Tools

Reflect

Welcome to the Michigan League for Public Policy’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge!

Several years ago, the League made a decision to apply a racial equity lens to the anti-poverty work at the heart of our mission. The disparities in health, wealth and well-being that we seek to eradicate are largely a result of racism enshrined in public policy over the course of U.S. history. Today, we cannot hope to achieve our mission of economic security for all Michiganders without understanding the origins of the concept of race, how it influences us as individuals and as an organization, and how it functions to preserve inequity in our laws, institutions and systems.

You are welcome to begin this Challenge whenever you would like to on your own. If you would like to join a guided version of the Challenge, please register at bit.ly/mlpp21days and you will be added to our next cohort. The guided Challenge includes daily email reminders with a link to the learning and discussion thread for each day.

We would like to thank the following partners for their knowledge, perspectives and guidance in putting the Challenge together:

Asraa from the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS)

Raven is a human resources professional and education advocate. She has partnered with leaders and parents across the state to push for more equitable policy change in the education space and continues to work alongside those in her local public school system.

AeYanna Yett, a recent macro-focused dual-title Master of Social Work & Infant Mental Health graduate from Wayne State University, a Black feminist, and community leader. AeYanna is an independent researcher, Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Fellow for Life, a therapeutic facilitator for sexual assault survivors at the SASHA Center, and Chair of the historic African American Coalition in Sterling Heights, MI.

Meredith KennedyMiigwech Inc.Waganakising Citizen

Select a Day

Day 1: Introduction: What is this and why are we doing it?

Conventional wisdom says it takes about three weeks to form a new habit, so Dr. Eddie Moore, Dr. Marguerite Penick-Parks and Debby Irving developed the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge to help all of us cultivate self-awareness and intentionality to effect social change: creating more inclusive environments, being better advocates, and using an equity lens to create a more just society.

You can use this log to track your participation and note the feelings and insights you experience along the way. If you’re inclined to share your thoughts on social media, you can use the hashtag #mlpp21days. And if you are part of the guided Challenge with daily emails, you can click on the included link in each day’s email to join the discussion thread.

Don’t feel pressured to complete every listed activity each day. We’ve presented a variety of options so you can engage based on your learning style and the time you have available. Generally, each day can be completed in 30 to 60 minutes, but this isn’t a formal homework assignment; the point is simply to make a habit of doing something every day to broaden your perspective, identify topics for deeper learning on your own, and better equip yourself to combat white supremacy and racial injustice.

We ask you to start by recording your initial thoughts about this activity: where are you today in terms of your understanding of racial equity issues and what do you hope to get out of the challenge?

One of the biggest barriers to racial justice is the belief that racism is in the past, that there’s nothing we can do to change racist people’s minds, or that existing racial inequities are due to natural dynamics outside of anyone’s control. At the League, we have a more optimistic view: we are not powerless against racism and we do not have to accept a system created to divide us for the benefit of the few at the top. The 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge is one small step in building our individual and collective muscle to create a better future for all people.

Watch: 

Reflect:

After listening to Ijeoma Oluo, has your perception of your own racial identity and how you articulate your lived experience changed? In thinking about conversations about race and racism you’ve had in your own life, are there things you might do differently going forward?

Although the lie that invented racism was intentionally crafted several hundred years ago, how do you see it operating today, particularly in political rhetoric and policy decisions? If you are a white person, can you think of ways that you may have benefitted from the lie, even unintentionally?

Day 2: Understanding Racial Identity

What is race and how was it first constructed? If we take the textbook dictionary definition of race, race is “any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.” Race was a way to group people into categories based on shared biological traits. It is important to note here that although race and ethnicity are oftentimes used interchangeably, they represent two different concepts. Race focuses more on physical traits, while ethnicity focuses on shared culture. 

If we look throughout history, we’ll see that race was constructed as a way to push certain political and social beliefs particularly during the rise of colonialism. It was a hierarchical way of categorizing people into groups, controlling narratives, and furthering inequitable power dynamics based simply on how people look. 

