Image Bolstered by grassroots organizing, human service nonprofits and other concerned citizens, city leadership and stakeholders are engaging residents in conversations about an array of deep-seeded inequities, many centered around and rooted in all of the ways systemic racism is woven into the fabric of everyday life in Central Massachusetts. In the past year, these conversations have centered around issues like police brutality against the city’s Black and Hispanic communities, as well as racial inequities in the city’s schools and on the school committee. These are community-oriented issues: Children typically attend schools closest to them based on district mapping, and neighborhoods of color around the U.S. are demonstrably and statistically over-policed.