Race and the Role of Government - Public Works

Government: a Tool for Racial Justice October 2013

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By the People, For the People, ……Of the PeopleOur country’s founding principles speak of equal treatment under the law and access to freedom and opportunity for all.

A Winding Road

Trail of Tears

Emancipation

Reconstruction

Jim Crow

The New Deal

The Civil Rights Era

The end of “Big Government”

Post Racial? Color Blind?

Immigration and Nationality Act

Our nation has struggled to live up to its ideals. Throughout our history, government itself has sometimes exacerbated inequities in our society and has also been an important lever of change, a protector of fundamental rights and a provider of tools for opportunity and advancement.

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At Public Works, we are working to understand how we . . . • Recognize the historical and structural racism that has

been imbedded in public systems and continues to exacerbate inequities, but also realize that it is through government that our most important strides towards justice and equity have been realized;

• Understand that some anti-government sentiment is directly tied up in racial bias, both implicit and explicit;

• Find a way to uphold (at least aspirationally) the need for robust, supported and correctly-focused public systems as tools for shared prosperity and racial equity;

• Engage communities of color in the effort to reclaim and rebuild government . . .

. . . while also engaging all Americans in these questions?

Government can be a tool

for racial justice or injustice.

How do we reclaim it for the common

good?

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Strategies for reclaiming our government as a tool for racial justice • Critique without

Undermining

• Avoid “Otherizing”

• Unpack Systems of Inequity

• Widen the Circle of Concern

• Connect Equity and Interdependence

• Places not Faces

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Critiquing our government without undermining it

• Many may believe that the primary task is to call out and critique all the ways government is failing to advance equity and justice. We believe a different approach is necessary.

• We don’t want to make excuses for government when it fails to live up to its ideals.

• Instead, we want to articulate and support what those ideals are and should be, while highlighting what needs to change to make it successful.

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As this example shows, our typical critiques often cue up damaging stereotypes about government …Once again the actions of our city housing department show that it’s all about who you know if you want to get anything done. If you don’t have big money and political clout you can’t get any response out of that bureaucratic mess of an agency. As always our working-class communities of color are just overlooked. But we are taxpayers too! We paid our share into the city coffers and we should be getting some attention and services in return.

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As this example shows, our typical critiques often cue up damaging stereotypes about government …Once again the actions of our city housing department show that it’s all about who you know if you want to get anything done. If you don’t have big money and political clout you can’t get any response out of that bureaucratic mess of an agency. As always our working-class communities of color are just overlooked. But we are taxpayers too! We paid our share into the city coffers and we should be getting some attention and services in return.

Just Politics

The Bureaucratic Blob

Consumer-Thinking

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A Formula for Constructive Criticism

1. Open the critique by focusing on the public mission and purpose that is at stake.

2. Explain how these public systems can and should benefit us all and be part of the solution.

3. Critique by explaining how the public system is not living up to its core purpose.

4. End with the action we need to take together to address the failing/problem.

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An Example of Constructive CriticismOne of the most important jobs of our city government is to help create clean and safe neighborhoods where residents can live, work and play. Unfortunately, our housing department is not living up to that essential responsibility and neighborhoods are not prioritized equitably. This system needs to address the inequities that are impacting our communities of color in order for our whole city to thrive. It is time for all of us to work together to get this public agency back on track and focused on community needs.

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An Example of Constructive CriticismOne of the most important jobs of our city government is to help create clean and safe neighborhoods where residents can live, work and play. Unfortunately, our housing department is not living up to that essential responsibility and neighborhoods are not prioritized equitably. This system needs to address the inequities that are impacting our communities of color in order for our whole city to thrive. It is time for all of us to work together to get this public agency back on track and focused on community needs.

Mission and Purpose –

Why it Matters

Critique

Civic Thinking

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Be Cautious about “Otherizing”We “otherize” whenever we label people by their temporary situations or class status, when we refer only to the ‘beneficiaries’ of public programs rather than highlighting how public systems benefit all of us, and when we characterize each other as being somehow an “other” -- outside of the rest of society.. For example, we need to be cautious about using terms like “vulnerable families,” “disadvantaged minorities,” “blighted neighborhoods,” or “at-risk youth.”

