Stepping Deeper…
“When you pray, move your feet.”
–African Proverb
African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs – Center for American Progress:
December 2019
The U.S. labor market has now seen a record 109 months of uninterrupted job growth, with the overall unemployment rate falling to its lowest level in 50 years. (see Figure 1) However, African American workers still face more hurdles to get a job, never mind a good one, than their white counterparts. They continue to face systematically higher unemployment rates, fewer job opportunities, lower pay, poorer benefits, and greater job instability. These persistent differences reflect systematic barriers to quality jobs, such as outright discrimination against African American workers,1 as well as occupational segregation—whereby African American workers often end up in lower-paid jobs than whites2—and segmented labor markets in which Black workers are less likely than white workers to get hired into stable, well-paying jobs.
African Americans have always been more vulnerable in the labor market. They regularly experience higher unemployment rates and work in worse jobs, which feature lower pay and fewer benefits, than whites. Moreover, they tend to work in jobs that are less stable than those held by white workers.
African American workers regularly face higher unemployment rates than whites. There are several explanations for this. Blacks often face outright discrimination in the labor market.5 They also are less likely to attend and graduate from college, which stems from the fact that African Americans face greater financial barriers to getting a college education,6 ending up with more debt than white graduates and paying more for their loans.7 Yet even among college graduates, African Americans often face greater job instability and higher unemployment rates.
Black women face unique burdens in the labor market. They are more likely to work than white women: 84.4 percent of Black mothers are breadwinners, which represents a larger share than for any other racial or ethnic group.9 Black women also often shoulder disproportionate financial burdens due to caregiving responsibilities for children, grandchildren, and aging parents.10 Moreover, Black women have a much harder time finding a job than white women and white men.
African American women also work in lower-paying jobs than Black men or white women, which translates to a particularly steep pay gap for Black women.
The hurdles that African Americans face in the labor market from discrimination, pay inequality, and occupational steering are also apparent in indicators of job quality and not just in measures of job availability.
African Americans also receive fewer employer-provided benefits than white workers.
Not only do African Americans work for less pay with fewer benefits, they also face much greater job instability than whites. African Americans often work in occupations and industries that are economically less stable, such as retail services and parts of the health care sector including home health aides and nursing home workers.
Redlining – Wikipedia:
Redlining is the systematic denial of various services or goods by federal government agencies, local governments, or the private sector either directly or through the selective raising of prices. This is often manifested by placing strict criteria on specific services and goods that often disadvantage poor and minority communities.
While the best known examples of redlining involved denial of financial services such as banking or insurance, access to other services such as health care (see also Race and health) or even supermarkets have been denied to residents.[11] Retail businesses such as supermarkets purposefully locate stores impractically far away from targeted residents, resulting in a redlining effect
(137) How Redlining Shaped Black America As We Know It | Unpack That – YouTube
Depressed infrastructure
Underfunded schools
No white people
1930 – FDR New Deal – Public works Administration: created affordable housing: for black people to live in,
FHA – low interest housing loans, created suburbs for white people to live in; Explicitly prohibited occupancy of properties except by the race for which they were intended. 1968 Fair housing act was supposed to end this. Banks as recently as 2015 were caught using redlining maps. Most redlined areas are still predominantly black neighborhoods today.
Redlining also impacts:
Wealth – home ownership is primary driver of wealth. Homes in black neighborhoods are valued on average 25% lower ; people pay higher insurance premiums; pay higher interest rates; are more often denied mortgages.
Education – most school funding comes through local property taxes; with lower property values, lower school funds; even after 1968 Fair housing Act, property values and neighborhoods were not reconfigured, so black communities remained under-valued and under-funded.
Criminal Justice – most drug-related arrests occur in redlined areas.
