Current Events > undergoing race equity training as part of professional development for work ama

(+) Yeah! (+)

As some of you know, I work in public policy and obviously racial equity has been a huge deal the past few years. part of the reason for that is that big money foundations really care about that right now.

Anyway, I work in state-level policy but we are part of a national organization that is coordinated by a national think-tank and has membership from state-level groups in like 41 states and territories. The national think-tank is coordinating 'communities of learning' that analysts at the state-level organizations can apply to be part of; I did and I was selected for the second cohort, meaning they've only done this once before this group.

The point is to "to develop the capacity among researchers and analysts to incorporate racial and ethnic analysis and concepts into their work.

Strengthen and integrate strategic racial and ethnic equity lens into policy work;
Develop a pool of network experts to build the body of knowledge and resources in the various policy interest areas of the network;
Increase staffs ability to talk about race and race forward concepts;
Build upon additional work occurring through the network and as part of the initiative. "

the way it works is that we have one webinar a month that has several readings associated with it and usually some 'homework' we need to bring to be ready to discuss etc. our second webinar is tomorrow.


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Study hard!

Are there any more specifics?
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Squall28 posted...

Are there any more specifics?

As far as what is concerned? I could share the reading list we have this month.

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Balrog0 posted...

Squall28 posted...

Are there any more specifics?

As far as what is concerned? I could share the reading list we have this month.

Like is it historical? Talking about privilege? Talk about different cultures?
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Oh I gotcha. There's a historical piece, but the intent is to highlight how current day policies perpetuate racial inequality in various ways.

Yeah there's a lot of talk about white privilege. The readings for this month also included a piece on internalized racism and how people and communities of color need to address that simultaneously with white people dealing with white privilege.

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do they at least go into specifics? Or do they keep it vague?

Did they touch on the difference between equality and equity?
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Romes187 posted...

do they at least go into specifics? Or do they keep it vague?

the first one was pretty vague but it's a 6 month thing and I haven't even done month 2. we're organized into several small groups focusing on different specific policies so I assume that the latter part of the series will be a lot more specific than the earlier parts

s0nicfan posted...

Did they touch on the difference between equality and equity?

lol it comes up every time we do a training like this

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I always feel like these programs are designed by white people and miss the point.
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Balrog0 posted...

lol it comes up every time we do a training like this

I'm sure it's a lot to tl;dr, but do they justify why they feel the right thing to focus on is equity and not equality?
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Because I am hard, you will not like me! But the more you hate me, the more you will learn! I am hard, but I am fair! There is no racial bigotry here.

Squall28 posted...

I always feel like these programs are designed by white people and miss the point.

I've never once seen a white consultant lead something like this. And I have done this kind of thing several times with different organizations.Though I also agree that these kinds of trainings have limited value.

s0nicfan posted...

I'm sure it's a lot to tl;dr, but do they justify why they feel the right thing to focus on is equity and not equality?

I guess the idea is that equality isn't achievable without equity; something like treating everyone equally only works if everyone starts from the same place

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this month we had to read:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf
What is Internalized Racism, from "Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building," https://www.aecf.org/resources/flipping-the-script-white-privilege-and-community-building/
this article: https://fakequity.com/2017/11/16/we-cant-train-our-way-to-racial-equity/
A chapter from "Racial Renegades: Conscious Egalitarianism and the Politics of Whiteness,"

and this article called "Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence" which talks about how race impacts tax and budget policies; https://www.nber.org/papers/w26014

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I think Im gonna do a monthly topic on this where I write up my thoughts so ce can follow along on this journey with me

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Run from that crazy company ASAP.
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wat I mean I had to specifically apply to do this, no one forced me to lol

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Balrog0 posted...

this month we had to read:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf
What is Internalized Racism, from "Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building," https://www.aecf.org/resources/flipping-the-script-white-privilege-and-community-building/
this article: https://fakequity.com/2017/11/16/we-cant-train-our-way-to-racial-equity/
A chapter from "Racial Renegades: Conscious Egalitarianism and the Politics of Whiteness,"

and this article called "Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence" which talks about how race impacts tax and budget policies; https://www.nber.org/papers/w26014

These should be mandatory training for any job.
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bump for night ce

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Balrog0 posted...

this month we had to read:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf
What is Internalized Racism, from "Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building," https://www.aecf.org/resources/flipping-the-script-white-privilege-and-community-building/
this article: https://fakequity.com/2017/11/16/we-cant-train-our-way-to-racial-equity/
A chapter from "Racial Renegades: Conscious Egalitarianism and the Politics of Whiteness,"

and this article called "Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence" which talks about how race impacts tax and budget policies; https://www.nber.org/papers/w26014

Are you white? Well you should feel bad about it, and heres why
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That's not what I got out of it

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Balrog0 posted...

That's not what I got out of it

Doesn't it bother you even a little that all the training material is on white racism and not just, you know, "racism"? Or how they continually try to make a phrase like "whiteness" synonymous with "bad"?
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Balrog0 posted...

That's not what I got out of it

What did you get out of it, especially as it applies to public policy?
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This sounds more like a college course. At the very least it sounds more interesting than the afternoon seminars that most companies give.
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Jfc. And I thought my yearly mandatory mandated reporter and harrassment in the workplace training were a load of crap.
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s0nicfan posted...

Doesn't it bother you even a little that all the training material is on white racism and not just, you know, "racism"?

Not really. That's the context in which we operate, more or less.

s0nicfan posted...

Or how they continually try to make a phrase like "whiteness" synonymous with "bad"?

Yeah, sometimes I feel that way, but not so far with this. I appreciated the discussion of internalized racism in communities of color; one of the readings that talked about intersectionality really dug into some info about how white women are more likely than white men to discount race on certain metrics -- less than half of white women think white americans receive better treatment from the police vs 63 percent of white men for instance. If anything this has been pretty good on not just talking about how white or whiteness is bad.

konokonohamaru posted...

What did you get out of it, especially as it applies to public policy?

Not much out of these readings. The NBER paper on political violence and black political efficacy is pretty interesting, and speaks to a broader literature about how its easier to implement redistributive policies in homogeneous areas, but I'm not sure how to operationalize that.

The article on how you can't train your way to racial equity is interesting, but I guess I would say its sort of a shallow analysis of the issue at hand. But maybe that's to be expected since its only a couple pages.

tbh what I'm hoping to get from this whole process is what exactly is the point of talking about racial equity or framing policies in terms of racial equity. If it's just an issue of being true and accurate, that's one thing, but I sort of doubt the value in pragmatic terms. I know here in Arkansas the legislature isn't gonna suddenly care about an issue if I say it's racist or w/e


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if Im being honest I wish the webinar/group call/discussion thing wasnt today because my afternoon is p busy

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Bump

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