'There's only one race in this world': New Mexico announces racial justice czar and council

SANTA FE - Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham hosted a virtual news conference Thursday to address national reaction to the death of George Floyd in Minnesota and subsequent protests across the United States.

She then announced she'd appoint a racial justice czar within her office and also create an advisory Council for Racial Justice to address institutional inequities in policing, criminal justice and community investment while also promoting active anti-racist education.

While details about the czar's and council's goals and benchmarks were scarce, Lujan Grisham argued the work needed to begin with policing.

She said she hoped the council's work would include listening sessions involving law enforcement and criminal justice officials followed by seeking concrete steps agencies can take to begin reform.

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Floyd died in Minneapolis on May 25 while in the custody of city police after former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd lay in the street face-down and handcuffed.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, while three other former officers involved in the arrest face charges of aiding and abetting.

Lujan Grisham said nationwide unrest indicated the country is "clearly ravaged still by our inability to say the words: That we have institutional racism in this country."

The governor conceded she was concerned the demonstrations could lead to further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19 disease, and thanked demonstrators for efforts to take precautions such as wearing face coverings and maintaining at least six feet of physical distance between individuals.

She also expressed dismay about incidents of property damage in Albuquerque, where the state's largest demonstrations have taken place.

The governor yielded the floor to three of the new council's leaders: state Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, the House majority floor leader; Alexandria Taylor, director of sexual assault services at the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs; and Rev. Donna Maria Davis of the Grant Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Taylor declared racism a public health crisis parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Stapleton said that Floyd's death, the latest in a strong of violent arrests and deaths of people of color at the hands of police, fueled outrage in the midst of pressure created by the public health emergency and subsequent economic downturn.

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Stapleton said individual outreach was important as well as institutional reform, because so many deny that racism exists and fail to understand "the destruction of what it does to the soul of an individual."

At a policy level, Lujan Grisham said New Mexico, a state with one of the highest poverty rates in the country while also being among the most ethically diverse, could not expect to lower rates on poverty, crime and children's welfare without addressing racism and injustice rooted into systems and policies.

Yet the three leaders all signaled that the work also opened a door to more intimate relationships and stronger communities.

"There's only one race in this world," Davis said, "and that's the human race." 

The governor said she has invited leaders in minority communities to help her identify the right person to fill the role of czar and to advise on who should be on the council.

The council will include state agency secretaries, law enforcement officers from across the state, and leaders and youth from the state’s African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and Native American communities.

Further details about the council's next steps and benchmarks were not available Thursday but Lujan Grisham said, "We have to be open to every single idea."

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.