Aaron Keck along with a panel of local community leaders considered ways to make our community a more inclusive place on Tuesday at the WCHL Community Forum.

Former Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said the town was good at talking about diversity but we needed to back up those words with action.

“We are giving a lot of, and have always given great lip service, we know the rights words to speak in these situations,” said Kleinschmidt.

Damon Seils, a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, said that his town is considering measuring the race and equity impact of their policy decisions, similar to calculating economic impact.

Braxton Foushee, a longtime community activist, questioned if racial bias plays a part in allowing students to celebrate on Franklin Street after big UNC athletic wins. Illegal bonfires are usually started at these events. He supposed that if those fires were started by African American kids from the community, opposed to white students from the university, they would receive a harsher reaction from police.

Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue thought that wouldn’t be the case.

“I really would like to think that’s not true. And I know there is a lot of history and experience behind that question,” said Blue.

When studies emerged showing racial disparities in traffic stops, Blue said many police officers didn’t want to believe it was true. And even though his department is making a dedicated effort to improve the situation, it remains a reality that is difficult to change.

“I’m really encouraged about the dialogue but we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Blue. “If you look at the data now compared to four years ago, you probably don’t see a dramatic improvement and that remains very frustrating for me and my colleagues because we think we are having very enlightening conversations but the outcomes are still pretty troubling.”

Foushee said there are many areas where we can improve race relations but first we must make sure all kinds of people have a seat at the table.

“We have to know each other’s communities,” said Foushee.