A man from Tacoma, Washington has been hired by Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson as Anchorage’s first chief equity officer. Clifford Armstrong III’s confirmation hearing before the Anchorage Assembly is part of Tuesday’s agenda.
Armstrong will, beginning on April 26, earn $115,003.20 ($55.29 per hour) in the position that is appointed by and serves at the discretion of the mayor.
Armstrong graduated from Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in African history. He has a master’s degree in international studies from California State University San Bernardino. Since 2017 he has worked as equity in contracting and workforce development program manager for the City of Tacoma. Some of his other work listed on his resume can be best encapsulated as social justice community organizer.
The position of equity officer is new in city government in Anchorage, created by former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and approved by the majority of the progressive Anchorage Assembly last July. The position is separate from an already existing equal opportunity officer position, which is in charge of making sure employees and people doing business with the Municipality of Anchorage are treated fairly.
The equity officer is in charge of giving more resources to minorities and the LGBTQ community so they may advance more quickly and have greater success than white participants. It’s not about a level playing field but about an unequal playing field that gives the advantage to some people at the disadvantage of others.
According to Vice President Kamala Harris, “Equality suggests, ‘oh everyone should get the same amount.’ The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. It’s about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”
According to the original job description from Berkowitz, the chief equity officer will:
- Co-lead Welcoming Anchorage initiative and ensure ongoing updates and implementations;
- Develop leadership opportunities for municipal staff and residents designed to provide career advancement pathways for communities of color, the disability community, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ+ residents, including continued hosting of an annual Civic Engagement Academy;
- Provide leadership, guidance, training, and support to internal and external partners in the development and delivery of equity programs and tools;
- Recruit and manage municipal boards and commissions to ensure community representation;
- Actively monitor equity:
- Establish baseline equity data targets/benchmarks in collaboration with partners and establish goals and initiatives to make progress and processes to track outcomes;
- Develop methods to determine how disparate impacts will be documented and evaluated;
- Collect, evaluate, and analyze indicators and progress benchmarks related to addressing systemic disparities.
- Direct, evaluate, and coordinate analyses and recommendations regarding race and equity policy issues and long-range plans to address department and community needs and services;
- Develop and coordinate reports and supporting materials to be presented to the Mayor and Assembly for information or action;
- Ensure municipal compliance with Language Access laws;
- Work closely with the Office of Equal Opportunity, the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, the Ombudsman Office, and the Resilience Subcabinet
- Represent equity concerns throughout municipal efforts on housing equity, food security, equitable climate action, legal rights and justice issues, and economic equity
- Develop and deepen relationships with community members and non- profits committed to racial equity work; and participates in community equity collaborations on behalf of the Municipality to identify and address cumulative impacts of institutional and structural inequities in the Municipality.
Wow! They had to find an outside person with an African history major to deal with minority issues in a city with a large Alaska Native population. Just wow! If the city is so flush with money send some my minority way.
Another worthless bureaucrat on the load that property owners are going to have to shoulder when the dust settles from all the spending the assembly has been embarking on this past year.
This and the homeless “coordinator” need to be the first “jobs” to go.
So there was no one in Alaska brainwashed enough to be qualified for this made-up position?
More Marxist BS from the Fools on the woke Assembly.
Well this a waste of taxpayer money!
Not a single Alaskan was qualified in the Assembly’s opinion. I am shocked! Not really. Business as usual for our city government.
An “equity” officer – read that in charge of official discrimination – has authority over “equity in climate issues”!? More woke speak for they hired an idiot to fill a new bureaucracy department that will just gum up the economy and the govt and pry into private affairs. A new regulator looking for something to regulate. He will undoubtedly need some assistants, who will need more assistants… Taxes will rise to pay for this. Fire the idiot before he does more damage. I was victimized by “affirmative action” in the late 1970’s – this is not much different, just broader in scope. I don’t mind being beat out for a job or promotion by someone more qualified, but I strongly resent the idea of losing out because of the color of my skin. What this policy does is obvious – it perpetuates division and will not/cannot solve the issue that it purports to, just makes it worse. You can’t use racism to combat racism, and you can’t parade perversion to get people to accept it – both just make people ANGRY. Revenge is what “they” want, and a free lunch at my expense to boot. “Reparations” cannot undo what happened over 160 years ago. I’m glad to offer equal opportunity. One of the things I look for in a prospective employee is work ethic – if they expect life to be handed to them without any effort on their part, they won’t get the job, period. “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” 2Thessalonians 3:10b Enough.
