TALK A MILE 1

Spring is the season of new beginnings. As we entered Laurelhurst Park earlier today, a beautiful spring day in Portland, Oregon, that feeling of a new beginning was certainly holding true for our team at Talk A Mile. It was our very first Talk A Mile event and while all of us were new to the experience that we were embarking on, we all shared the desire to bring people together to talk about our community and build connections that grow trust. Talk A Mile connects young Black leaders with local police trainees to improve the community, one conversation and one mile at a time. Our vision is that conversations lead to connections, and connections lead to safer communities. This was our first opportunity to bring people together to pilot test this vision.

The clouds were just clearing as we were prepared for the arrival of twelve students who were members of the Central Catholic High School Black Students United group, and twelve Portland Police Bureau (PPB) trainees who had just completed state Academy in Salem and were now completing their training in Portland to become badged police officers. As part of their training, they are required to complete two months of field training that includes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion workshops and events. One of the goals of their training is to grow ties to the Portland community and build a better understanding of the people and cultures in Portland, where the trainees will be serving once they become officers. It was important for the trainees to meet with members of the Black and Indigenous Portland community by partnering with various local organizations. With Talk A Mile in particular, they’d have the opportunity to have 1:1 conversations with Black high school students to listen and learn from each other by sharing their lived experiences and vision for the community.

We started the day with opening remarks to celebrate everyone one who turned out to join us for an afternoon of courageous conversations. We explained that we were all there to simply listen and learn from each other without an agenda, and that we should all assume best intentions knowing that the goal was to increase connections and build relationships. We paired each student and police trainee together, and then handed them notecards with conversation starter questions for each lap during their mile of conversation. Initially for lap 1, there were icebreakers questions about sports or favorite restaurants. Then they shifted into more personal questions. For lap 2, the students asked questions to trainees such as why they wanted to have a career in law enforcement. For lap 3, the trainees asked students to share any experiences they or their family members have had with police. And for lap 4, they each shared ideas on what could make Portland a better place to live.

Watching each pair consumed in conversation was fascinating. Personally, I couldn’t think of any time in my life where I’d ever had a casual conversation with a police officer. But seeing young high school kids converse openly with soon to be officers was refreshing. My hope was that this was a small step towards having the voices of Black youth heard by those who have the power to impact their sense of safety. It was incredibly moving knowing this was the vision we set out to accomplish for Talk A Mile — to break down barriers and get people talking about how to improve our communities. 

Many of us participated in the protests following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. We were left with a feeling of hope given the commitments from so many businesses and people to invest in ways to support the Black community and ensure that we find solutions to stop more injustices from happening. But there was also a sense of what do we do next? And how do we keep the momentum going in order to truly take action that can potentially lead to tangible change. In the aftermath of 2020, our family simply wanted to have the chance to help in whatever way we could.

That’s why we started Talk A Mile. We didn’t have the answers, but we knew talking to police, asking questions, and helping them engage more with the Black community to build trust and connections was a start. When we asked our participants to take that first step with us and join us for the first Talk A Mile event, we were thrilled to see that many others shared the same hope that we had — to help create change simply through conversation and building connection. Here is some of the feedback that we received from participants:

“My experience was surprising, but very good. I was able to learn a lot and share a lot. I felt like my opinions and feelings were heard and valued.”

- Student

“I think this was a wonderful workshop for both youth of the Black community and officers. This should be mandatory for officers across the nation.”

- PPB Trainee

We’re excited to share that more Talk A Mile events are on the way and we’ll continue to discuss our learnings and path forward. We thank everyone who joined us today for sharing their story and for talking a mile.

TALK A MILE STATS

Miles Walked: 24

Number of Participants: 24

Likely to Recommend Talk A Mile: 9.2 (on a scale of 1 to 10)

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