Welcome to the Remix, as we take our latest spin around the economy. This past spring, I reported on a small event of 50 leaders of color on how community development might advance liberation. This Remix column ("Linking Racial and Economic Justice: The Struggle of Our Time") covers a much larger public conference of over 1,200 people in Atlanta that builds on that conversation.
Prosperity Now, a national economic and racial justice nonprofit, organized the event. Historically, it had focused on advocating policies to promote individual savings and wealth building, but it has chosen, as CEO Gary Cunningham put it, to “go bold” and focus “exclusively on racial and economic justice.”
At the conference, a few key themes emerged:
• The role of institutions: Glenn Harris, president of Race Forward, emphasized the need “to own the institutions in our lives,” especially by building economic ownership at the local level, a common theme of solidarity economy activists and practitioners.
• Myth busting: Many speakers emphasized that what is taken as economic common sense is often plainly wrong. Narrative change requires busting these myths, one of the most pernicious of which is behavioral. Notably, poverty is often blamed on individual failings. Yet as Ibram X. Kendi of Boston University pointed out, while some argue the racial wealth gap would be less if Black Americans saved more, the data “have shown that if you control for income, there are no differences in savings patterns.”
• A multigenerational lens: Robert Samuels, a Washington Post reporter who coauthored His Name was George Floyd, noted that Floyd’s great, great grandfather acquired over 500 acres of land after emancipation, an extraordinary achievement. But within a generation, all his land was stolen. As a result, the Floyd family enjoyed no intergenerational wealth. As Darrick Hamilton of New School observed more broadly, “The racial wealth gap is an implicit measure of our racist past.”
In Atlanta, panelists also offered their thoughts on strategies to address these challenges. Economist and social movement activist Manuel Pastor implored attendees to be “impatient about injustice but patient about strategy.” Kendi offered a four-part framework centered around research, policy work, narrative change, and advocacy. Tafia Smith Butler of Demos called on attendees to dedicate themselves to building an economic democracy where people of color have agency and control.
As you read this article, I encourage you to reflect on how to realize the economic agenda of the civil rights movement. Until the next Remix column, I remain,
Your Remix Man:
Steve Dubb
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