this work is the Equity Assessment Tool, the first iteration many of you helped to create, and which has now grown through three edits as we've come to better understand how the City operates. This piece also feels most boring to talk about, so skipping straight to the highlights:

• This year, we achieved our goal of starting work with all 44 City departments and offices in the Equity Assessment process
• We played an instrumental role in evaluating the Bond election proposals from 2018, ensuring those that advanced equity were included, and funded as a result
• We have in every process worked to center and bring community into conversations determining the future of their neighborhoods
• We have done more consultation and work to push both City, and community programming, to be more intentional and actively center race than we can count (and are working on being able to count)
• We partnered with the Family Independence Initiative, as well as numerous organizations rooted within community to distribute more than $2.5 Million of direct assistance to families and people in need
• We created and piloted a new grant funding process for the City which ensured local, community organizations could access funds without burdensome administrative costs
• We are actively and critically participating in the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force
• In partnership with OPO and Innovation, we have begun to annually release a Racial Profiling Report, revealing the serious and persistent disparity in stops, searches, and arrests for Austin’s communities of color
• We are nearing the release of the first Equity Assessment of APD, summarizing critical data from community, former cadets, and officers and staff within the APD divisions of Training, Recruiting, HR, Finance, Victim Services, Data and Planning, and Professional Standards