Understanding this context can help us frame race in a different way. Every person is looking for a sense of belonging and kinship with those in their community. But we must be careful to recognize if our idea of belonging is rooted in prejudice or predicated on racist structures that have given the communities we live in an advantage or disadvantage. As we reflect on our own identity, it is important to acknowledge why the concept of race was created and how it has shaped people’s identities in painful ways. 

How do we view our own race? How do we view others? What race is prominent in our life and how does that influence how we see the world? As we begin to unpack and unlearn some of our unconscious bias towards race, we’ll begin to see that humanity is much more complex than the boxes we place people in.  

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Who is in my circle? What is the ethnic makeup of my friends? Places of worship? Schools? Doctors? Authors I read? How does this influence my understanding of the world? Are there areas I can grow in and learn from new perspectives? 

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Day 3: Levels of Racism

Racism is abundant in the very fabric of our country, which flows into our structures and systems, our communities, our families, and ourselves. Most of us can recognize overt racism, but it has the ability to be far more insidious. Today we’re going to focus on different levels of racism and reflect on how it operates in our lives.

The four levels of racism are internalized, interpersonal, institutional and structural. According to Race Forward, the levels are defined as follows:

Internalized racism lies within individuals. These are private beliefs and biases about race that reside inside our own minds and bodies. For white people, this can be internalized privilege, entitlement, and superiority; for people of color, this can be internalized oppression. Examples: prejudice, xenophobia, conscious and unconscious bias about race, influenced by the white supremacy.

Interpersonal Racism occurs between individuals. Bias, bigotry, and discrimination based on race. Once we bring our private beliefs about race into our interactions with others, we are now in the interpersonal realm. Examples: public expressions of prejudice and hate, microaggressions, bias and bigotry between individuals.

Institutional racism occurs within institutions. It involves unjust policies, practices, procedures, and outcomes that work better for white people than people of color, whether intentional or not. Example: A school district that concentrates students of color in the most overcrowded, under-funded schools with the least experienced teachers.

Structural racism is racial inequities across institutions, policies, social structures, history, and culture. Structural racism highlights how racism operates as a system of power with multiple interconnected, reinforcing, and self-perpetuating components which result in racial inequities across all indicators for success. Structural racism is the racial inequity that is deeply rooted and embedded in our history and culture and our economic, political, and legal systems. Examples: The “racial wealth gap,” where white people have many times the wealth of people of color, resulting from the history and current reality of institutional racism in multiple systems.

While it’s not included in the levels of racism from Race Forward, there is another form of racism that is important to identify here: Personally mediated racism. It is defined as the following in “A Gardener’s Tale” by Dr. Camara Jones:

Personally mediated racism is defined as prejudice and discrimination, where prejudice means differential assumptions about the abilities, motives, and intentions of others according to their race, and discrimination means differential actions toward others according to their race. This is what most people think of when they hear the word “racism.” Personally mediated racism can be intentional as well as unintentional, and it includes acts of commission as well as acts of omission. It manifests as lack of respect (poor or no service, failure to communicate options), suspicion (shopkeepers’ vigilance; everyday avoidance, including street crossing, purse clutching, and standing when there are empty seats on public transportation), devaluation (surprise at competence, stifling of aspirations), scapegoating, and dehumanization (police brutality, sterilization abuse, hate crimes).

In an anti-racist journey, we must understand how we can be unintentionally racist, intentionally racist, how our acts and actions can or may be perceived, and how we can intentionally and unintentionally play a role in affirming and upholding white dominant culture.

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Reflect:

What are some ways you see racism operating in your life, at work and in your community? Are any of these levels easier for you to identify? Why do you think that is? Are there any levels that are not as obvious to you? What could be the reason for that?

Day 4: History of Oppression in the U.S.

In order to understand the ripple effects of the varying levels of racism (internalized, interpersonal, institutional, structural and personally mediated), we must first understand and acknowledge the history of systemic oppression in the U.S. While there are many examples of systemic oppression for varying racial groups in the U.S., we want to provide a broad overview and some key examples throughout U.S. history. This will be one of our longer reads, but we believe it is important to set a foundational understanding in place before we continue further in our racial equity journey. 

