CGC Journal - January 2025
We're Building a Co-learning Community of Empathetic Societal Change Agents
JANUARY 2025 | ISSUE 18
What change do YOU hope for in 2025?
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Current Events - Is America hopelessly divided?
Emily’s Corner - Can we talk about race?
Talking With Kids - Envisioning and designing our society
Recommended Resources - New resources recommended every month
What change do you hope for in 2025?
By Mike Green
This first month of 2025 is the start of another quarter-century of opportunity for collective envisioning of the next 25 years of the America we want for our children and grandchildren. As we look back through the first quarter of the 21st century, and examine the societal conditions we inherited from 100 years of a 20th century hallmarked by racial segregation and political strife, what can we conclude?
Our first inclination is to look for positive progress.
In the 20th century, progress was proclaimed by pointing a lens toward symbolic tokens: like the passing of another congressional Civil Rights Act in 1964.
But, is a legislative act of Congress truly representative of actual societal change?
We often forget, or ignore, the constant push for civil rights through congressional legislation, which failed to produce the hoped-for change in racialized segregated conditions across our society. Below is a short list of political acts by Congress in the latter half of the 20th century, which produced laws around the question of how White America should treat all of its nonwhite populations:
HOPE FOR CHANGE
In the 21st century, we often point to the election of a Black male president in 2008 and his reelection in 2012 as an indicator of progress toward bridging the racial divide in America. That was a huge accomplishment, many would argue.
But let’s be clear, the election of President Barack Obama was not perceived as an accomplishment for a majority of White Americans. It was perceived as a warning of potential change in the identity of a nation that was established as a White America.
Nor was Obama’s election counted as an accomplishment for Black America. Obama’s presidency represented an opportunity to pursue the kind of change hoped for, and fought for, by Black Americans alongside White allies throughout the 20th century. The opportunity for change perceived by Black America was an alarming indicator to many in White America, which helped to galvanize an “army of conservatives,” as described by the infamous Project 2025.
The election of a Black president was a symbolic gesture of hope for change for Black America and those allies who shared progressive political ideals. Hope and Change were the main messages of the Obama campaign.
Barack and Michelle Obama living in the White House, with their two daughters, was the first time America’s First Family was Black. It represented a first step in a journey of hope for changing an American society that has been hopelessly divided along racial lines from the birth of this nation. And a majority of White Christian conservative America responded to such hope with fear and vitriol.
POLARIZED POLITICS
Obama’s election was not the realization of an equitable Inclusive America for a 21st century multiracial, multicultural society. It was not the destination hoped for. It was just the hopeful beginning of a journey toward the change hoped for. But that symbolic step also triggered an enormous backlash across White America, as did each previous hopeful step of potential political progress throughout the 20th century.
Even a cursory examination of the electoral data reveals a consistent truth about the polarized racial dynamics in America. President Barack Obama was opposed by a majority of the White electorate. A majority of the White electorate also opposed Hillary Clinton, a White woman who served in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State. A majority of the White electorate also opposed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, who previously served as California’s Attorney General, then served in the U.S. Senate, then served as Vice President of the United States.
When we narrowly focus our lens on White America, we see a consistent trend throughout the 20th century that has been sustained through the first quarter of the 21st century: opposition to efforts to build a multiracial, multicultural America.
HOPE FOR RESTORING THE PAST
In the 2024 presidential election, a majority of the White American electorate enthusiastically chose for themselves a man whose corrupt character and mafia-like criminal-minded behavior fractured his own political party and elevated him to a level of authoritarian ruler. Hate and vitriol were hallmarks of the Trump messaging campaign in 2024, similar to 2016 but with a depth of public bravado that has grown from nearly a decade of emboldened support from the highest levers of power, wealth and influence. And an overwhelming majority of White Christian evangelicals embraced both the message and messenger and lifted him up as a symbolic idol of adoration.
The Republican Party’s electoral victory was achieved through persistent messaging that played on the fears coursing through the bloodstream of a majority of White America. Consider the conditions described in a 1965 research report published by the Department of Labor:
The United States is approaching a new crisis in race relations.
In this new period the expectations of the Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights. Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made.
There are two reasons.
First, the racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation.
Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people. The harsh fact is that as a group, at the present time, in terms of ability to win out in the competitions of American life, they are not equal to most of those groups with which they will be competing. Individually, Negro Americans reach the highest peaks of achievement. But collectively, in the spectrum of American ethnic and religious and regional groups…Negroes are among the weakest.
The most difficult fact for white Americans to understand is that in these terms the circumstances of the Negro American community in recent years has probably been getting worse, not better.
THE NEGRO REVOLUTION
In 1965, a majority of the White American electorate feared the rise of Black voices and the idea of a shift in political power in the body politic. They feared Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a Christian pastor leading a national nonviolent direct-action protest movement known as the Negro Revolution. But the Department of Labor’s 1965 research report addressed this fear in its first chapter, titled “The Negro American Revolution.”
