Jamila Aurora Dozier
Portland Housing Bureau
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Why does racial equity matter to you?
As a person holding multiple sociocultural marginalized identities, the pursuit of racial equity is vital to my very existence and overall survival. Racial equity matters as every human being deserves the right to self agency, housing, food, wellness, joy, community, safety, and radical imagination. Racial equity allows us to create social systems that are rooted in collectivism, healing, and love, and move away from the oppressive and insidious institution of White Supremacy. Centering racial equity as the framework toward liberation allows for us to acknowledge and affirm the experiences, movements, contributions, brilliance, beauty, livelihoods and contexts of Black/African Diasporic, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian/Pacific Diasporic peoples, while dismantling the systems that have, for far too long, plagued our communities and prohibited them from fulfilling their own destinies.
Related experience
For the past two years, I have served on the Human Rights Commission for the City of Portland, working collectively to provide policy recommendations to address houselessness, racist policing structures, and racial and gender discrimination. With the Human Rights Commission on hiatus due to the lack of staff capacity within the Office of Equity and Human Rights, I am looking for a new way to create equitable change where I live, especially in the midst of the global pandemic, natural disasters, and current political climate. In a professional sense, I serve as the East Portland Policy Coordinator for the Portland Housing Bureau, working toward creating housing stabilization for Portlanders who have been displaced, and implementing preventative programs to prevent further displacement. Aside from my work at the Portland Housing Bureau, I am an independent consultant doing strategic, organizational equity work, training, and workshops for a plethora of organizations and individuals with varied foci and needs.