Our collective history in the United States is rooted in colonization. First, it begins with our Indigenous populations. Before European colonizers landed on Turtle Island, which is what we now know as the Americas, the land was inhabited by the Anishinaabe. Through the ongoing process of colonization, the various Indigenous people became known collectively as “Indians,” “Savages,” and known today as Native Americans or American Indians. As colonization accelerated in the 1500s through the 1700s, settlers (descendants of colonists) wanted to control the land and its inhabitants, which led to the theft of native land and its resources (i.e., cotton, water, farmland, etc.). This power dynamic and unfounded fear of Native culture led them to see Indigenous populations as their enemy. Land theft was not the only epidemic, the colonizers also brought with them new diseases that wiped out large populations of Indigenous communities.

Early leaders and presidents in the United States sought to civilize, convert, control, and remove Native Americans from their land, often through violent and manipulative tactics like the Dawes Act. Another example of this is with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This bill allowed the federal government to negotiate ancestral lands with Indigenous leaders. However, many of the land treaties were often under false pretenses and became a way for the U.S. Army to forcibly remove Native Americans from their land. The Choctaw nation became the first nation expelled from their land and were forced to march westward toward present-day Oklahoma, some bound in chains and without food or supplies from the government. Nearly 4,000 Native Americans died on this trek known as the Trail of Tears. While this is often the most recognized forced removal, it is important to note that Tribes from Michigan were also removed and sent to Oklahoma and Kansas.

During the 17th and 18th century there was a sharp rise in Africans who were kidnapped, bound and shipped to be sold to American colonies. This was known as the African Slave Trade. Though the data is unclear, it is estimated that nearly 6 to 7 million people were enslaved—removing generations of able-bodied individuals from the African continent and erasing significant portions of their culture and traditions when they landed in the Americas. 

For hundreds of years, African Americans were forced into slave labor, raped, beaten, and killed. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, abolition (the movement to abolish slavery) began to progress. It was not until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which allowed slaves in certain states to be free. This was initially used as a war tactic in the Civil War, but created a domino effect which eventually led to the end of slavery.  It was not until two years later on June 19th, also known as Juneteenth,  that Union soldiers landed in Texas to announce to the remaining slaves that they were now free.

Although slavery was abolished, the next 100 years of Black participation in American life was still deeply segregated. From violent discrimination, to restrictive policies, to the rise of white supremacist groups, African Americans were consistently treated as the “other” and not as equals. This spurred the civil rights movement of the 1960swherein prominent African American leaders spearheaded significant advancements in racial justice for the Black community. Although there were positive strides, we still see harmful ripple effects in Black communities todaywhether it be police brutality, redlining, or other discriminatory practices and policies.   

Finally, we want to cover Asian immigration. Asian immigrants came to the U.S. as early as the 1800s following the Gold Rush of California. Throughout the next 100 years, Congress implemented various exclusive policies to ban immigration from Asian countries, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1917 which banned Asians and other non-European immigrants from entering the U.S. 

Our most notable mistreatment of Asian Americans was after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt feared those with Japanese ancestry had taken part in planning this attack and ordered more than 120,000 Japanese Americans be sent to internment camps in California, where conditions were unlivable. It is estimated that around 70,000 of those Japanese Americans were already U.S. citizens. Most lost their homes and businesses and were left in the internment camp until the end of World War II. 

In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act was signed into law, and removed the barriers on immigration which led to a wave of new Asian immigrants. While there has been progress among Asian Americans in the U.S. with the rise of COVID, anti-Asian sentiment began to emerge again and continues today.

We do not want to go without acknowledging the tangled history of immigration policy for Mexican, South American and Middle Eastern/North African populations as well. America and its immigration policy has been a defining element throughout U.S. history and has shaped public narrative for good and for bad. 

While there have been significant strides throughout our history, there is still a long way to go. Our past helps us contextualize our present and gain a better understanding of how our history created the framework for many restrictive policies and negative sentiments in place today. 

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Reflect: 

Are there things you had never heard about before? Why do you think that is? Why is it important to understand historical context? Are there ripple effects you see in the present day? 

