Topeka Mayor Says Change Starts at the Polls

us Michelle de la Isla. She is the mayor of Topeka, Kansas. She joins us on the phone from that city. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us. It's it's really nice to have you, especially at a time when I know you are extraordinarily busy. Well, thank you very much for having me and anything to support the flow of positive information and um to continue giving a voice to

what our mayors are doing across the nation. So tell us what's going on in your backyard, in your front yard there, because as you know, as I alluded to, mayorcy everything in many ways, and you're in touch with so many people in your community. What has the last week and we'll get to the multiple crises, but just

the last week to ten days, what's it been like there? Wow, UM to tell you our community has Let's start with the history of the city, and the city of Topeka is the home of brown by Board and I think it's one of the things that I'm extremely proud of and have seen our citizens speak up very loudly about the injustices that we have been seeing in our nation occur UM with regards to African Americans being spoddered UM not only by by the hands of regular citizens, but

also by a scene the death of George Floyd, UH that has left our community completely heartbroken. I think I shared a few days ago. I think it was last week. The days become hours and in years, you know. But I remember, after seeing those events I shared without my

community that I just cried myself to sleep. UM. A mod robbery, Brianna Taylor, UM, George Floyd are just three of the examples of so many things that have happened in our community that I know also well, because as soon as I became elected, we had UM the fatal shooting of a young man called dominiqu White UM who later on was found to have a firearm on him, but regardless, it was the death of a young man who happened to be African American, and and we had

our Caucasian officers in that situation in our community also well understands our community having an outcry and and asking for action, UM, and it's been beautiful to see that the work that we have done in our community since then,

UM has started creating a positive ripple effect. As part of the protest that we've had in our community have been extremely peaceful with police involvement, so much so that I was privileged to bend my knee with my police chief side by side and having our police officers UM support a lot of the rallies that we've been having. However, we also had just Monday, UM, one of our peaceful

protests have a secondary protest that became violent. So the same thing that is happening in the nation is happening here in Topeka, Kansas. So I read UM, I was reading some press coverage of what's been going on in your in your city, and I believe something you said was I think that people have a lot of anger, there's a lot of pent up frustration, in regard to

the inequities that we've been having in this country. So the anger and the injustices we know mayor Delisa is not They're not new, right, So how do we take this and how do we take this and turn it into actions that make a difference, really make a difference. I mean, Brown v Board is what over sixty years ago? Mm hmm over six Um. I think that first of the things, the first thing that we need to do

is to be comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations. UM. I think that a lot of families and a lot of individuals, especially are our Caucasian brothers and sisters, are very uncomfortable talking not about the gory of how our nation started. But we also will always want to focus on the glory, right, Um. And when I talked to groups and I talked about inclusion, I always talk about how, yes, our country was built on the premise of liberty and um, freedom of expression

and freedom of worship. However, in that same breath, um, people stopped and picked up my great great great great grandmother in Africa and decided to make our slaves based

on the color of our skin. And we have never talked about those inequities that have been happening, And if we really want to see change, we need to start creating conversations and spaces in which we could talk about the origins of our country, the fact that we instill slavery just based on the color of skins of individuals, that we have deprived individuals from having access to success,

and that still continues in these systems. But most importantly, once we have those real conversations, we have to follow them up by having people elected that can really make a change in these policies and making sure that people who feel this enfranchise actually vote. Um, it's imperative because we wouldn't be able to have these conversations if we wouldn't have people in office. Then now are able to

have these conversations without wanting to hide from them. And if we want to see change, it has to start at the polls. It has to start with us being on board decisions, with voting, and with being engaged. So, what have you seen over the last few days in in any sort of change in tone or change in rhetoric that that either gives you hope or you know,

maybe it gives you a little bit of pessimism. I'm guessing you're going to lean towards hope, just based on a little bit of the of your tone and some of the things i've I've seen you say, Mayor. So here is some some examples of hope. When I first got elected, that we had an laughed the loss of dominique wiss uh life. Um. We were we were scared about having conversations on race. We were scared about standing

up and saying, hey, we we don't quite understand. Because I can tell you as a woman of color, um, I do still have the sticker shock of walking into boardrooms where I'm the only person, that I'm the only female and the only person of color, sometimes in a position of leadership. But in my condition, the only bad experience that I had with a police officer was when my son, UM, who had some severe persistent mental illness,

was pulling his seatbelt off. And that was at the time before I was mayor, or, a person known in the community driving a beat of Taurus with two kids

in the back, and he pulled the seatbelt. And when I went to explain to the officer that I didn't have my seatbelt because I was doing the mama drive of telling my kid, get your seatbell and I get stopped right, and instead of me having an opportunity to have any legal representation, I was old, Hey, just say Nola Contendra when you're in front of the judge and it'll be fine. Um. So that's my only bad experience that I ever had. So I thought, that's as worse

as it gets. Right, And all of a sudden, in seventeen I get immersed into this whole different perspective of what black men and women are dealing within their communities. Where other individuals who are socio economically disadvantage, we're dealing within our communities. And it was a state of shock. State of our guest at this hour is Michelle de la Isla. She's mayor of Topeka, Kansas. She joins us on the phone from Topeka, um and and Mayor daily Isla.

