"The Unfinished Agenda," a report commissioned by the local NAACP on segregation and exclusion in Chattanooga, tells only a partial story of the uneven renaissance of the Scenic City in the last 30 years.
The report asserts that while parts of the city have thrived - to the point that Chattanooga is now included on many "Best City" lists - the inequities in the black community have been caused by the strategies of "civic leaders" and "not by chance."
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The report lays blame on the city's civic leaders for poor relations with police, for schools that struggle, for a lack of good jobs, for displacing residents and for chronic poverty in black neighborhoods.
It also includes a warning that "given current discord in African American communities in Baltimore, Cleveland, Ferguson and New York civic leaders would be naive to think it couldn't happen here."
What's missing in the report is any sense that residents of low-income neighborhoods shoulder responsibility for their own well-being - the breakdown of the family and a reliance on government assistance. It's as if the people in those neighborhoods have been forced to do poorly in schools, forced to stay in minimum-wage jobs, forced into prisons and forced to remain in poverty.
What the report intends to foster, according to the NAACP, which was to hold a news conference on the report today, is a community dialogue in which all parties come to the table "to develop a strategic plan for the Chattanooga African-American community."
Such a dialogue, the report suggests, would need "fresh ideas, new voices and the type of innovative thinking that characterized Chattanooga's transformation."
This page would welcome that, but most charettes discussing inequities in the city over the past 30 years have included the same voices saying the same things.
The implication often has been that high-paying jobs should somehow be available to people with low skills and little education. That's not going to happen here, nor does it happen anywhere else. Education, hard work and sacrifice must be part of the equation.
The report accurately depicts the shift in Chattanooga's economy in the last 30 years from a manufacturing base to one characterized by "higher paying white-collar jobs that require a college education or lower paying service-sector jobs." The implication should be clear: if you want one of those higher paying jobs, graduate from high school and get a college education.
Instead, the report refers to the city's imbalance in employment as if the city evolved in its economy to intentionally punish those with low incomes and less education. It also mentions the high level of unemployment in some impoverished neighborhoods but doesn't mention that jobs are increasingly available but may not be the type of work that people want (but the type illegal immigrants are glad to take).
The report also perpetuates the myth that "real investments in public education" will allow "all Chattanoogans to flourish in the knowledge economy." Local public education in the city over the last 30 years has benefited from tens of millions of extra federal and foundation dollars, most directed toward schools in the very low-income neighborhoods the report highlights. Innovative principals have been moved to schools in these neighborhoods, and teachers at some of the schools have been paid more to teach there. Yet, test scores and readiness for college have improved little.
Certainly, public schools in Chattanooga could benefit from additional money in many areas. But student success starts in the home, with a supportive parent or guardian who sets expectations. Without this, nothing will change.
Incredibly, the report almost completely glosses over crime, omitting any word about the high level of black on black shootings and alleging the "disproportional suspension of African American children in public schools contributes to the school to prison pipeline" but noting correctly that "exposure to extreme violence contributes to already high burdens of toxic stress in impoverished communities."
It also bemoans the fact that officers who respond to crimes in the most affected communities do not reflect the racial makeup of the community but fails to mention that Chattanooga police chief after police chief has tried without much success to increase diversity of officer ranks.
The report, authored by Dr. Ken Chilton of Tennessee State University, concludes by referring to the Chattanooga Way, in which many sectors of the community came together with a vision to re-create a once "dirty, dying industrial town." New ideas and new voices can help address some of the problems highlighted in "The Unfinished Agenda."
The origin of the problems did not occur in a vacuum and won't be solved in a vacuum, as they won't be in Baltimore, Cleveland, Ferguson and New York.
Solutions start with the family, must emphasize education and seek shared responsibility with other community partners committed to the same goals.