CGC Journal
We're Building a Co-learning Community of Empathetic Societal Change Agents
NOVEMBER 2023 | ISSUE 4
SIGNS OF CHANGE IN AMERICA
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Current Events - Big Picture, 3 Important Things to Know, Why it Matters
Early signs of positive economic change is on the horizon for people of color in America.
Emily’s Corner - Emily’s reflections and insights
My heartfelt Facebook post - I am heartsick, disgusted, daunted …
Talking With Kids - Example of how this looks in our home or community
The N-word. Why do children (and adults) still use it?
Celebrating Change Agents - Feature of an empathetic societal change agent
Vance Beach: Founder of Black Alliance & Social Empowerment (BASE) in Southern Oregon
Conversation Starter - This month we’re asking … Where are you seeing growth in racial healing in your life and/or environment?
Recommended Resources - Mike and Emily share recommended resources to help our community of co-learners grow their library of knowledge and insights
Community Corner - We invite our community of co-learners to share with us what they are witnessing and experiencing in society where they live, work and play.
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CURRENT EVENTS
Signs of Change in America
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
Frederick Douglass
Today, if we remain alert and aware of societal dynamics around race, we can clearly hear voices of oppressed peoples of color, alongside their White allies, demanding systemic changes in laws, systems, public policies, and private sector practices. Most recently, there have been positive responses to those demands, which gives rise to hope for building a more equitable and inclusive society over the course of the next generation.
Consider these three early signs:
ECONOMICS: In 2020, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) issued a public apology for the insidious role it played as a co-conspirator with federal, state, and local governments in deliberately depriving Black Americans of opportunities to live where they desired, purchase homes and build the foundation of generational wealth that was afforded to White Americans.
In October, 2023, the Federal Reserve published its latest consumer finance report that revealed early signs of closing the racial wealth gap. Data suggests that the “typical White family had about six times as much wealth as the typical Black family, and five times as much as the typical Hispanic family” the report stated. In dollars, the wealth disparity on average is $44,900, $61,600, and $285,000 for Black, Hispanic, and White families respectively.
In 2019, the wealth gap between Black and White families was 10 times. Of course, we still a long way to go to achieve sustainable equitable outcomes, but early signs of progress are emerging.
Homeownership is a major part of the wealth equation in America. And the NAR has a significant role to play in ensuring continued progress. So do all mass media in their roles of informing and empowering the masses with useful knowledge and awareness of today’s racialized systemic economic issues through a lens of historical context.
Another factor in the economic growth of communities of color is access to capital. Equitable access is principally provided by Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI). The recent growth of CDFIs offers hope. But the question remains: are CDFIs prioritizing the work they were designed to do since emerging in the 1990s? Astonishingly, that question is just now being investigated.
WORKFORCE: Another early sign is the more vocal voice of corporate America, which provides high-wage job opportunities. There appears to be growing awareness among some corporate leaders of the need to transform corporate work environments in efforts to recruit and retain a quality diverse talent workforce across an American population that is increasingly becoming more racially diverse.
Over the past three years, more than 1,400 top corporate CEOs pledged more than $340 billion to initiate and support racial equity efforts. This is a sign that the private business sector is beginning to respond to longstanding demands. Government agencies, higher education institutions, philanthropic organizations and the economic development sector are all engaged in various efforts around racial equity as well.
Meanwhile, Uber is publicly sending a message that it will not tolerate racist behavior among its drivers or riders. The ubiquitous ride-sharing app’s corporate leaders have put up billboards with the message: “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” This level of public pronouncement is not a substitute for substantive and sustainable changes in workforce conditions, hiring and promotion opportunities for any company. But it is an early sign of a societal shift that has reduced or eliminated the fear factor that often influences corporate behavior to appeal to the broadest base of consumers.
Of course, these early signs of presumed progress are to be monitored, not accepted as sustained outcomes to be celebrated. Many Black professionals retain a healthy skepticism of societal dynamics that appear to trend toward positive change and economic progress. Just as incremental progress has been made in the past, we should be wary of an inevitable backlash akin to what was experienced by previous generations, which wiped out much of their progress while maintaining the national narrative that sufficient progress had been made. We are witnessing a similar backlash today from segments of the country while simultaneously experiencing evidence of younger generations of adults and youth across all races embracing efforts to build a more equitable and Inclusive America.
