john a. powell

Executive Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law

The Thomas Jefferson District of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations 2010 Anti-racism Conference-Building the World We Want: Race, Place and Community

October 9, 2010 Richmond, VA

Race, place, and the distribution of opportunityOpportunity isolation How structures create, maintain, and perpetuate racial

disparities

How race operates in U.S. society Social construction of race Implicit bias Framing

Ensuring equitable access to opportunities for all

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“We are a vibrant, diverse faith community of healthy congregations that is a prophetic

model of anti-racism and anti-oppression. We are called to collaborate with other faith and community groups to transform our society.”

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District Vision Statement:

Inequality has a geographic footprint.

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Outcomes

&

Behaviors

Social

Physical

Cultural

Opportunity includes access to:

Healthcare

Education

Employment

Services

Healthy food

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Individual/family costs

Living in “concentrated disadvantage” reduces student IQ by 4 points, roughly the equivalent to missing one year of school (Sampson 2007)

Societal cost

Neighborhoods of concentrated poverty suppress property values by nearly 400 billion nationwide (Galster et al. 2007))

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People of color are far more likely to live in opportunity-deprived neighborhoods and

communities.

It’s more than just a matter of choice.

9Photo: Sxc.hu; roniebow

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Racialized…

• In 1960, African-American families in poverty were 3.8 times more likely to be concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods than poor whites.

• In 2000, they were 7.3times morelikely.

Spatialized…

• Marginalized people of color and the very poor have been spatially isolated from opportunity:• Jim Crow, • ghettos, • barrios, etc.

Globalized…• Economic

globalization

• Climate change

• the Credit and Foreclosure crisis

Different communities are situated differently with respect to institutions and opportunity.

Community A has no insurance and

no hospitals in the area.

Community B has no insurance, but there’s a hospital down the street.

Community C has access to both insurance an a

hospital.

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Problem: 3 people are out to sea and a big storm is coming

Goal: To reach the people within 6 hours

Assumption: If we can reach them within 6 hours, we will save them all.

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But the 3 are not all in the stormy water in the same way…

Which person would be most likely to survive the 6 hours it would take to reach them??

If water is a “structure,”(housing, education, etc.) some groups are able to navigate the structure more successfully than other groups.

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Example: Controlling for risk factors, African Americans were 15-30% more likely than whites to get subprime loans for purchase and for refinance

Likely refinance targets: elderly, often widowed, African American women in urban areas

For Latinos, similar numbers for purchase, not for refinance

Many Latino homebuyers were recent, first generation homebuyers who could not be automatically underwritten (multiple income earners, cash, local credit, etc.)

Sources: Graciela Aponte (National Council of La Raza) and Debbie Bocian (Center for Responsible Lending) presentations at The Economic Policy Institute panel “Race, Ethnicity and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis” on June 12, 2008 in WDC; and “Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women” in The New York Times online, Jan. 15, 2008 14

• “If they wanted to, they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”Is it culture?

• “If only people would stop stereotyping and discriminating….”

Is it interpersonal racism?

• “Institutions can interact in ways that are discriminatory.”Is it structural?

Is it some or all of the above?

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A series of mutually reinforcing federal policies across multiple domains have contributed to the disparities we see today.

School Desegregation

Suburbanization/ Homeownership

Urban Renewal

Public Housing

Transportation

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Lower EducationalOutcomes

Increased Flight

of Affluent Families

Racial and Economic

Neighborhood Segregation

SchoolSegregation &Concentrated

Poverty

Structures and policies are not neutral. They

unevenly distribute benefits and burdens.

Institutions can operate jointly to produce

racialized outcomes.

Example: A bird in a cage

Examining one wire cannot explain why a bird cannot fly.

But multiple wires, arranged in specific ways, reinforce each other and trap the bird.

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Some people ride the “Up” escalator to reach

opportunity.

Others have to run up the “Down” escalator to get there.

Structural Barriers

One Dimensional:

One variable explains differential outcomes

Multidimensional:

The individual bars working together to cage the bird

… to an understanding of processes and relationships

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We need to think about the ways in which the institutions that mediate opportunity are arranged – systems thinking.

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Our relationship to these systems and the responsiveness of systems is both uneven and racialized.

While understanding the relationships that exist within a system is important, we need to look for nodes of influence and power.

Where are the levers that can enact change?

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Our perceptions of race are shaped by our subconscious attitudes and by how messages are framed.

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The racial categories into which we group people are not as problematic as the social meaning and racial hierarchy we assign to those groups.

People talk about race as though it is essential. This provokes some important questions:

How is race constructed?

By whom?

For what purpose?

What work does it do?

