Welcome to the Remix, as we take our latest spin around the economy. This Remix column examines how economic justice advocates are making sense of the current racial justice backlash and seek to buttress the movement for the long struggle ahead.
This was a core theme of the latest annual conference of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). Last month’s event, held in the nation's capital, attracted 1,300 people, many of whom are civil rights advocates who hail from hundreds of groups from across the country. NCRC was founded to oppose redlining and ensure enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, better known as CRA. But its mission is far broader.
This year’s gathering offered a time and place to take stock of the present diminished state of civil rights in the United States, and plan on how to build power going forward.
In addresses on the main stage of the conference, conversation centered on three main themes. One was a focus on dissecting and making sense of the drivers of the present backlash. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor noted that one driver of the current backlash is a desire by many in government and business to evade responsibility to actively repair the damage wrought by structural racism. “That is the crux of the issue,” Taylor argued.
A second part of the conversation was about building a positive vision. Marc Morial, head of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, emphasized the importance of making housing a social good, and not just a private commodity. Housing, he noted, had been a major driver of the inflation that led to the Republican victory in the 2024 elections. Housing, he said, should be a “human right, and we’ve got to talk about it … in those terms.”
A third part of the conversation centered on organizing and movement building. Jesse Van Tol, CEO of NCRC, said that the nonprofit sector had at some point gotten rusty when it came to educating, organizing, and agitating for change. “We’ve forgotten that a tax status is not a movement,” he argued.
In reading this article, I encourage you to consider the state of civil rights in the United States today at a time when democratic institutions are at risk, and how movement groups must respond to both protect and ultimately advance economic and racial justice.
Until the next Remix column, I remain
Your Remix Man:
Steve Dubb
|
|