One thing I wanted to ask you your own story, Jason. I both have read about your background, and your bio is is certainly out there. It's one of struggles. You're born in New York, you moved to Puerto Rico, you were homeless, you were pregnant at a young age, and yet here you are and I guess you know. I think many wonder you know that's the difference between what do you have achieved against what seems to have been a difficult beginning and background, versus those who are not

able to lift themselves out? How can you help us understand? It's simple. It wasn't me listening myself thought it was people listening to me. And I think that that that is a great equalizer. Um. When people come together and find solidarity and start caring for humanity regardless of somebody's socioeconomic ability. Um. And you're able to find the gifts and the talents that somebody has and you breathe life into them, magic happens. I mean, my story is not

my story. My story is the story of the people who actually cared about me, the meaning who who specifically there were there were so many wonderful people like my neighbor of Rosa, who just was absolutely my mom still like call her mommy um. And she decided to make care of me while my mom was working her job, and not around my grandparents, who are phenomenal that Italian men may hear rest of the peace. He was My

Nono was just absolutely wonderful. So was my grandmother. Um, there were people like father Pat that came into my life. And when I was, you know, stumbling and singing at church and I was trying to figure out as a single mom what I was going to do with my life, he encouraged me to leave Puerto Rico and come back to figure out what I was going to do with my life outside of Puerto Rico because he saw a

potential in me. And there's this like a line of other people that just continually, just everyday, people who just invested in me that helped me become um person that I am today. Right, Well, Mayor you know, it's interesting and we alluded to this in the first part of our conversation. You know, we're in the midst of numerous crises that have laid bare so many things that that

we were discussing earlier. And I do wonder, you know, how you take the experience that that you just described in that ethos that you just so eloquently laid out, how do you apply it, especially to the health crisis, you know, setting aside for moment at least, and you can't totally separate them, right, these crises that that we're living through. But I do wonder this health crisis that has disproportionately affected those who are less fortunate, especially those

who are economically less fortunate. What can you do as a mayor? What are you doing as a mayor to combat some of those underlying economic issues? Well, I think that, especially with the COVID crisis right now, the first thing that I did so that I could be a participant was pretty much abscond of my role as mayor and become a liaison under the incident command system that the

county formed. Um In most communities where you have the county leading the charge with COVID, most mayors don't have as direct access as I do to the team that helps make decisions and communicate with the community. So I don't act in my role of mayor, even though I

can't separate in the horse from it. But in this role, I serve under Dustine Nichols, who is the incident commander that works for the county, and I worked with the Health Officer, Dr. John Franco Petino and with lend the Oaks from the Health Department, and my role is to specifically communicate with sections of our community that don't typically have access to information. So we do press conferences, and

I do Facebook live director cameras in English and in Spanish. UM. We have a group of people that reaches out specifically into the black churches and into the community where people typically don't have access to the information that they need. We have a group of pastors that we meet with that passed on that information to those areas in the community that typically wouldn't get information, as well as with the Catholic priests and the nonprofits and the superintendent. So

those are the realms that we worked through. And in addition to that, we finally got access to a little bit more testing and we're doing testing for free in one of our predominantly black UM and uh impoverished UM

neighborhoods in our community. So I wonder, you know, when you look at kind of what's been going on the last twelve weeks, three months, you know, roughly because of the virus, what's happened in the last week, because of what happened in Minneapolis, what is your you know, advice to leaders on on how we you know, really bring about change, lasting change that lifts more So, the first thing that I would say is it's too prong um if you are a leader, and you are a Caucasian

listening trying to figure out what to do. I would say, lean in and don't allow shame to lift up. When you're trying to understand the issues that are happening in your community. There's things that you have never experienced that are happening right there in your backyard to your neighbors

that you would never imagined. And now is the time, more than ever, to be willing to be vulnerable to say I don't get it, but I want to understand and lean in UM to those of us who are leaders of color, UM who have been watching, learning, and lived through these experiences and and haven't lived like I had not lived through some of the challenges as some of my UM African American Black counterparts have been struggling with,

stand up and speak UM. It's time for us as leaders to to to understand that there's inequality happening, that there's systems that are that are continuing to have the same effect that they've had for over two hundred years, and it's time for us to stand up and make changes in policies, have difficult conversations so that these things don't continue occurring. Well wise words, for sure, and we really appreciate it. Michelle dayla Is she is the mayor

of Topeka, Kansas. And I go back to something that she said in the earlier part of the conversation, and it echoes something that I heard from one of our colleagues. Uh And in fact, the deputy your chief of New York, Chartia Brantley, who you've worked with before, and she was talking with me about this notion we've got to have uncomfortable conversations, just that simple. So hearing the mayor say that, I think is really revelatory for me because that is

exactly where we need to go. Get comfortable about being uncomfortable, right, because we need to understand more, especially if we haven't you know, experienced these things firsthand. Alright, great conversation.