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The fact that race is constructed implies that it has a history and that it is constantly changing.

People tend to misunderstand and underestimate the significance of this.

How does our perception of race change?

What forces are causing these changes?

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Racial attitudes in the U.S. have improved significantly over time.

We have moved from segregation into a period of racial egalitarianism.

Interracial relationships are becoming more accepted.

We elected a biracial President.

The United States continues to be strongly divided by race.

Nationally, the black unemployment rate tends to be about twice as high as the white rate.

A black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life, a Hispanic male has a 17% chance, and a white

male has a 6% chance.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_reducingracialdisparity.pdf

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Both these perspectives are true – how we frame issues of race matters.

Consider the false dichotomies we often use when we think and talk about race. These binaries are actually frames.

Black / White

Post-racialism / Civil Rights

Race is not important / Race matters

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How messages are

framed affects how

they are perceived.

Implicit Bias

• People are meaning-making machines.

•Individual meaning•Collective meaning

•Only 2% of emotional cognition is available to us consciously

• Racial bias tends to reside in the unconscious network

We unconsciously think about race

even when we do not explicitly

discuss it.

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Racialized outcomes do not require racist actors.

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Distributions of Responses on Explicit (Self-reported) and Implicit Measures

GroupsCompared

Explicit Implicit

Nonwhite Neutral White Nonwhite Neutral White

Blacks/Whites 12% 56% 32% 12% 19% 69%

Asians/Whites 16% 57% 27% 11% 26% 63%

Note: Percentages represent the percent biased in favor of group.

Source: 94 California Law Review (2006), p. 957.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrqrkihlw-s

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Are you right-brained or left-brained?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJVqhEcHiY&feature=related

OR

http://www.moillusions.com/2007/06/spinning-sihouette-optical-illusion.html

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Outside under a tree. The woman has an item balanced on

her head.

Indoors. There is a window

through which shrubbery

outside can be seen.

Your response is indicative of your cultural orientation.

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Repeatedly exposing people to admired African Americans can may help counteract pro-white / anti-black IAT results…

BUT, a more productive strategy is to show both admired African Americans and infamous whites.

Joy-Gaba, J . A., & Nosek, B. A. (in press). The Surprisingly Limited Malleability of Implicit Racial Evaluations. Social Psychology. 39

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH1S9DgLXQU&feature=channel_page

Be aware of implicit bias in your life. We are constantly being primed.

Debias by presenting positive alternatives.

Consider your conscious messaging & language. Affirmative action support varies based on whether it’s

presented as “assistance” or “preference.”

Engage in proactive affirmative efforts – not only on the cultural level but also the structural level.

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Aligning our values and our structures

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Maps can visually track the history and presence of discriminatory and exclusionary policies that spatially segregate people.

Identifying places with gaps in opportunity can help direct future investment.

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Adopt strategies that open up access to levers of opportunity for marginalized individuals, families, and communities

Connect people to existing opportunities throughout the metropolitan region

Bring opportunities to opportunity-deprived areas

Invest in people, places, and linkages

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Advocate for an opportunity-based approach to community development and housing advocacy

Support both in-place and mobility-based strategies to affirmatively provide access to opportunity

Adopt a multi-disciplinary, collaborative approach to advocacy

Design strategies that are sensitive to the unique challenges and strategic opportunities of each community

47Graphic: sxc.hu; shlomaster

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We usually focus on how spirituality inspires social justice work, but not on how working for social justice informs spirituality.

Caring about other’s suffering is not just about relieving their suffering but about one’s own spiritual development.

Spirituality Social Justice

Our values and structures impact each other.

It’s not enough to have the right values. We need the right structures.

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1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

52http://www.uua.org/visitors/6798.shtml

“We started the journey, a spiritual one, to be truly ‘whole,’ to accept, respect, value each

person while responding to his/her behaviour on its own merits. Then we worked to change our own church institution, and finally started on all of those of American society. Sorry, we still have a long way to go. And this is where

you must carry on!”

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~ Tomas Firle, member, First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, CA

p. 586, The Arc of the Universe is Long

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www.KirwanInstitute.org

KirwanInstituteon:

www.race-talk.org

The Self – Two paradigms

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Current paradigm: Hobbesian, isolated Perceives individuals as autonomous-independent selvesEgoistic, possessive, separate, isolated, rational

This has led to increasing hyper-individualism and fear of the other This framework creates and marginalizes the racialized other Racial disparities are seen as a subjective, personal experience Creates false separations – negates shared humanity

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What is the alternative vision?A model of connectedness Individuals as part of something bigger Inter-being, unified, not egoistically separate

Individualism and interconnectivity are not mutually excusive

When linked correctly, interconnectivity supports individuality