Racial Justice Booklet

8/11/2019 Racial Justice Booklet

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Young People For


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Affirmative Action ....................

Publ ic Educ ation ............................

Economic Empowerment ........

Hous ing ................................................

Criminal Just ice ............................

Health ..................... ...................... .........

Case Study ........................................

Table of CoYP4 Little Black Book:Racial Justiceby Luis Campillo, Crystallee Rene Crain, and Paul Kendrick

Edited and Compiled by the Little Black Book Editorial Board:TJ Helmstetter Alex FloresElizabeth Camuti Paul Kendrick

Reed Schuler Liz Fossett

This book will concentrate on five areas where racial inequality persists and continuesto devastate: 1. Education, 2. Business/Economics, 3. Housing, 4. Criminal Justice,5. and Health Care

We will also look at one commonly misunderstood, pro-active social mechanism for fightingracism: affirmative action.

This is not to say these are the only avenues of American life race affects. In fact, it is difficultto find ones that race does not affect. The right to voteobtained through bloody sacrificesis

still violated every election season. Voter suppression, through onerous laws requiring hard toobtain IDs, or illegal action at polling stations or in Secretary of State offices, must be moni-tored and advocated against. Race has a place in environmental issues, as poor people of colorare subjected to air and water issues that wealthy white communities would never have toendure. The list is endless, but the theme is that we must preserve the gains of theCivil Rights movement, while being creative in the ways that we advance justice andprogress.

As Cornel West simply declares, Race matters. No activist can read this book and believe there is littlethey can do to work for a better America. This Little Black Book will strengthenyour understandingof issues that you may or may not know about. From there, the ball in is your court to get to workin your communities to create change.


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02

tAffirmative ActionAffirmative action is a set of public policies designed to pro-mote diversity and assist in the elimination of past and present

inequalities such as discrimination based on race, color, reli-gion, sex, or national origin.

The policy was born in the Johnson administration and grew underPresident Nixon. When California, Florida and Texas banned the prac-tice in the nineties, campuses took a staggering step back in terms ofreflecting societys demographics. Fortunately, in Grutter v. Bollinger

(2003), the Supreme Court uphecomposition of Justices on the c

in jeopardy. Such a threat demation.

Conservatives are already organtry they have held events such a

ple of different groups are chargOnly Scholarships. In the facefight back.


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2 There is an even stronger foraction when it comes to the being admitted to colleges. BAmericas educational and rahas and will overwhelminglystudents.

2 Our American history meansfrom difficult environments Affirmative action is meant t

of merit to encompass more score.

2 In the working world, affirmters the favoritism towards wscious or unconsciousthat wness. Studies have shown th

are treated differently depenof the name attached, especimore typically Black or Latin

2 The United States is competi

omy and can only be its best offered the best equal opportu

2 Emphasize your schools schminority-outreach programs.groups are putting pressure o

end them. We must fight ba

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tHere are some things you can explain to educate your community:2 Affirmative action means creating diversity, something that benefits us all.Isnt that the kind of campus we all want?2 Affirmative action is not about preferences or quotas, but instead about look-

ing at race and gender among the litany of other factors considered in appli-

cation decisions. The policy considers just a couple of categories important to

the diverse make up of a person and of a student body. It is not about

rewarding unqualified people, but helping to level the playing field and to

choose between many qualified people for a limited number of spots. If you

happen to be a tuba player and the band needs one, thats the same principle.


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tBrown v. the Board of Education (1954)was supposed to end segregation. Yet

today, the desegregation of black students is at its lowest rate in three

decades.1 While the average white child attends a school that is 80 per-cent white, 70 percent of black children are at schools where minoritiesare the majority. A third of black children are in schools more than 90percent black.

Americas generally under-funds schools are attended by poor minoritiesbecause of the pay-scheme in place. Most public school funding comes from

property taxes, so when a municipality is wealthier, they will have more

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Public EducationUnited States schools are separate and unequal

1. Erica Frankenberg, Chungmei Lee, and Gary Orfield, A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing

the Dream?(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Civil Rights Project, 2003). t

money for their schools. The ctricts and our childrens quality

All of the twenty-five are surrounded by meyet eighteen of these d

white school populatio

The United States public educacharter schools, which operate ocracy, are developing innovativemagnet schools and programs thtogether to learn. Also, places teachers better, and start educat

The No Child Left Behind legislIt is an initiative to bring publicand the government that relies not helped educational equalitytest and hurts schools that do n

2. Peter Irons, Jim Crows Children(New York: V


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Issues of equity are a consistent

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tSome major issues in the public education system are: autonomy

efficiency and equal opportunity

The current public education system is generally under the control of the indi-vidual states. This means the states decide the school policies and the overallcurricula.