Good gawd! I hope Bronson fires him right off the bat.
Yes indeed, but the question is will Bronson be elected. Can we trust the Ballot results? Just like the Presidency was stolen by illegal ballots, what’s to stop the theft here in Anchorage.
I’m wondering if he got $80,000 for moving expenses like Kelly Tshibaka?
Does he get 4 hours off to get a covid test?
I really excited to learn from this man to know exactly how to how to recognize a minority and a LGBTQ.
Can I still discriminate against them if they are wealthy? Having a master’s degree and dressing like Steve Urkel must truly be worth $115k a year.
You get what you vote for Anchorage!
Is this some kind of anti-riot insurance policy? I’ve never thought the mess in blue ‘woke’ cities would be tolerated, for even a minute, in Anchorage but it appears virtue signaling is a higher priority with the assembly than actual problem solving by Alaskans for Alaskans.
Racist.
We are paying another ‘expert’ to judge our behavior? Huh?
If an audit of attitudes, conduct, and the drama we encounter daily is paramount to this mayor and assembly, then they should crusade to Tacoma.
This state, municipality needs commerce not theatre.
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Another Native Alaskan passed over. The Alaska Democrats have quite a bit of Indigenous activists who are just as qualified as this guy in Equity matters.
When will Indigenous peoples of Alaska wake up about Alaska Democrats how they really think of them as a professional. Even their most active indigenous equity advocates leaders for their education, public platform, and race will never be good enough for the white democrat leadership.
The Assembly this announcement we are on Denaina land is a bunch manure when their democrat leadership slaps the indigenous Alaskan activists like this does that they are not more “qualified” than an outsider black man. Native peoples: you will never be good enough for Democrats no matter education and advocate level, so stop supporting them with your votes, platforms, and endorsements you just look really dumb.
What could possibly go wrong by bringing the failed liberal policies of Seattle and Portland to Anchorage? Maybe it’s racist not to want looting and burning in your city.
The job description seems like a recipe for elevating organizational dysfunction to an art form
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… which may not be a bad thing if unelected officials and assembly members are distracted from ruling residents and pushed into continual self-destructive turf wars among themselves.
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To that end, may we wish Peoples Chief Equity Officer Clifford Armstrong III every success
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… at least through May 11.
No.
According to Vice President Kamala Harris: “Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”
To achieve this “We’re all in the same place” goal would require the seizure and redistribution of all property and wealth nationwide to put all of us an equal footing.
Then, ongoing, we’d need to make sure that those who worked hard and did well never rose above those who did nothing. That wouldn’t be equitable. Whatever one person earned would need to be taken and shared out.
That was the communist dream. No one better off than anyone else.
Maybe Harris just means that we all deserve a level playing field where no one has an advantage over anyone else and all can compete and succeed or fail as determined by individual choices and abilities. Of course that would immediately result in some rising to the top and some falling to the bottom while most ended up in the middle.
Unfortunately to achieve this level playing field where no one has a systemic advantage would require the immediate end of all affirmative action quotas, etc. and the termination of all equity officers and the like. Right now the government has instituted society wide discriminatory laws that disadvantage non-minority populations (aka white people).
Oddly enough the presence of these discriminatory laws over the past decades doesn’t appear to have lifted the disadvantaged populations much. It’s almost as if there’s something else stopping them from succeeding, even with government help…weird, right?
It’s past time to end all affirmative action, welfare and all the other social programs that people who’ve made bad choices or who simply aren’t capable of succeeding have been using, at our expense, to enjoy a better lifestyle than they’ve earned.
Succeed or fail on your own efforts and merits…that’s personal responsibility in action.
There are plenty of examples of minority persons who have risen to the top echelons of our society and even more examples of non-minority people who have fallen to the bottom.
Systemic racism as a barrier to minority success is a lie that the lazy and unscrupulous use to get a free ride at the expense of someone else…just ask Obama or Oprah or LeBron James.
Unfortunately what the idiot Harris actually means is that the government must take what you’ve earned away from you to give to someone else while limiting your ability to compete on your merits against others less capable or qualified so that someone less deserving can gain an unfair advantage to make up for things people long dead did to other people who are also long dead.