A majority of White American voters in 1965 feared the growing acceptance of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts across both public and private sectors of society. They irony is that 100 years prior, in 1865, White Radicals (Republicans) in congress centered and prioritized the economic and political empowerment of Black people with the first federally funded DEI program, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau.
But 100 years later, in 1965, a majority of White America feared the rise of Black political power. A large majority of White America despised Dr. King, the leading voice of political, economic, and social change.
Today, a majority of White America fears the immigration of Latin peoples, which is accelerating the growth of America’s Hispanic population, the largest nonwhite population in the nation. The fear is rooted in the shifting identity of a nation that has long been ruled by White men.
Many fear the diminishing power of a White Christian conservative mindset, which dominated the 20th century following the defeat of White and Black radicals in the 19th century who sought to transform a White American into an inclusive interracial democracy after the Civil War.
At the close of the first quarter of the 21st century, a majority of White America still fears the changing racial dynamics they see happening to their country. They want to stop the change. They want a change of their own, which would revert America back to the conditions with which they are familiar and comfortable, and privileged beneficiaries of the status quo. A majority of the White electorate embraced a man who promised to save their identity and restore their ideals of a once “Great America” they dream existed in the 20th century.
The election of Donald Trump is the outcome of a quarter-century of political struggle and racial polarization in the 21st century … not unlike the polarized racial strife and political struggles America experienced over the last 50 years of the 20th century.
COLLECTIVE ENVISIONING
We all inherited a society none of us created. No blame. No shame. But we also inherited a responsibility for the society we will pass to future generations.
What kind of America do you envision in 2050?
At the end of the next 25 years, what will our society look like for the Most Vulnerable Populations? Let us not focus on the sacrosanct middle class, or prioritize the privileged top 20 percent of wealthy Americans.
Rather, let us ask what will the measurable conditions be like for those at the bottom of America’s economic ladder?
Will the MVP kids in America still be ubiquitously served by the worst quality schools in the world’s richest nation?
Will 75 percent of the entire housing stock in the nation still be owned by White Americans?
Will 80 percent of all employer businesses be owned by White Americans?
Will America’s banking industry still undermine the economic progress of nonwhite populations through racialized discriminatory practices?
Will zoning and economic development strategies and policies still favor the wealthy and privileged?
What kind of America do you envision in 2050?
At the start of 2025, we are all embarking on a 25-year journey after an initial quarter of 21st century racialized political strife that looks eerily like the previous 25 years of racial struggles to transform a recalcitrant 20th century America.
As we start another quarter in the 21st century, what is the version of America you envision for 2050?
EMILY’S CORNER
Emily Corner is a place of honest sharing; of reflections and insights and experiences that are unfolding in my journey as a co-learner. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas - feel free to reply to this email. I will read all that you share.
Can we talk about race?
I was in a conversation recently with a mama, who described a scenario she’d recently experienced.
Her young daughter was watching something on tv and turned to her mama, with a question.
What color am I, mama?
My friend shared that she immediately felt overcome with uncertainty; she felt completely unsure of how to respond to her daughter, and admitted feeling like she fumbled the conversation entirely.
I was deeply grateful for her vulnerability in sharing this, and immediately struck with a realization:
We can’t teach what we don’t know.
And because so many White adults feel confusion and uncertainty about the entire concept of race, they avoid talking about it with their children (and students). When it inadvertently comes up, they draw from a mental database that’s often filled with cliche, discomfort and inaccurate information.
Friends, we can do this.
Let’s do a quick refresher and overview, in very simple terms - just like I did with my friend that day:
Race is a made up construct, created in order to categorize and subjugate.
Humans are 99.9% the same at a DNA level (The Human Genome Project).
We all have melanin - a brown pigment that darkens or lightens one skin tone. If your skin is more brown, it’s because you have more melanin.
Race is a construct that was created to categorize humans in relation to power.
We are all HUMANS!
(some with more or less melanin - more melanin because ancestors may have lived where there was more direct sunlight - how cool is that?)
What an absolutely crazy idea: categorizing humans based on their melanin level. This is a made up idea,
so let’s see it for what it is, and un-make it!
Let’s begin to understand the ways that this construct of race has been a core part of the story of our nation; let’s begin to understand the ways that it’s been codified, embedded and carried from the inception of our nation to this present day.
—
When we have clarity and understanding, we are confidently equipped to engage and explain and teach our children and students.
We can do this.
*deep appreciation for my friend, Dr. Lucretia Berry, and her book: Hues of You. I highly recommend this book.
TALKING WITH KIDS
Each month, we share a glimpse into a conversation that happened in our home with our children or with others in our community. During their earlier years, these conversations formed the basis for our workshop: “How to Talk to Kids About Race in America.”
Envisioning and designing our society
One of the incredible gifts and opportunities that we have as parents (and teachers) is to seize opportunities to invite our children to understand the present-day societal conditions we all inherited by gaining understanding about how they came to be.
This can happen simply by weaving such knowledge into the fabric of conversations in our everyday lives.