When a state is lacking tax revenue, the students in the schools

suffer with a lack of monetary support.

For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, Latinosmake up 15 percent and blacks are almost 13 percent of high school dropouts

in New York.

New York City, which is the largest school district in the country with over 1million students, graduates less than 40 percent of their students on time.Where there is a large gap between the wealthy and the poor there will be

gaps in achievement. Also, examples such as these can help us examine ourown communities and determine why some students succeed at higher levelsthen others - all based on where they live in a community.

Reforming public education needs to be a public effort bolstered by highcommunity involvement, support and recognition. There is a long way to go,

but with community support and public engagement in public education,reform and positive changes may be underway.


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young people in the Washington

nantly Dominican community. teaching children and adults th

participants to community insti

These types of programs are gechange through families and up

The National Urban Leagues (NAmerica to improve the economin Black Enterprise: it urges Afra weekly paycheck by saving anresources and investing them w

empowerment can be seen as a gets individuals of all ages in A

jobs and job training, home owncy, technology training, and ent

It has been argued that the strucolor and women has turned inorganizations work for economitactics. Although their activism goals remain the same.

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The United States is unique in the fact that economic empowerment is a partof our Constitution; all people are entitled to the pursuit of happiness.

Thankfully, there are many organizations across the country working for eco-nomic empowerment. Over recent decades, its issues have turned into a mat-

ter of civil liberties and civil rights for all people.Its goals tend to be similar for poor communities,middle class communities and minority groups;they include economic stability for the individual,family and the ability to save and/or invest (i.e.economic justice).

The economic climate and state of economic jus-tice available either limits or heightens a communi-

tys ability to create change on a local, state,regional, or national scale. Like any other subjectof social change affecting large groups of individu-als, it, too, must be understood at a basic level.

One program of immense importance in the field is the EconomicEmpowerment Initiative (EEI) of the Childrens Aid Society, launched to aid

Economic Empowerment

Economicempowe

rment

canbedefineda

sthe

seekingoutanda

ttain-

mentofstablea

ndfair

employmentthat

includeslivableand

equalwagesfor

all.

The importment and sby commubenefit and


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To understand how important fother issues. If our communitie

races, religions, and socio-econocare facilities would be more w

would be more prevalent, job omore safe.

Where we live makes a hugehuge role in that decision.

We do not openly admit that pu

poor racial minorities in certaincurrent state of ghettos and barr1968 in the wake of Dr. Martin

nent of such reform. It was a lzone their land to minimize the

that might change the color andaddition to zoning laws, too man

members of the realty industry

The National Fair Housing Allia

hundreds of communities that dare following the laws that prevget involved in your community

they will train and pay you to acan gather information they nee

t14

Housing

Housing discrimidevastating impand as communiidea it is going on


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ent decisions based on race (or ethnicity, age, gender,having childrenthese are all illegal to take intoaccount, though many Americans do not know thatand are taken advantage of).

In the organizations vision statement, they begin withrecognizing, the importance of home as a compo-nent of the American dream. Therefore, they envi-sion a country free of housing discrimination.

This means,

Every individual, group and community enjoysequal housing opportunity and access in a bias freeand open housing market whereintegrated neighborhoods are the norm, and the

private and public sector guarantees civil rights inan open, and barrier free community committed tohealing the history of discrimination in America.

Two things jump out from this vision statement. One is how they effectivelyframe fair housing issues as a large piece of the puzzle that would give us theAmerica that lives up to our ideals. A poor person or person of color who isdenied a house does not suffer an isolated injustice, but faces the barrier to cre-ate the kind of country Dr. Martin Luther King challenged us to build. In the

mission statement, they link the creation of integrated neighborhoods withhealing the history of discrimination in America. They are optimistic that ifpeople of different races live near each other, they will together change seeming-ly intractable American problems.

It is interesting that the NHFA mentions the need for both the private and pub-lic sector to assure civil rights. This illustrates how they advocate in a varietyof ways for their goals. Traditionally, civil rights advocates have petitioned the

public sector to change the laws that gtreat individuals. However, in fair housector, using a gambit of tactics ranginchange the way they do business.

