Institutional Racism: How does racism live formally and informally in our organizations and communities and how can we uproot it?
Institutional racism can reside in both the formal and informal workings of organizations and institutions. It exists in formal policies, for example, and in unwritten and unspoken norms of behavior.
Here we invite you to shine a light on your workplace, school, place of worship, or food system-related organization. Consider where the organization falls on this continuum on becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization.
As you do your assessment, perhaps with others, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. What comes up for you? Also consider what might be done to nudge this organization/community to be more fully anti-racist, equitable and liberatory. Consider sharing your observations with others. What are their reactions and observations?
In addition, this two-minute videospeaks to building public institutional capacity to pursue equity and authentic engagement. What comes up for you as you watch this?
Institutions shape how we live, and how we live shapes our understanding of everyday life. Failing to address institutional racism results in our having racist thinking built into our everyday patterns of thought, even if, and maybe especially because, we are unaware of it. It is a quiet and almost invisible toxicity. The world as it is, isn’t a necessity, it is a contingency.
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Thank you, Ken. And thank you for your leadership on this front!
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A form to uproot institutional racism is to talk about it in an effort to call out and change the oppressive structures that continue racist policies and behaviors as the norm. This should happen at a whole community level. If everyone in the community has options and opportunity, the businesses and organizations that are racist and oppressive will need to shutdown, leave, or change in order to continue to be a part of the community. Community members would naturally choose where they want to work or make purchases based on who is anti-racist and anti-oppressive.
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Angel,
Thanks for calling out the need for us to not only work as individuals but as communities, communities that share a common commitment to dismantling race and injustice. By joining together we build momentum, a shared voice and strategies toward racial equity and food justice
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As I was viewing today’s resource, “continuum on becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization”, I am struck by the the lack of discussion a whole over these past days on these discussion boards particularly by individuals in my own organization (myself included), especially knowing we have the largest cohort of over 500 participants and wonder how that relates to us in context of this resource and where we fall on the continuum? I have felt surprisingly isolated participating in this challenge knowing that so many of us across campus have signed up to participate in this challenge, but I am not aware/plugged into any outside conversations on campus specific to this exercise that I would have expected. I just thought that was worth noting and something I need to reflect on in my own behavior. I appreciate this opportunity and resources that are being provided. I have a lot to think about with regard to my own actions, behavior and agency.
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Thank you, Pam, for your thoughtful comments. It is really helpful to know that you’d like to see more public conversations and activities related to the challenge. We’re looking for this type of feedback as we think about programming for next year.
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Pam-Thanks so much for sharing. You have raised some good points. I imagine you are not alone given the many ways the Challenge is addressed, and the options to reflect via a personal journal, social media and this forum.
I wonder if at this juncture you find a few colleagues that you know are participating if a lunch time sharing of thoughts is an option? Would the invite to reflect in a less public place be what works for them. What have our other participants doing to build a collective approach to this learning journey.
Hopefully others share, as we are just about at the midpoint.
Thanks for your thoughtful reflection
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I would endorse the moderator’s suggestions, especially about taking the conversation live. I am always surprised by how many more people read a discussion board that post comments and I suspect the same is true for folks on your campus. Bringing your thoughts to a lunch time conversation is a great way to “go live.”
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I hadn’t really reviewed the continuum in a while. It’s a great reminder and still very relevant. I think the sixth stage is something to reach for, but the “in a transformed society” part makes me think we won’t be getting all the way there any time soon. I’m also reminded about how easy it is to make progress and slip back between the 4th, 5th and 6th levels.
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Hi FSNE folks. I’m just jumping in on day 10, and went to watch the linked video. I wanted to suggest that it would be helpful for accessibility purposes to provide, if possible, transcripts of any videos you link to, esp. if they aren’t captioned.
Thanks, and looking forward to digging in.
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Thank you, Lisbeth, for this suggestion. Yes and yes, we can always do better to create more inclusion and belonging. We will definitely look at that going forward!
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I have been guilty of not posting much through the challenge. However, we did host a discussion group yesterday. Only one person came, but am reminded that each pebble we throw in the water creates a ripple effect and when combined with other ripples creates a bigger wave. The discussion went well and I hope that our next discussion will be larger.
What I found interesting about today’s reading, “Continuum of Becoming Anti-Racist”, was how our country is still in the 1st Phase. This has been highlighted more by the policies on immigration and how the administration is speaking about other humans. It’s devastating. Even more so devastating is the lack of consequences for the actions/inaction being taken by our government and the unnecessary uphill battles being fought within our branches of government. It leaves me wondering how do we influence change in this Continuum when our political parties are having a popularity contest and people are being inhumanely treated in the process?
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Thanks, Jessica. And so glad you had the conversation. Every conversation matters. And yes, some big ones to have with political leaders. But let’s get it going at the community level, really robustly, so they have to follow our lead!
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I reviewed the “where is your agency on this list” list…and have to say, if anyone responds to where their agency is, if they are NOT a person of Color, I have to question the authenticity of the response. If you are not impacted by the racism, how do you assess that it’s really being addressed? I have worked in openly racist environments, as well as places listed here as identity change (words no actions). I have experienced as well as observed, that as POC climb into leadership positions, the power normally associated with that position, evaporates ( What?!! a Person of Color IN CHARGE? nope, no way, forget it! read: how was Obama treated?) Addressing racism and racist behaviors IS hard and requires a LOT of energy…DEALING with racists and racism IS stressful on the mind, body and spirit. But to all who sit at the “Identity change” section, please, stop pretending to put in real effort and expect those impacted to be satisfied with the pretense! Stop asking POC and those impacted by negative behavior and policies, to “be patient”, as for us, it’s been a few hundred years- how long is long enough?
Read another interesting article that I tried to (unsuccessfully)share the link with everyone….
Please look up the article that was on NPR.com ” Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
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I hear you LeNay. One way to use the continuum is to have everyone in the organization identify where they think the organization is. If you ask for a few identifiers, you can cut the data by race, gender, generation, roles/levels in the hierarchy, etc. to get a picture of how people who are differently situated see the organization. Any differences that emerge can be important points of departure for a conversation about where the organization is and what’s needed to move forward together.
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We as White people need to seriously suck it up and try just try to walk the walk.It seems to me that institutions,organizations and businesses reflect the intentional or tacit complicity in racist and bigoted behavior of the people in those entities.Since Whiteness seems the default we as White people need to own it and seek to rectify those behaviors we find so monstrous. Where do we send our kids to school?Why?Are we always in White spaces ?Why?Do we view law enforcement as protecting and serving us?Why?Are we afraid of confronting bias and racism in ourselves and others/our work environments ?Why?Most of all if we as White people have kids show them a different truth.Thanks to all participating!!
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Thank you, Gaelan. Great questions to sit with.
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https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/White_Supremacy_Culture_Okun.pdf
This article on white supremacy culture in organizations does a great job at highlighting some of the ways organizations reflect the white supremacy culture in which we are all living. This is a resource that I have used to help me identify some of these things that are so often hidden or that I am blind to because I am white and have grown up with many of these cultural practices as norms in the places that I have worked.
A couple that caught my attention and that I could relate to in organizations that I have worked in are “sense of urgency” and “quantity over quality.” For me it took reading about these things in this framework of white supremacy to understand how such culture is problematic and rooted in white supremacy.
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