Trainers from the Racial Equity Institute (REI) of Greensboro, NC conducted an amazingly comprehensive and informative session at Jump Start about a week ago for about 75 attendees from various developmental, philanthropic, health and governmental organizations in Greater Cleveland.
Bayard “Bay” Love and Deena Hayes-Greene, both of whom are experts in their fields, literally had the group spellbound with their presentation of facts regarding where we are in terms of race as a nation. After about an hour, Love asked if we wanted to take a break, but no one cared to stop the flow of the excellent information.
This conversation about race is one that is long overdue, but still one that many (especially whites) do not care to hear, let alone engage in at a training session. But the presenting duo was sensitive to this reality and didn’t engage in finger pointing or blame placement, at least on a personal level. This was not about trying to make whites feel guilty, although I imagine they were not completely successful in this part of their endeavor. Nonetheless, the irrefutable facts were presented in the most non-judgmental manner possible and were received appropriately by all in attendance.
The session was entitled “A Groundwater Approach to Addressing Racial Inequities,” and Love started off with an analogy: If a person sees a dead fish in a lake, they might wonder what happened, what was wrong with the creature that lead to the death. But if the same person saw thousands of dead fish in the water, they would then begin to ask, “What’s wrong with the water that caused so many fish to die?”
Their premise — derived from a variety of reliable data sources they displayed in a copious number on charts and graphs — is that there is something seriously wrong with the culture and environment in America (in other words, the water) that’s causing such widely disparate outcomes between blacks and whites on virtually every socio-economic level and particularity in the field of health.
The Groundwater Approach examines data to illustrate the following five points that are essential to grasping the nature of institutional racism: Racial inequity looks the same across systems; socio-economic difference does not explain the racial inequity; systems contribute significantly to disparities; the systems-level disparities cannot be explained by a few ‘bad apples’ or ill-intentioned gatekeepers; and poor outcomes are concentrated in certain geographic communities, usually poor communities and communities of color.
A number of startling examples cited were in the category of infant deaths. Studies show that, overall, the more education a woman has, the incidence of infant death goes down proportionately — except for black women with college degrees, who have a higher incident of infant deaths than white women that have not completed high school. The question is why?
Another startling example was that of women who emigrate to America from foreign countries that have lower incidents of infant deaths (yes, the U.S. infant mortality rate is more than double that of some other developed countries). After being in this country for one generation, the offspring of these women experience the same dismal outcomes as black women whose families have been in America for generations. Again, why?
According to REI’s website, “The process is designed to help leaders and organizations who want to proactively understand and address racism, both in their organization and in the community where the organization is working. The Racial Equity Institute, LLC process is just that: an 18-month to two-year process.
“Our experience is that the goals of understanding and addressing racism can rarely be achieved in a three-hour or one-day workshop. Racism is a fierce, ever-present, challenging force, one which has structured the thinking, behavior and actions of individuals and institutions since the beginning of U.S. history. To understand racism and effectively begin dismantling it requires an equally fierce, consistent and committed effort.”
This is serious business that simply has to be undertaken as some point by organizations around the country and REI is dedicated to providing the requisite guidance and support that can insure success.
One thing that Donald Trump’s so-far successful candidacy makes abundantly clear is there is a relatively large cohort of dissatisfied and disaffected Americans, and matters of race play a large role in such feelings. Many whites feel that blacks are taking their jobs, while others feel they are being taxed to the hilt to pay for programs like Obamacare. But the REI facts and figures paint a far different and more accurate picture, one that we all need to look at if we really care about keeping our country strong.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.