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Day 5: How Acknowledging Inequity Charts Path Forward

The pursuit of anti-racism is a lifelong journey. It is about remaining open to learning and being persistent in asking yourself questions to discover the root of your own biases and misconceptions, and working to eradicate them. It is also about diligence in recognizing and opposing injustice and inequity in our systems.

Over the past few days, we’ve focused on how racism exists in every aspect of our lives. Have you noticed a difference in how you perceive the world around you? What about how you show up in your life and what it means in all of the communities within which you participate? Who are you helping? Who are you possibly leaving out? These considerations (and many others) are important in an anti-racist life. Anti-racism takes practice and intentionality.

That is why we are so grateful that you are here in this challenge with us. It’s so encouraging to see people who want to do the work, who want to fight inequity, and who want to value and respect the lives of fellow humans. We’re proud to align ourselves with people who are willing to lean into the discomfort that often accompanies this work. 

Acknowledging racism and expanding our knowledge of racial inequity are crucial steps in the fight to dismantle it in our lives, our communities and our country as a whole. Acknowledging inequity creates space for accountability. Accountability opens the door for healing and, finally, sustained change.

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Reflect: 

Have you learned anything in the past few days that has surprised you? What did this teach you about yourself or the systems that are in power? Is there a part of this challenge so far that has felt particularly difficult and may require further exploration, whether through reflection or research?

Day 6: Catch Up

Thank you for joining us for the first week of our Challenge. Today, please take the time to catch up on any days you may have missed this week, or spend some time revisiting some of the questions posed for reflection.

Day 7: Reflect

Looking even further inward, we invite you to find some quiet time to get centered and to consider this first week of your participation in the Challenge. Is there anything that made you feel challenged? Which day stood out to you? Is there a particular resource that resonated with you? Is there something you want to learn more about?

Day 8: Doctrine of Discovery, Indigenous Roots of U.S. Democracy

Traditionally, Americans have been taught that the U.S. form of government is a unique experiment, inspired by ancient Greek ideas about government by the peoplethe “demos”and philosophers of the European Enlightenment. But another monumental influence is less celebratedthat of the Indigenous people who lived here for thousands of years before invasion by Europeans.

Specifically, six Haudenosaunee nations (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora) came together under the Great Law of Peace to form what is commonly known as the Iroquois Confederacy, establishing a system of governance consisting of three branches, including the first democratic legislature on the land now called the United States.

Even as the founding fathers included Haudenosaunee elements of government as pillars of the Constitution, they dehumanized Native people in that same foundational document, referring to them as “savages” to whom the rights listed in it did not apply. 

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Where do you see the mentality underlying the Doctrine of Discovery operating today? How does the erasure of the Haudenosaunee from what Mark Charles termed our “common memory” affect perceptions of Indigenous people today? How can we shift power so the process of constructing this common memory is more inclusive, truthful and liberatory?

Have today’s materials spurred you to think about our binary political system in a new way? In what ways do both of the dominant parties pay lip service to diversity and inclusion while actively contributing to continued exclusion and oppression? When we see our political heroes contributing to and benefitting from white supremacy, what can we do to challenge it?

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Day 9: Ripple Effects of Harmful U.S. Housing Policies

There are several policies throughout our U.S. History that have historically excluded and negatively impacted communities of color. Building on what we learned in Day 4, we will be focusing on housing policies that have harmed both the Black and Indigenous communities. 

FirstRedlining. Redlining was discriminatory practice that started in the 1930s under the New Deal. The Federal government created maps of every metropolitan area in the country and these maps were color coded by the Home Owners Loan Corporation to determine where investments should be made. Areas with a high density of African Americans were color coded with red and areas that were predominately white and suburban were color coded with green. 

The Federal Housing Administration then took these maps and would not provide any federally backed loans for these red areas because they were deemed too risky to insure based solely on whether African Americans lived there or not. This created a domino effect that still impacts Black Americans today and their ability to build generational wealth and is why we still often see neighborhoods segregated by race. 