From their inception, the NFHA knew approaches to accomplish the changes teen years, they have investigated overmillions from the housing industry for their continued labor. Their work has ilending, and insurance practices, all of

There is plenty of work for young activthe least of which is to educate people This way, if people are rejected from abetter equipped to ask questions and m

Beyondtheseiss

ues,communities

of

colormustalsod

ealwithpredato

ry

lending,wherec

ompaniestarget

poor

minoritiesforlo

anmaking.They

essen-

tiallygiveloans

tolow-andmid

dle-

classpeopletryi

ngtoobtainloan

sto

buyahouseorp

aybillsandoffer

high

interestratesth

atmiddle-classw

hites

wouldneve

rbeoffered.Si

gningon

thedottedlinewiththe

secompanies

candestroythat

dreamofhomeown-

ershipforthese

families. The work goes-on but is al

For instance, Hurricane Kasands of African Americanof housing discrimination ifled to all over the country


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A blindfolded figure may be thereality. We have not arrived at room is judged with equality bour values are threatened by threceive.

Racial ProfilingRacial profiling means dispropofor criminal enforcement. It hap

police leaders fashion different

tCriminal Justice


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hoods and citizens based on their race or socio-economic status. It also occurs on a microlevel, on the streets, when individual officersmake their own decisions. Statistics showmore arrests of minority citizens not justbecause of actual criminal activity, but becausethey are more likely to be arrested.

Death PenaltyBlack people are more likely to receive longersentences for the same crime and to be given

the death penalty. Eighty percent of people ondeath row in America are minorities.4 The color of ones skin and the skinof a victim are remarkable predictors of whether the death penalty will beutilized in particular cases. This difference is immoral, especially consider-ing the number of innocent people on death row who were wrongly con-victed. A program at the Northwestern University School of Law saw stu-dents free five wrongly convicted men on death row. Such small acts begthe question as to how many more are deserving of court reversals? Race is

part of this equation.

Drug WarHowever noble the intentions of the Drug War were, it became a waragainst urban minority communities. This is why more than half of

Baltimores black men are incarcerated, paroled or on probation. It is alsowhy one in three black men in America will go to jail in their lifetimes.5

It begins with a dysfunctional juvenile justice system where minority chil-dren are more likely to be arrested and spend long stretches of time in

detention facilities. This can betentiaries. While a small drug sbars, institutions characteristic cation produce hardened citizenhalf of the people who walk out onew life will end up returning witnot only advocate to change the

pate in positive programs in our

We mustpressure federal and smum sentences, which require j

sentences and to erase sentencithe same amount of cocaine wil

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3. http://www.naacp.org/advocacy/justice/


5. David Kennedy, The Neighborhood War Zone, The Washington Post, August 13, 2006; Page B01


Nationally,black

people

representaround

12%of

thepopulation,th

oughthey

accountfor29.5

%of

arrests.3 Driving

while

Blackremainsu

nofficial

groundsforarre

stallover

ournationsroa

ds.


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While broader social determinan

discrimination must be addressed

integral part of the progressive ainequalities is an integral part of

securing the prosperity of our na

Strategies To Abridge HealthBelow are four recommendationminority groups:

1) Expanding Health Coverage andAs the employment-based healt

businesses shift more of the coshealth insurance plans altogethe

must play an active role on putt

agenda, and ensure that addressnent of this movement. Moreo

grams like Medicaid, which protions, a significant number of w

rate health services within und

already disproportionately lack quality facilities, care, and prof

to address broader policies that

rate and unequal health care. AAmericans are coming to the re

a luxury, and that health is fund

2) Health Empowerment:

Minorities who do have health

advantage of their benefits and

services such as mammograms,

Minority communities continue to lack health insurance coverage and faceunequal access to health care in the United States. According to a number ofstudies, even minorities who have health insurance receive lower quality care

than their similarly situated non-minority counterparts.

As highlighted by the 2002 Institute of Medicine (IOM) Unequal Treatment report,these disparities are part of broader social and economic inequality experienced byminorities in many sectors of American life. Among the factors cited by experts forthe perseverance of health disparities is a lack of awareness of the problemboth

within minority and non-minority communities. Furthermore, there is a lack ofleadership among public leaders in implementing an action-oriented agenda tobring about policy change and improve the quality of care provided to underservedcommunities.