HIGHER EDUCATION: A third significant sign slipped under the national media radar. We cannot ignore the nascent efforts of the White House and federal agencies that have prioritized racial equity. A prime example is a letter sent in September by the Secretaries of Education and Agriculture, federal agencies whose budgets are $271B and $280B respectively.
The letters were sent to 16 governors whose states had deliberately deprived Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) of the equality of funding required by the congressional act of 1890. Those states consistently provided land grant institutions of higher education (established by the 1862 Morrill Act) in their state exponentially greater funding than their HBCU counterparts (as required by the second Morrill Act of 1890).
This multigenerational disparity took its toll over time and catapulted major universities, like Auburn University and the University of Georgia, and many others to competitive levels that HBCUs could not achieve, principally due to chronic underfunding that crippled them. The funds that were by law to be equally dispersed among land grant institutions in each state were, instead, allocated with favorable bias to institutions that catered primarily to White students.
Today, governors of the states found guilty of this racial bias for more than 130 years are being asked by the federal government to work with federal agencies to “make whole” these institutions based on calculations of disparities occurring over the past 30 years. That would require, in the case of one institution, Alabama A&M, more than $527B for just the documented disparity over just the past 30 years. Read all letters here.
BIG PICTURE
America is engaged in a public debate over what kind of society we want for ourselves, our children, and future generations. We all inherited a society that none of us created. But we don’t all agree on whether the laws, systems, public policies and private sector practices of a twentieth century segregationist society should be sustained in the twenty-first.
Nor do we agree on which changes should be made, when and how. But there are early signs that equitable changes are starting to be considered by individuals in positions of power, wealth, and societal influence. We should remember that societal change doesn’t happen overnight. But it doesn’t change at all without collaboration, cooperation and proactive sustained efforts to achieve measurable progress toward envisioned goals.
There are early signs that equitable changes are starting to be considered by individuals in positions of power, wealth, and societal influence.
3 IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW
We believe “racism” in America is a euphemism for “racial hierarchy” (valuing and devaluing humans by the mythological construct of race). Efforts to promote “antiracist” behavior seek to inform and educate the population on how to behave well in a diverse society, and design home, work, and social environments around ideals of equal human value. Such ideals can (and probably should) be taught in early childhood programs and all K-12 schools and faith-based educational institutions (since such ideals are apparently absent in the home environments of a vast majority of American children). We are helping create that condition, starting with our own children.
We believe “racism” is too often misconstrued with individual attitudes and prejudicial behaviors based on racial bias. Individual absolution of being racist is not a license to ignore the systemic challenges that are too often sustained through widespread support by a majority of White American voters. Many unwitting supporters of causes and candidates opposed by majorities of historically oppressed populations believe they are not racist individuals and would be offended by any presumption that they are supporters of white supremacist ideology, laws, systems, and policies. We need a common ground of understanding. We are helping to create that condition.
We believe “systemic racism” in America (racial hierarchy ingrained in laws, systems, public policies, and private sector practices) will not, and cannot, dissolve or disappear on its own through generations of American children (of any race, including immigrants) who remain ignorant about the society they inherited and grow into ignorant adults who unwittingly sustain the status quo. We believe we need a common ground of knowledge and understanding across America’s education landscape. We are helping to create that condition.
WHY IT MATTERS
Each of us must decide what our role will be to learn more, inform more, educate more, motivate more and/or actively produce measurable progress toward the society we envision leaving to future generations as their inheritance. We all inherited a society established through a 20th century of racialized socioeconomic segregation ubiquitously ingrained in laws, systems, public policies and private sector practices.
Nearly one quarter of the way into the 21st century and we are just now seeing early signs of systems change while simultaneously witnessing organized and mobilized brazen pushback that is hostile and deadly. If even a slight indicator of equitable economic progress can trigger such hostile backlash, we cannot be naïve to the notion that more is on the way to test our resolve and moral convictions.
Our children will inherit this ongoing societal struggle and conflict. The question we must continually address is what will the societal conditions be when we pass the mantle of responsibility and accountability to the next generation?