Next – we want to explore housing policies around Native Americans, reservations and tribal land. The Indian reservation system was established to to clear the way for white settlers western expansion and forced Native Americans into controlled areas that the government could more easily manage. These clustered reservations led to poor housing conditions, lack of housing stock, malnutrition and poverty, and non-existent build codes and enforcement. The ripple effects are paramount and have led to several health-related issues in the Native American communities and in some cases, an average life expectancy of 47 years old. The segregation of the Indigenous population was not only seen with housing and tribal land, but with boarding schools that forced cultural assimilation and erasure of native culture. 

It is important to recognize that historic policies still have modern day consequences and that communities of color are still feeling the weight of those decisions today. As we think through policy, community work and engagement, it is critical to recognize these effects and build more inclusive and thoughtful responses. 

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Reflect: 

How do you feel learning about our housing policies? Does it change how you think about communities of color and the why behind where they live? Do you notice the ripple effects today?

Day 10: “Crisis” at the Border and Immigration

While immigration has always been a high-profile topic in U.S. policy and politics, over the last few years it has become especially prominent as Donald Trump made xenophobia a central part of his campaign and, once elected, instituted draconian detention, family separation and deportation policies based on racial and ethnic stereotypes about immigrants.

Though particularly cruel, the hostility underlying these policies wasn’t new. As discussed on Day 4 of the Challenge, the U.S. immigration system has long been weaponized against specific groups at different points in time to serve the economic and political interests of those in powerregardless of party affiliation. Immigration restrictions have disproportionately targeted people of color and disabled people, especially those living in poverty.

In many cases, it is U.S. intervention in other nations’ affairs that has contributed to political instability, violence, and poverty, forcing people to leave their homelands in search of a better life in this country. Instead, many immigrant familiesespecially families of colorface dehumanizing rhetoric and depictions in the media; an arduous, unfair process for obtaining legal status; and discrimination, exploitation and continued violence.

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How does today’s material challenge what you have learned in the past about immigrants and their home countries? Where do you see racialized xenophobia in action in current U.S. immigration policy or in systems and individual attitudes in your school, workplace, and community? What efforts can you begin or join to support immigrant families and advocate for policy that is inclusive of Michiganders born outside the United States?

Day 11: Pay Gaps

It has been well established that there is a gender pay gap, with women making around 84% of what men earn. There are several factors that have contributed to this pay disparity, one of which is that women have continued to be underrepresented in higher paying jobs (often managerial or leadership positions), and over represented in lower paying jobs (like service or retail) in the workforce. 

Today we want to highlight the pay disparity that not only persists among women but particularly women of color. Hispanic women have the largest pay gap and earn only 57 cents per every $1 that white men make. Black women earn about 64 cents per $1, multiracial women around 63 cents, Native American women earn about 60 cents, and Asian women earn 85 cents. If we take this information and multiply it over a 20-year period, we see significant losses for women of color. For example, Hispanic women would lose over $500,000 over the span of their career.

One leading cause of the pay gap is occupational segregation, which is when women and men are led to pursue certain jobs based on gender and racial norms and cultural expectations. It is often why we see more women in certain workforce clusters than others. Take for example nurse assistants, housekeepers, secretaries, teachers, or retail workers. These jobs tend to have lower pay, limited benefits, and less opportunity for advancement and are dominated primarily by women and women of color. Many of these jobs offer flexible hours and varying shifts to accommodate for the multiple roles women have to juggle such as caring for a loved one, balancing child care, or part-time school. 

While there are some promising indicators that the gender pay gap is narrowing and we are seeing more women in leadership roles, we still need intentional planning around equal pay and a cultural shift that values the contribution of women and women of color at every level of our workforce. 

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Is your workplace creating pay equity for employees? If not, what can you do to change this? What conversations do you need to have? What actions do you need to take?

Day 12: Calling In and Calling Out

It has happened to all of us. We are with family, or friends, or at work, and somebody says something racist or displays racist behavior like a microaggression. Maybe they purposely want to cause harm. Maybe they are ignorant. Maybe it’s “just a joke.” Whatever the intention, someone has said or done something that makes you feel uncomfortable, or you know is wrong. Maybe the remark or action was aimed at you.