Health

For instance, an October 2006 Brown and Harvard MedicalSchools study found that racial disparities are widespread even

within high-performing Medicare managed care plans, leading tosignificantly fewer blacks meeting important benchmarks for con-trolled cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.

Health disparities result from:2 a disproportionate lack of health insurance among racial and eth-

nic groups, inadequate access to quality health care resources,2 and a lack of representation at all levels within the health care

delivery system.

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must also emphasize healthier diets and lifestyles, and take place within thefamily and cultural framework that is so crucial in minority communities. Toaccomplish this, minority communities should have greater access to culturallycompetent nutritionists who can provide information on healthier cooking

practices, and practical advice on how to prepare healthier meals within theirbudgets and with foods and ingredients that form part of their customs.

Educating and engaging minority youth would assist with the dissemination ofthis information to parents and other older members within their group, andincrease the chances that future generations will live healthier lives. Healthierdiets coupled with information and training on ways to incorporate physicalactivity in their lives could improve disease management within these popula-

tions, and help reduce the costs of treating preventable diseases and emer-gency interventions.

3) Representation In Health Professions:

Insufficient opportunities and support for minority youth to attain high levelsof education, particularly in math and science, continues to prevent manyfrom entering health related professions. Efforts must be made to encourage agreater number of minorities to pursue careers in health, and provide ade-

quate support once they are in those fields. In addition, more needs to bedone to address cultural and language barriers which prevent racial and ethnicminorities from seeking and receiving quality health care.

4) Be A Healthy, Health Conscious Advocate:

Leading by example and empowering yourself on your own health is the mosteffective way to build awareness about the challenges that racial and ethnicminorities still face with respect to health care. The vitality of the progressivemovement depends on the health of its members who must have the strengthand energy to make a positive difference in our nation and across the globe.

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The 2004-2005 George Washingfighting for Civil Rights is a purthe idea that these are black is

housing and so many other issuThe key is making people feel cment of people working for cha

2 One of the main reasons I waizing I had done around the debate with representatives o

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tBy Paul KendrickCase Study


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2 Along the same lines, the apeducate the GW population held and eventually led our cAlexandria, Virginia. There, sion for the issue.

2 A workshop was held especion personal finance and smaare making financial choicesto ameliorate the problem. Wcountry, it is an issue that a

2 We also held a workshop at tWay. Elliot Mincberg, SenioDirector, educated us on coufrom the Supreme Court on lobbied their Representatives

2 We lobbied and then turned Association Senate meeting tbill. It supported the creationWashington and more AfricaAffairs program. Considerin

parts of European History, th

2 It was also important to inspbefore us. Representative Joleague of Martin Luther King

political strategist and one ofin politics, graced us with he

and the Cato Institute speaking for and against it. Hillary Shelton of theNAACP Washington office trained us on lobbying and organizing, the laterof which proved very useful when the Supreme Court heard a case that

was deciding the future of affirmative action. We were able to rally fiftystudents in front of the court demanding that this practice be allowed to

continue.

2 We worked hard on voter registration and voter protection issues. Helping

to lead a coalition of dozens of campus organizations, we canvassed therooms of every dorm on campus registering people to vote and then usingsimple CDs the coalition created to print out absentee ballot requests from

whatever state the student was from. GWVOTES was able to registeralmost 100% of the student body.

2As the election approached, we held a forum on how the political partieswere approaching civil rights issues. We didnt just want voters, we wanted

educated voters.

2 On Election Day, 2004, we formed teams of four from forty students tohead out into the poorest parts of Washington to educate people on theirrights when they step inside a voting booth so that no one could be disen-

franchised. We were also encouraging people to vote and telling themwhere their polling places were. All of this is vital work in a countrywhere African-Americans are still being robbed of their right to vote and

are voting at lower levels than their white counter-parts.

2 On housing issues, we put on a forum to educate people on the ramifica-tions, negative and positive, of the gentrification in neighborhoods of thiscity. It featured a video some of our members had been working on which

drove home the human impact of these changes.


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All of these efforts came from the initiative of different members of our chap-ter. In college organizations, people want to have their talents utilizedand be put in leadership positions. Our Board meeting became large, butit was worth it because more people felt invested. These people may havebeen from different backgrounds, but believed in the same future for ourcountry.

We worked hard, but our organization was not unique; others can do thesesame things and more if they are bold enough to commit to their mission andactively recruit the best people to bring it to life.


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NOTES


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NOTES


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Young People For

Young People For

is a initiative

is a program of

Documents

Racial Justice Booklet