And she’s not even sincere in that…she’s just playing divisive politics to stay in power.
No. I don’t consent to this public service; to pay for it or to receive it. If you don’t consent say so en masse. They can only do what we consent to. The stipenders represent us or they receive notice to cure. Denand their removal in writing. The term “Consent Agenda” means something. They have no iotas of consent. Maladministration.
A degree in “African History?”
Sounds a bit intellectually limiting for a guy who is seeking “equity” in a system that gives African Americans greater opportunities than Whites. Obviously, he cares not about White history, nor how lucky he is to live in a country that has given him opportunities during his entire lifetime.
White guilt is about to be overcome by White resentment and White backlash. That day is coming.
Anchorage- you have ONE chance. You are going to need to get Bronson in by a landslide to overcome the steal. If you don’t, it’s on you and you will deserve 100 of these grifters bilking your town with woke-stortion schemes. This is it. Don’t sleep through this one like all the others. Take back your city and help save the state.
PJ OLSON, “Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.” And Kamala and the rest know exactly what that means, that the rest of us live equally in abject poverty. While John Kerry jets around the world he would have us walking. While the elites feast on filet mignon the rest of us grub for cockroaches, grass and roots (and grubs). Socialism always has the same end-the elites enjoy luxury unlimited while the masses suffer and starve. She speaks the exact truth and touts their exact agenda: poverty for thee and riches for me. Too bad there are so many brain dead minions who think they will share the spoils looted from the productive citizens of society. When judgment day comes will be a sad day.
Get out of Anchorage while you can.
This chap should be on the Berkowitz payroll, not here.
Who were the Native Alaskans discounted for the position, should we need such authority?
Don’t unpack.
Is there a question in your mind that the the acting mayor may have botched this (too)? If there’s a root issue here, it’s that this appears to be another excuse to hire someone based on their being black and absolutely no other qualification. Does the Alaska demographic appear to support the acting mayor’s pick?
Wiki says… not even close:
According to the 2010 United States census, the racial composition of Alaska was the following:[8]
White: 66.7% (Non-Hispanic White: 64.1%)
Black 3.6%
Asian 5.4% (4.4% Filipino, 0.3% Chinese, 0.2% Laotian, 0.2% Japanese, 0.1% Indian, 0.1% Vietnamese, 0.1% Thai)
American Indian or Alaskan Native 14.8%
Well folks, you don’t even give the guy a chance. You don’t even know him, yet you hate him. Another red meat story tossed out there by the Editor for voracious MRAK readers to pounce upon and devour.
In sum, the racist Acting Mayor from Outside hired a high dollar racist activist from Outside for an unnecessary, manufactured position with the sole responsibility of ensuring Anchorage becomes a racist community. Got it.
Glad the faux mayor is helping the unemployment numbers in ANC.
WHIDBEY THEDOG, so no Alaska minorities were qualified? A made up position and I’ll bet there is a rich severance clause. No. Another gross waste of money.
Someone ( I can’t… not an Anchorage resident) needs to submit a FOIA (Freedom of Information) request for a list of all the candidates for this “job”. Were any Alaskans considered? Any minority persons? What was the vote by the Assembly, or did the “Acting Mayor” just hire him on her own.
Another CRT pusher. Bet he can’t tell you why he believes in CRT, other than he hates White privilege. That’s all his brainwashers taught him. They didn’t teach him that he was learning to be a Marxist. But its enough to get him a fat salary. And what exactly does “equity officer” mean? Is that where he lines up disgruntled minorities who couldn’t cut the mustard meritoriously, and tells them that they can get promoted solely on the basis of their minority status in today’s political climate? Wow. His major in African Studies really did get him a job, without even having to study.
WHIDBEY: another less opposition posit is people in Anchorage, one half of the state’s population would like our Constitutional republic process back in our direct control rather than having it snitched by international globalists on the sky and their paid shills the democrats who as Zbigniew Brezisinski said, “never gave up fighting us for what they wanted in the revolution.” We’ll be directing our public service; not you.
“The equity officer is in charge of giving more resources to minorities and the LGBTQ community so they may advance more quickly and have greater success than white participants. ”
How is that not racist?
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