What do you do? 

In recent years, “calling in” has become a more popular practice, in which the offender is invited into a conversation. The goal is to speak calmly, candidly, and openly, and explain how their words or actions are harmful. However, this approach may not be powerful enough to really get through to the perpetrator or encourage them to explore or change their thinking.

Sometimes calling them out seems like a better option, as perhaps they need to be held more publicly accountable for their actions. In this case, our hearts may be in the right place, but our handling of the situation brings embarrassment and shame to the offender, and they shut down instead of opening up.

If one option feels like too little or another feels like too much, what do we do? Perhaps there is no right way, and maybe we have to work on a case-by-case basis. Maybe we use a little bit of both calling in and calling out. When our intentions are to help instead of causing further harm, maybe it’s best to be prepared with options on how to handle a situation. 

At the very least, it’s important to be aware of how we interact with others, and if we’re able to help stop racism at any level. Some of the strongest actions we can take is using our voice and agency to build a more inclusive future. 

Read and Explore:

Calling In and Calling Out Guide

Engage:

Find a trusted partner and practice calling out and calling in phrases, as listed in the guide above. Find the phrases that feel best to you and keep them in mind for the next time you may need to use them.

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Reflect: 

When was the last time you heard or witnessed a racist remark or act? Did you say anything to the perpetrator, or did you ignore it? What was the intention behind your reaction? If you found yourself in a similar position today, how would you handle it? Have you ever been called in or called out? How did it make you feel? What did you learn from the interaction?

Day 13: Catch Up

We’re grateful for you and your engagement with our series! We know that life happens, and have scheduled this “catch up day” so you can review any posts you may have missed, or if you wanted to revisit a reflection question or resource link. 

Thank you for your time, and we hope you’re able to take a moment today to rest and care for yourself.

Day 14: Reflect

Today we’re asking that you take a look at the week as a whole, and think about how the material fits together. What thoughts or feelings are coming up for you? Have you learned something that has stuck with you all week? Did a certain day feel more difficult than the others? Why could that be?

Day 15: Workplace Culture

Creating a psychologically safe and inclusive work environment takes intentionality and effort. Creating diverse workplaces is not only about hiring people of color, but creating spaces where they can thrive. Building inclusive workplaces is not just a trend, it’s a way to care for your employees well-being and mental health which in turn creates more successful and sustainable organizations. With the Great Resignation in 2021, we saw a shift in the workforce. Many employees reconsidered what type of environment they wanted to be in and left their jobs in droves. If you want to keep and nurture your workforce, building diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into your organization are essential components to success. 

So what are some ways you can create more inclusive workplace cultures? Here are just a few examples: 

    • Recognize and respond to microaggressions to ensure safe spaces for your employees of color. Microaggressions are insensitive comments, questions and assumptions that are generally aimed at marginalized groups. They can create unsafe environments and take a mental toll on your employees of color. (See “How to be an ally in the workplace” article below for information on how to incorporate microaffirmations instead). 
    • Expand your hiring pool. It is easy to look in our own networks to find our next candidate, but if our network is narrow, we will miss out on the opportunity to invite new perspectives and faces into our work. Explore your community and think through new connections that you could pursue to expand your hiring pool (i.e., workforce agencies, coalitions, community colleges and universities, etc.) 
    • Examine your internal processes. How do you set raises and salaries? How do you write job descriptions? What determines internal advancement? Oftentimes internal processes are old structures that have been passed down and likely need to be reimagined. 
    • Create opportunities for accountability. Are there places for employees of color to talk about issues at work? Is there a process in place to file a complaint or initiate mediation? How are derogatory remarks handled, are there disciplinary actions set in place? Ensuring accountability can foster a sense of safety and trust. 
    • Consider how you are leaning on your employees of color. Are you asking them to be experts or teachers on all things race-related? Are you asking them to recommend friends or people for your hiring pool based solely on race? Are you pointing to them to validate your organization’s commitment to diversity? It is necessary to include your employees of color in the conversationto understand their perspective, gain insight, and engage in thoughtful workbut overburdening employees of color can lead to burnout and unfair and unreasonable expectations. 
  • Listen and Learn. With all of the resources available to us, ignorance and apathy is no longer an option. Find ways to expand your knowledge on issues of race and inclusion. Reach out to your employees of color to understand what would make your workplace feel safe and inclusive to them. Educate your employees and create opportunities for all of you to learn together. Recognize that this will be hard and conversations may be difficult but that listening and learning is one of the first steps in advancing racial equity in your workplaces.  

