“I’ll talk about racial equity. I like to distinguish it more than anything else from equality, right? We had a great conversation in the 1960’s — and there are institutions that advanced through the 1980’s this concept of equal access to opportunity. Everybody gets a fair shot, right? … The former president of Morehouse College [said] when you begin behind in the race of life, you must either be content to stay behind, or run faster than the man in front. That was a call to young, Black, educated men that if they really wanted to match up with everybody else, no matter when the opening gun was shot for the race, they actually had to do more. Racial equity suggests that if we really want to get to common outcomes among people in different people groups, then we have to do more for the people who began behind in order to get to what we would call a situation of equity or equality on the other side, right? So equality says everybody gets a fair shot. Equity says no, those people who have historically and systematically been held behind need additional supports in order to meet our common standards.”

Conversation between Starsky Wilson and Mike Kinman in the Rector’s Forum at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, August 4, 2019.

Follow All Saints Church on Twitter @ASCpas. Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AllSaintsPasadena/.

Donate to support the mission and ministries of All Saints at https://allsaints-pas.org/donate/donate-now/.