Kellogg Foundation Launches ‘America Healing’ $75M Initiative Against Structural Racism
I attended and live tweeted this morning’s announcement at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C., on behalf of EJS, which is a Kellogg Foundation grantee.
Children of color are over-represented among the 29 million low-income children and families in this country, particularly among families living in concentrated poverty. According to data from the National Center for Children in Poverty, about 61 percent of African American, 62 percent of Latino, 57 percent of Native American, 58 percent of children with immigrant parents, 30 percent of Asian American children and 26 percent of white children live in low-income families.
“The Kellogg Foundation’s vision is for a nation to marshal its resources to ensure that all children in America have an equitable and promising future,” said Sterling K. Speirn, president and CEO. “That is simply not the case in many communities across the country today. The goal of the America Healing initiative is to help make that vision a reality by engaging communities and supporting them in the hard work of racial healing and addressing the effects of historic and contemporary structural issues, such as residential segregation and concentrated poverty.”
During the first phase of America Healing, 119 organizations will receive grants totaling $14,613,709 specifically to support community-based organizations’ healing efforts among racial and ethnic groups that address historic burdens, disparities and barriers to opportunity. Their efforts will focus within local communities to increase opportunities for children in education, health and economic areas. Grantees represent 29 states and the District of Columbia and all racial and ethnic population groups.
To highlight the desire of communities to work together on racial healing, the foundation created a signature video (embedded below), which captures the spirit of the initiative.
“The mission of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is to help communities create conditions that propel vulnerable children to succeed as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society,” said Dr. Gail Christopher, vice president of programs. “Because children of color are so disproportionately represented in low-income families and impoverished communities, realizing our mission requires addressing historic and current structural barriers to opportunity, such as exposure to environmental toxins and under-resourced schools, which are a direct result of past policies and practices of racialization and privilege.”
Christopher said that the overwhelming response to the initial phase of the initiative – there were nearly 1,000 responses to the request for racial healing proposals from both urban and rural communities – demonstrates that “we have tapped into a movement in this country, a reservoir of good will and eagerness to have the hard conversations, and to do the difficult work of addressing long standing issues that have needlessly divided communities from coast to coast.”
“America Healing seeks to capture the spirit of our times and re-invigorate our country’s historic commitment to ensure that every child, no matter what race or ethnicity, develops their full potential to lead a healthy, educated and economically prosperous life,” said Speirn.
“At a time when our nation shows disturbing signs of becoming more polarized, this courageous effort by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to promote healing within local communities is sorely needed. It reminds us of our true democratic ideals as a nation and of the inalienable right guaranteed by our founding documents to the free and unfettered opportunity that every human being deserves,” said U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-GA), who spoke at the launch event, shown at the podium in above photo with Dr. Christopher seated to the right.
Other phases of the initiative will seek to curtail racism in the media, the environment, education, housing, health and criminal justice systems, with an emphasis on expanding opportunities for all children.
“We have an opportunity to make dramatic progress in healing our nation,” Christopher said. “As a country, just as we as we have done in previous periods in our nation’s history, we must shine a light on racism so that we can put its effects on children and communities behind us.”
Moreover, the America Healing initiative complements the racial equity approach in all of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantmaking directed at supporting vulnerable children, their families and communities. The new initiative will continue to focus on issues at the core of structural racism and will align with the foundation’s program areas: Education and Learning; Food, Health and Well-being; and Family Economic Security.
“With almost a thousand applicants, there’s no denying that there is a tremendous desire for this kind of work and initiatives like America Healing are urgently needed,” said Speirn. “Our goal is to breathe life back into the effort to abolish structural racism, and to help America achieve strength and prosperity through racial equity.”
In an effort to showcase the many outstanding grant proposals, and because the foundation could not fund all 1,000 projects, they have created and will publicize a catalog of all proposals, including both the funded and unfunded. The goal is to help connect organizations with potential sources of funding and to help meet the extraordinary demand for racial healing. To view the catalog, please visit http://www.wkkf.org/racial-equity/racial-equity-catalog.aspx.
To learn more about America Healing, please visit http://www.americahealing.org.
Georgetown Law Journal to Publish Article by EJS Motley Fellow Brando Simeo Starkey on Need for Equal Protection Re-Invigoration
An upcoming issue of the Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives will include the article “Inconsistent Originalism and the Need for Equal Protection Re-Invigoration” by Brando Simeo Starkey, the Equal Justice Society Judge Constance Baker Motley Fellow.
The article can be downloaded here.
After Washington v. Davis, the Equal Protection Clause, as in Plessy v. Ferguson, was interpreted to prevent racial justice for communities of color. The Davis Court announced the intent doctrine: that the Equal Protection Clause only protects those discriminated against pursuant to a discriminatory motives.
But as Charles Lawrence announced in his piece entitled The Id, The Ego, and Equal Protection, discrimination is frequently the result of an unconscious mind. By focusing on a motive inquiry, moreover, courts limit remedy to the most overt of discriminatory acts. The evidentiary burden is too high.
Brando’s article argues that the Equal Protection Clause is no longer an effective tool for stigmatized minorities, and needs to be re-invigorated to further racial equality.
Those seeking to overturn Davis must, though, grapple with the reality that the original public understanding of the Equal Protection Clause does not render discriminatory acts resulting from unconscious bias unconstitutional.