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Reflect: 

Are there ways you are marginalizing employees of color? Are there gaps in your knowledge you need to start addressing? What are some ways you can learn about building inclusivity in the workplace? What are some conversations you need to have?

Day 16: Language, Identity and Differences Versus Deficits

In the U.S., schools, workplaces, and other institutions are operated on the belief that there is a “correct” way to speak English. This belief ignores that all languages evolve over time, partially because of influences from other languages and cultures. While every single one of us has our own speech pattern based on our familial, economic, social, regional, and biological circumstances, dialects commonly used by people of color are consistently singled out for especially strident criticism and held up as examples of the “wrong” way to speak. This linguistic bias can have a profound impact on virtually every aspect of a person’s life, including their self image, their experience in school and the workplace, access to healthcare, and personal safety.

In contrast, a linguistic justice perspective recognizes that culture and language are assets that influence how people learn, making them critical components of a person’s education. This approach identifies the individual and systemic harms done by linguistic bias and offers all students more freedom to reach their full potential.

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Reflect: 

Have you ever experienced bias based on the way you speak or other cultural markers, or have you witnessed it happening to other people? Where do you see linguistic bias in your school or your child’s school, your workplace, or other community institutions? What is the domino effect of that bias? What do these videos tell us about the way societies define “normal” and “disability” and how those concepts are racialized in the U.S.?

Take a few moments to think about how a linguistic justice perspective can counter racism at each of the levels discussed back on Day 3 of the Challenge. Are there ways in which you personally view differences in otherslinguistic or otherwiseas deficits? If so, how can you reframe them in a positive way? How can schools, workplaces, and policymakers change their thinking and practices to respect and celebrate differences?

Day 17: Allyship – Moving from Thinking to Doing

Allyship is not just a verbal commitment to do better, it is a commitment to fundamentally undo our own biases and systemically inequitable structures and intentionally come alongside our communities of color in action. Allyship is about affirming that a person belongs, that they are valuable, and that you support them. Allyship is about recognizing our privilege, addressing our knowledge gaps, and taking steps to actively rewrite our inner scripts around race, bias, and inclusion. Allyship requires action and accountability. Some leaders in the racial justice space see allyship as the beginning of a continuum. Allyship is the thinking and learning stage. In order to create true racial justice, we must move toward more action-oriented roles.

After allyship comes the accomplice. An accomplice is someone who is actively working to dismantle systems of injustice and oppression but may not have any relationships with colleagues of color. This may look like speaking up about bias or tapping into their own privilege to address broken processes without including colleagues of color in the conversation. The final stage, co-conspirators, work alongside the communities they seek to uplift. They work with colleagues of color or other marginalized groups to listen, support, and ask how they can show up best for people already doing the work. 

At the core of this work is the need for people to feel connected, valued, seen and supported. As you go through your days, think about ways you can invite people in, hear their story, and create opportunities for belonging and partnership.  

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Reflect: Are you committed to racial equity in word and in action? What is one way this week you could invite someone in to learn more about their experiences? From the article, which micro affirmation resonates with you the most? How can you apply it to your work? 

Day 18: Cultural Humility in Solving Social Problems

Due to different perspectives and lifeways, there can be wide variation in how different cultures perceive root causes of and solutions to persistent social problems. Institutions and policies crafted based on the ideals and norms of the dominant culture may not be effective, humane, or equitable to people of other cultures, and may not even serve those of the dominant culture very well.

For example, in Western culture, especially the United States, the concept of individualism dominates over the impact of social and economic context. As a result, personal failures and poor choices are attributed as the reasons for experiencing poverty, poor health and homelessness, and the policy response prioritizes systematic punishment over healing and growing.