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“Otherizing” triggers notions of Separate Fates and Consequences• Allows people to place the concerns of

otherized groups “over there” and not connected to our entire community;

• Makes it much harder to make the connection between opportunities and structural factors;;

• Prevents people from seeing why a problem matters to us all and we all are part of the solution; and

• Allows people to see our government as benefitting ‘other’ people and not all of ‘us.’

Defining situations not people

A strategy for overcoming a tendency to otherize is to ensure that our communications answer the following questions:

• What are the barriers to opportunity for residents, community members?

• What are the systemic causes of this situation?

• How has this impacted overall well-being and community resiliency and strength?

• What is the systemic call to action we all must take? 15

We must unpack the systems of inequity

We need to help people to see the many systems at play and how they are connected.

For example, the neighborhood you live in is connected to the barriers and/or opportunities you have in education, which is connected to the barriers and/or opportunities you have in employment opportunities, which is connected to access to healthcare, and so on.

As Anat Shenker-Osorio explains,

“When we stick merely to describing how things are and leave open the question of how they came to be, we’re leaving room for folks who benefit greatly from inequality to narrate why it exists.”

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Robust, supported and correctly-focused public systems can and have been used for shared prosperity and racial equity. Part of the solution moving forward is to uphold and reclaim a tool we already have – our government.

We can widen the Circle of Concern

and acknowledge the value of a sense of

belongingnessWe need to ask

ourselves who we are leaving out and why?

Are we communicating in

ways that shrinks – rather than widens–

the circle of concern?

“Winning in the long term, though, requires getting people to think of the "other" as being inside their circles. That is entirely possible to do, as the abolition, civil rights, feminist, sexual liberation and many other movements have proven. But it takes a complement of cultural interventions alongside the political ones, advanced over five, 10, even 30 years. The cultural project has to establish the stories, images, and archetypes that prime a person to expand rather than shrink the circle of concern. That project requires us to deal with how race is lived in America, not just how it is legislated. How do we widen the circle of concern? Foster interdependence – a shared fate?”

- Rinku Sen, Applied Research Center

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Articulate “Everyone-ness”

• Use inclusive language – “us,” “we,” “our,” the systems “we” built.”

• Describe a community’s situation as temporary rather than a permanent state of being.

• Explain how the problem matters to everyone so they can see themselves in the solution.

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Build a Case for Equity and Interdependence• Assert that the reduction of inequities is mutually beneficial for all members of society.

• Help audiences move from an understanding of separate and competing fates to shared fate.

• Nest discussions about equity in a story about “community” goals.

• Use “our” public tools to build community and reduce inequity.

We can expand the circle of concern by comparing the inequities between communities rather than just individuals or selected groups, and the systems that cause those inequities. For example, it is common to highlight the stark differences in the unemployment rates for specific racial groups with little attention to the lack of public infrastructure and opportunity in particular communities. Shifting from Faces to Places can help contextualize the challenges the community is facing.

Places not Faces

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Replace Faces…...…

Unemployment rates in Michigan for the two largest communities of color, African Americans and Hispanics, have been disproportionately higher, sometimes double, in comparison to their white counterparts for at least the last 10 years. In 2011, African Americans had an unemployment rate of 20.1%, Hispanics of 10.7%, and whites of 8.9% . Michigan currently ranks 2nd highest in African American unemployment among the 50 states.

…..with Places

For our communities to thrive and succeed, we need ample job opportunities in Michigan that allow our children and families to have the quality of life we all deserve. This has not been the case for many years in Michigan. In some cities, for every job opening there are 10 people seeking employment. This makes it difficult for our communities to prosper and unevenly impacts our communities of color. We can do better by making sure that we create more jobs in the places that need it the most.

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To rebuild support for an active governmental role in creating opportunities and reducing inequities, we must:

• Values: Reclaim the notion of government as a tool for racial justice

• Systems- Thinking: Lift up the systems that benefit all of us and the need to invest in them equitably

• Interdependence: Reinforce our shared fate and how improved equity benefits all of us.

“When Americans accept their differences in a context of certain shared principles and values, the myriad cultures present and emerging here become wellsprings of spiritual strength and social justice in a great, transnational experiment. A more multicultural America offers an exciting opportunity to extend freedom and democracy to people who haven't had it before and to enrich it for those who have.”

- Jim Sleeper

For more information about talking about the intersection of race and the role of government, we encourage you to visit

www.publicworks.org.