The city of Cambridge is a stormy hotbed of politics and social issues, and no person has weathered its vicissitudes better than Mayor E. Denise Simmons.

Cambridge, proudly dubbed “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” ranks as one of the most liberal cities in America. And with two of the country’s premier institutions of higher learning — Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that draw students and scholars from around the world, Cambridge’s showcase of diversity and multiculturalism rivals that of the United Nations.

When you scratch below Cambridge’s surface, however, there is also a liberal racism that is as intolerant as any you’d find across the country. Just as Southern racism kept blacks in their place with Jim Crow laws, liberal racism does, too. For example, Cambridge’s ruling class maintains its racial boundaries not by designated “colored” water fountains, toilets or restaurants, but rather by its zip codes. The city is stratified into increasingly homogenous neighborhoods, the wealthiest of which maintain a high bar to entry. Communities that were previously open to the black poor and working-class are now being gentrified by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical boom.

This isn’t news to Simmons, who is trying to start a discussion about the issues surrounding income inequality and race. On May 11, she held a town hall meeting titled “A Citizen’s Assembly” on race, gender, class and culture.

“I recognize the division and increasing polarization in the country that reverberates in Cambridge, too,” Simmons told the audience. “We cannot divorce ourselves from what’s happening in the country.”

She spoke of Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor arrested in 2009 for trying to gain entrance to his own home in Cambridge. The police mistook him for someone trying to break in, and the story went viral internationally, leaving a pox on the city.

Segregation in Cambridge is not limited to race. It’s a socio-economic problem as well. This is something that Simmons, a lifelong Cantabrigian and the country’s first openly African-American lesbian mayor, not only understands well but is also trying to fix. Since taking office, she has made her chamber an open space, leading a series of conversations looking at how the city treats its citizenry.

“Cambridge is a resource-rich city,” Simmons said. “I want a city where everyone is respected, have access to equal opportunity, equal advantage, equal treatment in employment, schools, municipal services and our police department, regardless of their class, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or zip code.”

Education is the passport to opportunity. Any efforts to create what Simmons is describing for Cambridge will have to go through the public schools. The system, a bastion of liberalism, tolerance and multiculturalism, still has some work to do.

Take, for example, the pleas of Kamaria Gooding, a 17-year-old graduating senior from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School who will be attending Spelman College in the fall. Gooding, who spoke at the mayor’s forum, demanded the district do create a more racially just pedagogy. Gooding spoke of the deleterious effects of valuing whiteness and teaching a nearly exclusive all-white Eurocentric curriculum, especially in English and history classes.

“It’s white supremacy with no knowledge of black Americans’ influence in Cambridge, the country and abroad,” Gooding said, highlighting the tokenization she experienced. “Black subjects are offered as electives.”

Simmons sees herself and the employees at City Hall as public servants that should work to address the concerns of citizens. That includes making sure children have access to equitable public education, as Goodling pointed out. But it also means that we confront the problems of racial profiling by police and the lack of affordable housing for low-income families.

The town hall meeting got the conversation started.

“I want to make Cambridge a proactive city and not a reactive city,” Simmons said. “I know we can do better and we must do better. If anybody can get it right, Cambridge can. We have the ability. We just need to have the desire.”