In contrast, cultures of people of color tend to focus more on the interconnections between individual community members and to their social and physical environment. Remedies for social ills center more on reconnecting people to their communities, healing from trauma, and offering systemic support.

In a multicultural society such as the U.S., cultural humility is critical in our interactions with one another at all of the levels discussed on Day 3. Cultural humility helps us to better understand ourselves, treat people who may be different from us more respectfully, and become more open to different ways of doing things that better serve everyone. 

Read: 

Watch:

Connect: 

Reflect: What is the difference between cultural competence and cultural humility? What examples have you seen of cultural humility? What can you do in pursuit of cultural humility in your professional and personal life?

What type of culture did you grow up inmore individualistic or more community-centric? How has that impacted your worldview today? How does that impact the way you relate to others who may have had a different upbringing?

Can you think of a specific policy meant to address social problems that is rooted in white, Western ideas about individualism? What might a more holistic, culturally humble policy or programmatic response look like? How would it address power imbalances?

Day 19: Representation Matters

Positive representation can be helpful in increasing self-esteem for people of marginalized groups (especially youth). The wrong sort of representation—such as an instance that promotes a stereotype—perpetuates misconceptions and aids in creating or confirming biases. The right sort of representation, however, is empowering. Proper representation paints a more accurate picture of the world we live in, which is inhabited by people of all different backgrounds, identities, and complexities. 

Representation is about validation; people being seen and valued. And when an image or character or role model resonates with a person, it offers a connection. It is recognition reflected back, and it helps us know we belong, we are of worth. We know people like us are not supposed to be hidden, or ignored, or a sidekick, or a punchline. In fact, proper representation shows that any person of any race isn’t “supposed” to be anything—we can just be ourselves. And seeing ourselves represented is powerful. If there is truly room for all of us—and there is—shouldn’t that be obvious in the media we consume, and the stories we tell, and in every aspect of our lives?

The answer is yes. Because representation matters. 

Read and Watch:

  • Representation matters in movies and television, as shown in these reaction videos of children watching Encanto (article with video clips) or previews for the live-action version of The Little Mermaid (2 min). Representation matters at any age, including young adults (2 min) and adults (2 min). 
  • Representation matters in toys.
  • Representation matters in educational materials and healthcare, as shown in this illustration which went viral for its depiction of a Black fetus.

Reflect: Next time you are watching a movie or tv show, or even during an advertisement, stop and take a moment to ponder… who is telling this story? Who is represented in this story? Are they represented fairly? Is one race benefitting over another? Think of all of the other ways in which representation matters: politics, sports, entrepreneurship… everywhere. Think of all of the opportunities for diverse faces, voices, and stories to make an impact in our world. How can we make more space for that?

Day 20: Reflect

What are your main takeaways from this year’s Challenge? Where are you now compared to before you started? How do you feel? What new knowledge or insights do you have? What hopes? Is there anything about this experience you’d like to share with others in your life?

What commitments are you making to stretch your learning from these 21 days to the rest of the year? What actions have you taken, or will you take, as a result of this experience?

Day 21: Continuing the Journey

Today’s prompt builds on yesterday’s reflection about how the Challenge has guided you to think and act differently, perhaps more boldly, on this journey of racial equity and justice.

How will you put any of your new commitments into action, starting as soon as today? What kinds of support do you need to do so? Do you have those supports or can you organize them into being, perhaps with help from others?

There is work to do on your own, but much of the change we need will happen in collaboration with others as well. We are in this together. Who are your potential accomplices at school, work, home or in your community?

Also, consider committing to an ongoing practice, a way to chronicle the year ahead through writing, drawing, music or some other expression. Choose something that will work for you so that you can continue to reflect and integrate your learning from this Challenge, find opportunities for healing if needed and also see how your dreams for the future can begin to unfold. Let your own “garden” for justice blossom and extend across boundaries!

Thank you for joining us in taking this Challenge and for your commitment to advancing racial equity in Michigan! You are welcome to submit feedback via email to our digital communications specialist, Emily Jorgensen, at ejorgensen@mlpp.org.

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