The Vulcan Society President on racial and gender disparity

I'd like to introduce our next speaker, Attorney General Leticia James. Oh, come on, we're in a house of God. First, simmer down. Thank you. Things were heard from Brooklyn to FDNY headquarters, where leaders are currently investigating the incident which took place last Thursday. So just yesterday, the latest class of firefighters graduated from the academy. It's the most diverse class in the history of the FDNY. But racial and gender disparities continue to plague the department. So here to give us some insight is the president of the black firefighter organization, the Vulcan Society, Regina Wilson. So good morning to you, Regina. Thank you for being here. Before we get into that incident, I do want to highlight that the class yesterday, 298 firefighters that graduated. How many of those officers you know are women and people of color? Well, I know approximately the number of blacks is about 48, around that number. And I think there were 10 women that graduated from this class. Usually the numbers of Hispanics have risen during the time as well as Asian populations. Do you feel like the FDNY is doing enough to recruit more diverse firefighters? I think right now they're doing an adequate job. They could be doing better. I think right now they need to hire more staffing, especially to do data entry. And it's kind of holding us back from the things that we need to do. And also, we right now do not have a plan for our upcoming recruitment campaign. So we want to make sure that that gets done because they're still under court monitorship. That's the reason why we're still trying to hurry up and make sure that we get the best numbers. Yeah. I want to talk about yesterday's graduation ceremony held back at the Christian Cultural Center, right, where last week's promotional ceremony took place. And that's where we saw the incident play out with the attorney general and the boos that came from members that were in the audience. Excuse me. You said that was no surprise to you. Why is that? Because this behavior is common. I remember doing ceremonies and somebody ran across the stage with a horse head. They have violated this church before. They tailgated in the parking lot and were drinking beers. And they have also found a cooler up in the mezzanine of this church. So this church has been defiled before. And I just want to make sure that the city and the Tisha James knows that the Volk Society definitely supports her. I think that this behavior is horrible, despicable. We also claim that there's deep seated racism within the department. Why do you say that? I say that because a few years ago, before she retired, one of the black female firefighters was sexually assaulted by a white captain until he ultimately retired himself and left unscathed. I have a member who has a sign posted over his locker space insinuating that it's the housing projects. I have a member who has been called the N-word on social media. We have civilians who are underpaid and neglected from promotions, as well as our inspector and EMS is dealing with pay parity. So we have a lot of issues to deal with with the department, especially if they don't have a diversity and inclusion plan for all these different units. So we're going to have a hard time trying to get this done. This is systemic. It's been that way for 159 years. And so we need the department to really step up and do things the right way. So we had the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Andrew Ansbrough, on the Pixar morning news to talk about the incident and what he thinks is going on with some of the members. Let's play that and then get your reaction to it. I don't think so. I think they want to reeducate people. I think they've got to reeducate the department as a whole. And if they want to pull out the book of regulations, in that book of regulations is a charge called failure to supervise. At any point in time, one of the supervisors on the podium could have told the members to lock it up, which is what you learned day one in probation school. When an officer yells out, lock it up, fun time's over. That had to do with, obviously, the incident there and the booing. He was saying he was disappointed to see it play out, but blamed department leadership for not taking the appropriate steps in the moment. Do you agree? I absolutely agree with that. And I also agree that there were officers in the mezzanine that could have stopped that as well. And because they do not teach proper leadership in the fire department, they now have to do a leadership development class. But it's not even supposed to start until 2025. So what are we supposed to do about having adequate leaders run these firehouses? I'm not saying that they're all not, but there are certain techniques and tools that they need to learn. And maybe it will stop some of these racist acts and some of these sexual discrimination that's happening. Yeah, I mean, he talked about re-educating the department. What else do you feel needs to be done? Well, I think the department now really needs to focus on great leadership. As a part of our climate survey, it said that women and people of color were discriminated three times more than any other race. And it had to do with the lack of professionalism within the firehouse and the officers that run the firehouse. All right, Regina, I appreciate you coming in this morning to talk about this. You're the president of the Vulcan Society. Welcome back any time, all right? Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.