McEntee: Discrimination is still with us

Posted on July 23, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized

o Salt Lake City is stepping out, urging a new anti-discrimination law that actually includes sexual orientation and gender identity in the traditional list of those affected by housing and employment discrimination.

Take that, all you legislators who have squashed any such thinking on the state level, arguing disingenuously that “choosing to be gay” is not grounds for civil rights protection. Mayor Ralph Becker, a Democratic representative for 11 years, knows all about that ruse.

And one of the most fascinating things is how the city’s Human Rights Commission got there: Its members sat down and talked to people in five “dialogues on discrimination” late last year. No lectures, no surveys. Just conversations about classism/poverty, people with disabilities, racism, faith and sexual orientation.

Kilo Zamora, whose nonprofit Inclusion Center trained the commissioners, says the opener was, “How’s the city doing, and do you think there’s discrimination here?”

As people talked, it became evident that race, gender, class, income and religious biases “we thought we had buried in the ’60s were much alive in our communities,” he says.

People were shocked. “Are you sure?” they would ask. “I never knew racism was still alive!”

See McEntee: Discrimination is still with us Salt Lake Tribune

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