GREENFIELD — Citizens need to hold the government and society accountable for ensuring civil rights in the United States, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey told an audience of Greenfield Community College students, professors and community members.
Healey presented the 16th annual Henry Steele Commager Lecture in GCC’s Stinchfield Lecture Hall Wednesday at noon, where she spoke about racial inequality in health care, finance, education and the justice system.
“Passing laws is not nearly enough,” Healey began. “Those laws are of little importance until we actually give them life.”
Healey spoke of the work her office has already accomplished to ensure civil liberties, like passing an equal pay for equal work bill and removing automatic suspension of drivers licenses to individuals recently out of incarceration, which Healey saw as “a big barrier” to individuals hoping to return to the workforce.
As one in three African Americans can expect to go to prison at some point in their life, Healey said, the rule had largely affected black men. Healey recognized that implicit bias by police officers is often at the root of the mass incarceration issue.
“We have work to do to break some of the understanding, the stereotypes that we do carry with us,” Healey said, adding that many implicit biases are reinforced at an early age. “Like anything else, it’s practice.”
Healey commended the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association for making implicit bias training mandatory for all new recruits in the state, and hopes to see the relationship between police and citizens improve.
“There is no more challenging a time than today to be a police officer,” she said. “We need to work together to help law enforcement and build that relationship back between law enforcement and our communities.”
Other “shocking inequalities” between the races are financially rooted, she continued.
“For every dollar that a white household has in liquid assets, the black household has two pennies,” Healey said. “White and black families can have the same income, but very different financial situations.”
Institutionalized racism, she said, made it nearly impossible for black families to get a home loan, and made them targets for the subprime mortgage industry.
Additionally, as state support for higher education has dropped 40 percent since 1980, black college graduates incur double the student debt and three times the default rate. As internet is increasingly “the mode of education,” Healey said, an individual’s access to education is hindered by not being able to afford or access internet within his or her community.
“If people can’t access their mode of education, it becomes a civil rights issue,” she said.
Poor health due to living situations or lack of affordable health care also contribute to racial disparities.
“Across the country, black communities are subject to pollution that just isn’t tolerated in white communities,” she said.
In fact, black children represent two-thirds of children living within a mile of a chemical facility. To make matters worse, low income communities have difficulties finding affordable transportation, which Healey said is one of the key barriers in health care availability.
Healey argued for investing in public transportation and education, and asked the audience to critically consider the consequences of a law, budget item or other action before following through.
“I think it’s time that we engage in a much more intentional look at who is burdened and who is benefited,” she said. “I ask now that all of you work to serve as the conscience and the critic of society.”
Healey echoed the words of Henry Steele Commager, for whom the annual lecture series is named. Commager, a late Amherst College professor and renowned historian, encouraged individuals to hold the government and society accountable for ensuring civil rights.
The lecture was well-received by GCC students Mirasia McGahan and Michael VanCott, both 25.
“I think she has really good goals and I hope to see the early education and violence in communities change,” McGahan said.
“I think it’s really important that she’s addressing civil justice issues, not only the ones that have garnered national attention, but also the ones that affect us here in our home state,” VanCott said.