Nirae Petty: A Journey of Community, Policy, and Purpose

Deaunte Damper and Nirae Petty pose in the Black Media Matters Studio (Photo Jordan Somers)

By Lorcan Stokes

In the latest episode of We Live in Color, host Deaunte Damper engages in a compelling conversation with Nirae Petty, a dynamic young leader and equity analyst with deep roots in Seattle's community. Born and raised in 206, Petty shares insights into her early life, the significance of her family's legacy, and her journey to building a career focused on engaging and uplifting Seattle's diverse neighborhoods.

Having grown up in South Seattle neighborhoods like Columbia City and Rainier Beach, Petty reflected on the complexities of watching a city she loves undergo profound changes. From her early years to the present, she has witnessed firsthand the transformation of Seattle—a place that now feels markedly different from the one she once knew.

"I feel like I've lived three lives living here, and I want to say it's because our environment has changed so much, and then, of course, there's like a coming of age period where I grew up here," Petty explained. 

She continued, "Now I'm older, moved back from college, it's a whole different lifestyle, whereas I'm grown, and I also live on my own in a city that doesn't feel like the city I grew up in."

She fondly recalled her childhood on 28th and Jackson, where her family's deep ties to the community and basketball culture played a pivotal role in her development. Both of her parents were athletes, and Petty herself was immersed in the world of sports from an early age, a world that profoundly influenced her identity.

"My mom, like her punishment, was running stairs," Petty recalled. "It was running. My mom was a track star, and so we always had to run."

Petty later decided to step away from sports, a decision that she had to grapple with due to the innate nature it had within her family.

"I stopped playing sports on my own. I was a sophomore in college, and I was going through a really dark time. I was going through an injury, and my parents were trying to encourage me to heal up and play again. But I found a passion in policy, and I feel like I could have a future in that, but I couldn't separate my identity from sports," Petty said. 

She continued, "So I feel like I was going through a whole identity crisis, and this is, I would say, that was the beginning of me kind of growing up, is stepping outside of sports, because anybody that knows me and my family, they associate us with sports."

Her reasoning behind the significant change was her decision to explore a new passion: policy. Despite heading out on her own into a field where she didn't have any previous mentors or connections, Petty dived into the work. She had been sparked early on by her studies in environmental science, where she became increasingly aware of the disparities between different neighborhoods in Seattle, some bordering one another. Growing up in the Central District and attending Montlake Elementary School, she noticed the stark contrasts in environmental quality and resources. Her curiosity led her to question the systemic issues behind these disparities. 

"I saw terms like food desert, right? Food deserts aren't natural. They're all created by poor policy planning. I wanted to know what parts of our environment could be changed just through putting the right people in the right spaces to advocate for themselves," Petty said. 

"I remember vividly I was in my ecology class, and they were talking about some security. We were in the lab; I was like, there's something wrong with this. It shouldn't be the way it is. And my advisor was like, you do a lot of talking. You do more talking than you do your labs. You should try looking into sustainable development and going into that from a policy focus," she said.

Petty, who attended Central Washington University, returned to Seattle and joined the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, initially as a receptionist. However, her passion for policy quickly propelled her to co-found the Advocacy and Civic Engagement department alongside Maya Manus. Together, they focused on bridging the gap between the community and policy-making, ensuring that the voices of those most affected by systemic issues were heard.

"Our department is very different from a lot of the different departments at Urban League because we capitalized on our community connections because you can't organize for policy change without community," Petty said. That changed a lot of the culture around Urban League to where it wasn't just an assistance-based organization; it was an organization that gathered the community to advocate for themselves.

Today, Petty continues her work in policy as an equity analyst at the Washington State Department of Commerce. In this role, she focuses on policy implementation and data management, ensuring that underrepresented communities have a voice in the policies that affect them.

"Data is supposed to bring truth, and you can't make effective change if data is not accurate, and identity is a very sensitive subject because it's so intersectional," Petty said. " A lot of times, you can apply a policy to help a certain community, but it might not be helping everybody because you're not looking at the different layers of somebody's identity. When you look at policy implementation, it's not always going to work out for everybody, but if you're accounting for everybody's different identity, it usually will. You can make policy very equitable, and you can ensure better outcomes if you actually look at somebody's whole identity."

As the interview drew to a close, following the We Live in Color tradition, Nirae honored two individuals who profoundly impacted her life for her tribute: the late Elijah Lewis and Theophania Cielos.

"I think he was my number one supporter when I first got into policy work," Petty said of Lewis. "He saw me outside of basketball, and he saw me as somebody that can make effective change. And while there was a lot of conflict between different nonprofits, he saw me for who I was, not the nonprofit I represented and brought me in spaces I would not have been if he didn't vouch for me. And so I have to attribute him because he's one of the reasons why I feel like I've been really successful in policy work."

Both were instrumental in supporting her journey into policy work, providing guidance, encouragement, and affirmation.

"When I was on the state's environmental justice Council, she was one my staff. Before I came out publicly, she knew who I was, and she just affirmed me and reassured me in everything I did and gave me the confidence to be who I was," Petty said of Cielos. "Not just somebody who was advocating for racial justice, but also justice around my sexuality, around gender, and so on. And so I was able to connect the dots because here is this older woman who has worked in policy for so long, who grew up in the city, and we shared a lot of the same similarities, and she just really poured into me."

Looking ahead, Nirae encouraged the community to stay engaged in policy matters. "If you're interested in policy, whether you want it to be for your career, or if you just want to have change for your community, please actually attend town halls," Petty said. "Please go to public comment periods. Please just be involved and don't believe everything you see on social media."

Tune in to We Live In Color with Deaunte every Thursday on all Converge Media platforms for more engaging conversations with inspiring guests like Petty to hear more about advocacy, inclusivity, and living life in color!