It is a common editorial reflex for this newspaper to call elected officials to account for minority inclusion. The reasons for doing so are familiar, but bear repeating. Putting aside a history of exclusion, from chattel slavery to Jim Crow laws, which calls for initiatives to make right the errors of the past, it is in the region’s self-interest because our prospects for mutual, future progress require a broad sharing of opportunities for support, profit and advancement. There are simply too many African Americans in this metropolitan area to exclude them from opportunity for greater participation – or not more aggressively attempt to include them – and expect for this region to compete and grow.
Whatever the residual effects of racism, the “post-traumatic slave syndrome” and the tendency of the successful to blame victims for their own suffering, we think there is a trend toward greater understanding of the strategic value of minority inclusion among the area’s business elite and elected officials. However, the ability of state and municipal governments, and major businesses and their trade associations, to be actively progressive on this issue is limited by many factors that remain in flux. St. Louis remains relatively strongly unionized, and the unions – especially in skilled trades – remain largely white; and this can pit a call for a more diverse workforce against the interests of certain unions. Sharing opportunity is much easier when the regional economic base is expanding, rather than contracting, as it has been doing in recent years (and as it always will, on a cyclical basis). There also remains the plain fact that powerful people and decision-makers often need to be nudged, even pushed, to do the right thing, even when they know it is the right thing. Ultimately, diversity is in their self-interest because it improves the competitiveness of the region.
For these reasons, we have come to appreciate the vision and commitment of Kelvin Simmons, the single most positive appointment in the administration of Gov. Jay Nixon. A veteran of state government with a deeply earned sense of what works and why, Simmons is wearing so many hats for Nixon that his style is even beginning to rub off on Missouri government agencies.
He serves as commissioner for the Office of Administration, something of a chief operating officer position, and also runs the State’s program for monitoring stimulus funding and Census participation – and any number of other critical facets of government. Indeed, some of us who did not have the highest expectations for Nixon, a conservative Democrat, given his past pandering to the racially insensitive white right, have observed the governor’s growing reliance on this strong, capable, confident black man from Kansas City with admiration, even awe.
Simmons is the kind of savvy political player who will go off the record to make an important point that might be missed, and in this way he has made it very clear to black leaders: Nixon is ready to let him run with the minority participation piece. The governor gets it, and if Simmons is willing to build the infrastructure and drive the effort, then Nixon is prepared to see workforce diversity within state government increase, as well as a more equitable proportion of state contracts to be awarded to qualified minority firms. Simmons already has convened a Minority Business Advocacy Commission that is making its rounds and beginning to hold feet to the fire, and we believe with Simmons’ leadership, delegated by the governor, we will see a greater probability for a disparity study during Nixon’s first term that will result in an executive order mandating inclusion goals that will hold up in court.
Watching Kelvin Simmons work, we also begin to actually envision – despite some troubling budget decisions – a second gubernatorial term for Jay Nixon. And we begin genuinely to believe that this could be a good development for greater economic inclusion of African Americans in Missouri.
