Racial Justice

Policies and organizational practices that foster equitable opportunities and services for all; positive relations between people of different races and ethnic backgrounds

Relations between and among people take place in a context of institutional bias and discrimination. This context impacts how communities are served and how individuals are treated. Efforts to promote healthy behaviors in low-income communities and improve the environment can be made effective by addressing interpersonal, inter-group, institutional, and structural racism, bias, and discrimination. Communities can address racism, bias and discrimination by promoting trust and understanding between community members, by assessing and taking steps to understand institutional racism within the community, and by ensuring that community members understand the role that racism and economic and educational privilege plays in influencing both opportunity and institutional practices. Addressing other factors without addressing this critical issue can contribute to powerlessness, division, and alienation.

Sample Action Menu

• Address divisions among residents of neighborhoods that impede efforts to build trust and the sense of community required to effectively advocate for needed change.
• Ensure that CBOs and public institutions, such as health clinics, schools, law enforcement, and parks are not, whether actually or perceptually, serving one group of residents to the detriment of the other.
• Engage in activities, which build trust across segments of the population in a community.
• Build a sense of community based on place, rather than race or ethnicity. Otherwise, neighborhood efforts to address health related goals can be fractionalized.
• Create means for communities to begin to address discrimination within their boundaries and foster positive ethnic and racial relations.
• To the extent that there are positive relations, people within diverse communities can work together to achieve change that will impact the overall well being of the community.
• Form multiracial task forces to investigate examples of racism within the community’s banking, education, health, legal system, criminal justice and social service systems and to identify first targets for action,¹ and create groups to monitor the practices of institutions that serve the community (i.e. the lending practices of banks in communities of color.)²
• Through regular public gatherings, familiarize community members with a shared analysis of racial and cultural needs and issues, discuss members’ opinions of how institutional and structural racism work, develop common terminology about racism.³
• In a multiracial group, take time to examine individuals’ theories about how the world works – whether change can be negotiated or must be forced, whether changes in attitude predict changes in behavior, and whether institutions can be trusted to work for the common good.⁴
• Examine whether and how issues of racism are embedded in community-building initiatives. Ask what constitutes success? By whose definition? How can we tell if we are on the right path? Whose voices count most when we analyze and interpret the data? Who gains the most from the project’s success? etc.⁵
• Educate immigrants and their families by informing them of their legal rights and procedures for accessing needed services.⁶
• Set up multiracial community task forces that engage in searching discussions about what racism is, how it affects the community, what solutions there might be and how to talk with the larger community about these issues. (Community Builders Tool Kit)

Sample Resources and Tools

• The Color of Fear (video), Robert Almanzan, Documentary featuring men from a spectrum of racial backgrounds discussing issues of racial identification, stereotypes and the systems that perpetuate radicalized perceptions of individuals and their behavior. www.stirfryseminars.com/pages/coloroffear.htm
• The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative: Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit. www.race-democracy.org/pdf/toolkit.pdf
• Levels of Racism:  A Theoretic Framework and a Gardener's Tale. by Camara Jones. Am J Public Health 2000; 90(8):1212-1215.
• National Conference for Community and Justice: A human relations organization dedicated to empowering leaders and communities to advocate, educate and resolve conflict related to discrimination and oppression. www.nccj.org

• Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, By Paul Kivel; New Society Publishers; Revised edition ( May 1, 2002)

Community Example

Boston Public Health Commission’s Undoing Racism, Boston Massachusetts

Recognizing that “undoing racism,” and embracing cultural diversity are keys to eliminating persistent health disparities in the city of Boston , the Boston Public Health Commission undertook a multi-faceted initiative that began with the simple but crucial first step of looking inward. Their “from the inside out” approach began with an institutional assessment in which the Commission asked the question, “how is racism at play here?” With the knowledge and awareness they gained from the assessment, the Commission could develop policies to dismantle institutional racism and mechanisms to assure they would be implemented, and serve as a model for the rest of the city. The core framework they adopted included: 1) building and supporting community partnerships; 2) promoting anti-racist work environments; and, 3) re-aligning external activities to address racism.

Key to this initiative were on-going workshops designed to educate, challenge and empower staff, contractors, community residents, and public health practitioners to undo institutional racism (racial justice). The Commission focused on resident participation, leadership, and decision-making in a community needs assessment process that examined issues related to racism, as well as in designing, implementing and evaluating programs and services that are culturally and linguistically accessible. This emphasis on resident involvement and leadership was critical to creating effective services, and also increased resident capacity for effecting change (participation and willingness to act for the common good). In addition, the Commission focused on assessing workforce composition, developing strategies for increasing diversity at all levels, and working with community residents, medical schools, teaching hospitals, and health centers to support “pipeline” efforts to create a more diverse workforce (jobs and local ownership).

For more information: Boston Public Health Commission: (617) 534-5395. www.bphc.org.

Notes

“Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit”, The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, p. 11

“Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit”, The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, p. 13

“Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit”, The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, p. 13

“Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit”, The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, p. 19

“Fifteen Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/ Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder’s Tool Kit”, The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, p. 30

“Building Healthy and Safe Communities” (1994) Northern California Council for the Community, p. 54