How to be a Civic Agent

When people see a huge problem that needs to be addressed, many people believe they have the right answer to mitigate the damage. Maybe using water to put out a huge forest fire. Possibly use that Neosporin when you scrape your knee on the ground. What would be your situation when dealing with racial justice in segregated communities across the country? Now this is a complicated questions that has many answers to it. Will it be the golden solution? Only time will tell with the help of various community leaders and government officials. There are many ways that individuals can imagine themselves as civic agents. One is to look up resources on racial equity and educating others in the process. Two is talking with others in your neighborhood/city to get a list of strategies that will work for everyone. The last one is to go back to the original plan and tweaking those suggestions on a regular basis.

There’s always a lot of resources for anyone looking to use racial equity within their local businesses or even neighborhoods. For Racial Justice, this is a bigger issue, as there’s a possibility of multiple times to meet and strategize ways in talking with one another from different racial backgrounds and geographical areas. If you use Minnesota Compass website (https://www.mncompass.org), you will find a lot of resources to use to promote education surrounding racial justice and to have healthy conversation.

Having a to-do list is great for when you go to a grocery store. In the context of racial justice, there can be many things that’s needed to be addressed but also explaining through each one at a time. Once you gather a group of people that want to address about racial justice, you can have a civil conversation about the things that are needed to be changed and how to go about it. One important step is to invite a city council person or even a local community member that everyone knows and feels comfortable around. Once you have your list down, you can focus on the first three and go down the list as each one is completed.

Tweaking those original plans are all a part of the process of making things a more equitable community. For racial justice, there will always be a need to talk with new people that come into the neighborhood and bring everyone together about issues that are working or new issues that are popping up and needs to resolved as quickly as possible.

Although this is not an infinitive list to follow, these are some examples that you can use to make everyone accountable and become civic agents.