Brando argues that the Fourteenth Amendment’s original understanding is an anachronism and the future of the intent doctrine must not hinge on the ratifying generation’s formulation. Originalists implicitly agree with this contention.
Indeed, Originalists’ equal protection opinions, particularly involving affirmative action, confound anyone with a basic knowledge of the Fourteenth Amendment’s legislative history. Originalists best establish how much the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment is unhelpful in dealing with contemporary race issues.
The Equal Protection Clause, writes Brando, must be re-invigorated so that its new understanding reflects both our deepening knowledge of unconscious bias and our appreciation for how a discriminatory motive can be easily hidden.
The article has already generated a reaction from Lawrence B. Solum, John E. Cribbet Professor of Law and Philosophy and Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Philosophy at the University of Chicago School of Law on the Legal Theory Blog:
I enjoyed this interesting piece, but it’s exposition of originalism does (by my lights) capture the content of contemporary originalist theory (the so-called “new originalism” or “original public meaning originalism”). In particular, the author might want to consider the distinction (original made by Mark Greenberg and emphasized by Jack Balkin) between original expected applications and the original public meaning of the constitutional text.
Brando graduated in June of 2008 with a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was a research assistant at both the Jamestown Project, a think tank, and at the Law School’s library researching various matters for professors. He was also was an opinion editorialist for the Harvard Law Record, the school’s newspaper.
He also published several works: Uncle Tom and Clarence Thomas: Is the Abuse Defensible?, The Veil of Fair Representation: Maurice Clarett v. NFL, “Acting White” and the Achievement Gap: Burden or Myth?: A Research Brief & Recommendations for Educators, Policymakers & Members of the Media, and Drastic Action: The 1983 Course Boycott at Harvard Law School.
EJS Co-Presents Unconscious Bias Panel at Writers Guild in LA, Introduction by Norman Lear
The Equal Justice Society will co-present in late-September a thought-provoking discussion on unconscious bias offering insights that will challenge and inspire new ideas in developing and producing programming that reflects the true diversity of our rapidly changing society.
EJS joins the Writers Guild of America West, Screen Actors Guild, Americans for American Values and the Kirwan Institute in presenting “Reading Between the Lines: Uncovering Unconscious Bias” on September 30, 2009, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Writers Guild of America, 7000 West Third Street, Los Angeles. A reception will follow the panel, which will be introduced by Norman Lear.
UPDATE: We will be videotaping this event.
The event is listed on Facebook, but RSVPs must be sent to diversity@wga.org with “Between the Lines” in subject line of your email. Contact the WGAW Diversity Department at 323-782-4589 with any questions.
In his autobiography Nelson Mandela tells of getting on a plane in Africa after his release from 28 years of imprisonment. The pilot of the plane was a Black African. This frightened Mandela. When he examined his fears, he realized that he had internalized negative stereotypes of Black incompetence. Many of us have internalized negative stereotypes of women, lesbians and gay men, the disabled, older people, and people of color. These fears operate in our unconscious.
Panelists include:
- Celinda Lake, Pollster
- john powell, Professor of Law, The Ohio State University
- Antonia Hernández, President and Chief Executive Officer, The California Community Foundation
- Dr. Camille Charles, University of Pennsylvania
- Jerry Kang, Professor of Law, UCLA
- Dr. Maninder Kahlon, Cognitive Neuroscientist
- Jeff Adachi, San Francisco Public Defender and Producer of The Slanted Screen, a documentary on Asian Americans in cinema
- Eva Paterson, President, Equal Justice Society
With special guests:
- Kathleen Antonia, attorney and actor
- Tim Paulson, California Teachers Association
- Larissa Fasthorse, WGAW American Indian Writers Committee
- John S. Johnson, Director, Harmony Institute
The panelists will explore how the brain processes information and how the need for quick decision often leads to faulty conclusions. Political ads from the 2008 presidential campaign will be used as examples of how media can “prime” viewers to activate stereotypes and similarly, deactivate the impact of negative unconscious stereotypes. A number of ads showed candidate Obama as a menacing Black man – purposefully done to make voters afraid of him.
EJS has studied the intersection of unconscious bias and social justice since 2003. Our signature project on this issue is the collaboration with the California Teachers Association to assess racial bias in the classroom and school environment and its impact on student achievement.
“Implicit (unconscious) bias and stereotyping are gaining increasing attention as a possible explanation of unequal treatment in a number of settings including education, employment, health care and law,” said Dr. James Outtz, an industrial and organizational psychologist, who leads the research team on behalf of EJS and CTA. Dr. Outtz explained that scientists define unconscious bias as implicit attitudes, actions or judgments that are controlled by automatic evaluation without a person’s awareness. Existing research shows that we all engage in a cognitive process called “categorization” to simplify and streamline how we perceive others (e.g. sex, race, or age). This process can lead to stereotype application that influences our thoughts and behaviors towards members of certain groups.
Notably, there are a number of social power relationships in our society in which the application of stereotypes may be particularly detrimental to members of racial and ethnic minority groups, the teacher-student relationship being one significant example.
Our workshop will provide a background on the unconscious bias theory, drawing from our six years of work on the issue and identifying ways that unconscious bias can be better understood and used by writers.
Contact me at kkamisugi@equaljusticesociety.org if you have questions about this event.