Chad Millner

My name is Chad Millner. I am the City Engineer for the City of Edina. I am a white, middle-aged man from central Minnesota. In 2019, I volunteered to be on the City’s Race & Equity Advancement Team (REAT). I offered to participate for both personal and work related goals. I personally have a desire to listen and learn about race and equity topics. As an agency, we have a Race and Equity Implementation Plan and we have specific workplan items every year. When I started this journey I was naïve. I had very little exposure to race related experiences. I would classify my life as white privileged. To say the past 6 months of my journey have been enlightening is an understatement. With the killing of George Floyd and related civil unrest, these discussions have been front and center and in some cases, very uncomfortable. I believe very uncomfortable is the only way to make progress.

I’ve had the opportunity to participate in monthly REAT meetings and discussions, seminars from Strategic Diversity Initiatives, department level and executive leadership team discussions. My department has made it a goal to continue race and equity discussions on a regular basis as part of our weekly department meetings. These discussions have provided opportunities for staff to react to articles, videos or other topics. The opinions and life experiences shared during those discussions are remarkable. It has given me a much better idea of the challenges people of color face and I am better for it.

Before I started this journey, I truly believed that success was directly linked to hard work and that anything was possible. I never considered race as part of that equation. It was never part of the thought process. I now know that I should have. I have since changed my belief around hard work. Hard work alone does not equal success for specific members of our society. There are so many road blocks and biases towards people of color that even with hard work, success does not happen in the same way. People of color are beginning their journey from a different starting line. How do we align those starting lines after so much history?

My journey has created more questions than answers but that is a good thing when you believe in continuous learning and continuous improvement. In my opinion, that is the only way we can move to a more equitable society, by listening, learning, and making decisions for the betterment of all.

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