Amid DEI backlash, a liberal and a conservative Minnesotan seek common ground
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Prince Corbett had a tough adolescence. His family struggled financially and went through bouts of homelessness. He loved school and excelled at it. But he said he “got caught up working and running the streets,” robbed a business and landed in prison.
“I was incarcerated from the ages of 21 to 24,” he said.
But he turned his life around and went to college and graduate school. Along the way, he found his passion.
“Like every paper that I wrote during college, I tried to address some type of racial disparity or racial inequity,” he said.
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And that passion became his professional occupation. Corbett has been leading racial equity initiatives for different organizations over the past ten years.
In his personal views, he said he leans liberal. But Corbett wanted to branch out. He said some of his colleagues in the racial equity space have little patience for those who cheer the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle DEI programs.
“‘[They’re] like, ‘Oh, you should know about race and racism, especially if you're a person of color. Why would you vote Republican and why would you get with them?’” he said. “But it takes people being like, ‘I'm not an attacker. Where do we have the common ground?’”
So he was intrigued by a proposal from MPR News to pair with Kofi Montzka, a Black woman who identifies as conservative.
She, like Corbett, endured a tough childhood.
“I grew up with a mom who was on drugs,” Montzka said. “I just had a lot of hardship, and so I just have always thought, ‘I don’t want to repeat these patterns. I don’t want to repeat this crap.’”
Today, she has a successful career as a lawyer and is married with three sons.
Montzka said she has faced overt racism in her life, adding “that was a huge part of my growing up as a child.” But she blames her problems as a child on her mother’s drug addiction, not racism.
“Like my drug addict mom had nothing to do with my problems I faced,” she said sarcastically. “It was all some white man with racism that was causing it.”
Montzka chafes at what she sees as a growing consensus that people of color can’t get out from under racism and that “all our problems are due to race.”
“I'm not saying that race doesn't matter,” she said. “But I also know that people of color can succeed despite it.”
But she also is invested in bridging political differences, especially with members of the Black community “that are perceived to be on the other side.”
“We all care about Black people. We all care about these disparities in education and crime. We want to fix it. Let's work together to get it done,” she said. “I don't care if you vote different than I do.”
Accord and discord
Montzka and Corbett had their first in-person meeting in September and followed up a few months later on a video conference call.
They quickly found a lot in common, like wanting to help Black children get more support in school.
Corbett noted that there are cultural interventions like English as a Second Language, aimed at children who need help learning English.
“One of the issues is the interventions that are needed for Black children aren't, at least to me, like, aren't there,” he said. “I'm thinking about English and math and getting people ready for the workforce and graduation and etc.”
Montzka quoted statistics she had read in a Minnesota Reformer article, showing that 52 percent of white students in the state met math grade level standards, versus 21 percent of Black children meeting that level of proficiency.
“We do need to figure out how to get that up,” she said.
But some of their biggest differences came through when discussing the higher incarceration rates of Black men relative to other groups.
Corbett shared a story about visiting Stillwater Prison for one of his graduate school classes. Many detainees were Black.
“And the only ‘why’ that I could come up with is the systemic racism that exists within the system,” he said. “And this goes back to the history of slavery and mass incarceration that kept Black people down.”
“But don't you think the ‘why’ could be some that most of the people there probably actually did commit the crime?” Montzka asked. “Could that be a why?”
“No,” Corbett said.
Those different perspectives showed up a couple months later when the two swapped news sources, some of which pertained to the idea that policing in America grew out of slave patrols, voluntary groups of white people who would prevent uprisings of enslaved people and catch runaways.
One of the media items was an MPR News documentary chronicling a Police and Black Men Project trip to Montgomery, Ala. Corbett is part of the group and traveled with them.
The participants on the trip drew connections between slave patrols and modern-day policing. Montzka didn’t buy the logic.
“Slave patrols did exist. We don't disagree on that. I just don't think it has anything to do with policing today,” she said. “No white police officer today or Black – or anybody – wants to be equated to a slave patrol when they had nothing to do with it.”
Corbett said that understanding present-day policing requires looking at its origins, which, he maintained, connect to slavery.
“A lot of people haven't dealt with racism, but racism…and white supremacy and the white supremacy ideology shaped a lot of the laws of this country that we live in today,” he said.
After their tense second meeting, it wasn’t clear if their goals of interacting had been met.
Another shot
Montzka and Corbett exchanged phone numbers and ended up staying in touch outside of the bridge-building experiment MPR News had invited them into.
Montzka sent Corbett a link to an event sponsored by a conservative organization about prison re-entry. And it turned out Corbett was already attending it.
“I was really shocked by that,” she said. “And I was just like, ‘Wow, he's so open minded.’”
Corbett said it was a really positive event.
“I wouldn't think that conservatives are really supportive of re-entry work,”
Montzka and Corbett said they're learning that you just need to identify a common goal and not care about what side someone is on.
“I just think we should continue collaborating in the work that we're doing individually and see how we can include each other,” said Montzka. “This is a relationship that I hope lasts.”