Almost all inequality aspects of white supremacy lead back to the government sanctioning policies of red-lining.
https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/working-papers/2020/wp2020-33-pdf.pdf
…We again find that the ratings have a causal, and an economically meaningful, effect on outcomes like household income during adulthood, the probability of living in a high-poverty census tract, the probability of moving upward toward the top of the income distribution, and modern credit scores. Models of all outcomes show the same direction of effect, even if some are estimated imprecisely. Further, the impact of being raised in neighborhoods rated C instead of B again appears to be greater than the impact of being raised in neighborhoods rated D instead of C. In other words, our results suggest that yellow-lining may have been more consequential than redlining. The most striking conclusion from the analysis is the way that government intervention can alter communities for decades to come. The outcomes we studied were measured among cohorts born four decades after the HOLC maps were drawn, and yet the ratings still had visible impacts on many different social and economic outcomes in these communities. Our results provide clear 23 evidence that policy decisions made decades ago can begin a process of investment and disinvestment with long-term consequences for communities and the residents within them…
(137) Income and Wealth Inequality: Crash Course Economics #17 – YouTube
Wealth : accumulated assets
Income: new assets coming in
Income inequality
(137) Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix – YouTube
Family wealth:
Median white household: $171,00
Median black household: $17,600
10 times – and gap is still growing
For American middle class, home equity accounts for 2/3rds of their wealth.
Wealth compounds from one generation to the next.
In 1980’s -90’s – African Americans were twice as likely to get sub-prime loans (see Subprime Lender Defined (investopedia.com)) – Loans with little/no downpayment but high interest rates.
Management of sub-prime loans led to the financial crisis of 2008. Black communities lost 53% of their wealth.Many of the largest financial businesses settled discrimination lawsuits.
White college graduates over a period of several decades – wealth increased
Black college graduates over same time period – wealth decreased
It was not a difference in how much money they made – it was in how they spent it. Black college graduates tend to be the first successful in their family networks and use their income to help family members. White college graduates do not need to do this and tend to invest and increase their wealth.
Government policies keep perpetuating the circumstances that contribute to the wealth gap.
Help address through REPARATIONS.
What America owes: How reparations would look and who would pay – ABC News (go.com)
Some advocates and experts say reparations are the answer. They would not only help eliminate wealth differences caused by systemic racism, but are also “a form of compensation that would amount to healing,” William “Sandy” Darity, an economist and professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy told ABC News.
The topic is controversial. While arguments have been made that reparations to Black descendants of enslaved people could help restore economic balance in the nation, there is the outstanding question of how much should be paid out and to whom.
Black-white wage gaps are worse today than in 2000 | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org):
Since 2000, by any way it’s measured, the wage gap between black and white workers has grown significantly.
Education is not a panacea for closing these wage gaps. Again, this should not be shocking, as increased equality of educational access—as laudable a goal as it is—has been shown to have only small effects on class-based wage inequality, and racial wealth gaps have been almost entirely unmoved by a narrowing of the black–white college attainment gap.
And after controlling for age, gender, education, and region, black workers are paid 14.9% less than white workers.
Black workers are more likely to be in a union than white and get a bigger wage boost to being in a union than white. Therefore, unions can help shrink the black–white wage gap. Related, research has shown that the decline of unionization led to an expansion of the black–white wage gap.
New York’s Schools are the Most Segregated in the Nation (publicschoolreview.com):
Public schools in New York isolate students not only by race, but also by socioeconomic status. Of New York City’s 32 school districts, 19 had less than 10 percent white enrollment as recently as 2010.
In New York City, one of the primary causes of public school segregation is real estate. Black and Latino families live in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods, with neighborhood schools serving those populations. With some neighborhoods comprised of over 90 percent of one race, be it black, Latino or otherwise, it stands to reason that schools in such neighborhoods would reflect the racial makeup of the surrounding community. In that regard, school segregation is highly reflective of the community in which the school is located.
Schools with large numbers of minority and low-income students face many obstacles: less qualified teachers, tighter budgets, facilities in poor condition, lack of adequate school supplies and texts, violence, health issues, and highly mobile populations. In addition, minority students who attend racially segregated schools perform worse academically than minority students at racially integrated schools. Segregation not only makes academic achievement more difficult, it serves to perpetuate the poverty in which these students live.
Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality – The New York Times (nytimes.com):
More than half of the nation’s schoolchildren are in racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite. In addition, school districts are often segregated by income.
Research shows that integration is still one of the most effective tools that we have for achieving racial equity.
[[This article includes these activities with pages of detail for each…]]
Activity #1: Warm-Up: Visualize segregation and inequality in education.
Activity #2: Explore a case study: schools in Charlottesville, Va.
Activity #3: Investigate the relationship between school segregation, funding and inequality.
Activity #4: Examine potential legal remedies to school segregation and educational inequality.
Activity #5: Consider alternatives to integration.
Activity #6: Learn more and take action.
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline – Rethinking Schools:
The “zero tolerance” policies that today are the most extreme form of this punishment paradigm were originally written for the war on drugs in the early 1980s, and later applied to schools. As Annette Fuentes explains, the resulting extraordinary rates of suspension and expulsion are linked nationally to increasing police presence, checkpoints, and surveillance inside schools.
As police have set up shop in schools across the country, the definition of what is a crime as opposed to a teachable moment has changed in extraordinary ways. What formerly would have been an opportunity to have a conversation about a minor transgression instead became a law enforcement issue. Children are being branded as criminals at ever-younger ages.
[[ several good case-in-point stories]]
Schools are more likely to have a police officer on campus if the population is more than 50% black. Schools with police officers have 5 times more arrests for disorderly contact than without.
14 Recommendations for Fundamental Police Reform in the United States (hrw.org):
Police reform efforts should address racial and economic inequities and other societal problems, some caused by policing itself, to be effective. Poverty in the US – stratified along racial lines – and profound disinvestment in social services and community development have contributed to homelessness, untreated mental health conditions, unemployment, lack of quality schooling, and other issues. They have also contributed to higher crime rates in Black and poor neighborhoods.
Particularly since the “tough on crime” approaches and “war on drugs” of the 1970s, governments at all levels have for decades invested in policing, prosecutions, and prisons as their primary tools, rather than investing in addressing these root problems to improve public safety and quality of life. These approaches have left underlying societal problems unresolved, while creating a system of mass incarceration and heavy policing that have had a devastating and disproportionate impact on Black people.
“Police violence, especially toward Black people, ranging from killings to abusive stops and searches, is a major way that structural racism manifests itself in the US,
Education:
New York’s Schools are the Most Segregated in the Country – New York’s Schools are the Most Segregated in the Nation (publicschoolreview.com)
Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline – Rethinking Schools
Video: (137) Why Are Schools Still So Segregated? – YouTube
Video: (137) The school-to-prison pipeline, explained – YouTube
Housing:
Book: Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law – The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
With podcast: A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America : NPR
With video, speaking with Ta-Nehisi Coates: [The Color of Law] | C-SPAN.org (c-span.org)
Book: James Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
Video: Buried in Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America – (137) Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America – YouTube
Video: Housing Segregation & Redlining in America: A Short History – (137) Housing Segregation and Redlining in America: A Short History | Code Switch | NPR – YouTube
Video: How Redlining Shaped Black America As We Know It – (137) How Redlining Shaped Black America As We Know It | Unpack That – YouTube
Income and Wealth Inequality:
Video: Income and Wealth Inequality – (137) Income and Wealth Inequality: Crash Course Economics #17 – YouTube
Video: Racial Wealth Gap –(137) Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix – YouTube
Article: Elie Gould, Black-white wage gaps are worse than in 2000 – Black-white wage gaps are worse today than in 2000 | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
Article: Stephen Miller, Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts – Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts (shrm.org)
Documentary: The Battle of Newburgh – (137) THE BATTLE OF NEWBURGH, TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY: Examines the tightened welfare code Proposed for… – YouTube (1960s TV documentary on welfare, zoning, urban renewal and housing in Newburgh, NY)
Opinion | Black Farmers May Finally Get the Help They Deserve – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Employment:
Book: La’Wana Harris, Diversity Beyond Lip Service
Report: Labor force characteristics by race & ethnicity, 2018 – Labor force characteristics by race and ethnicity, 2018 : BLS Reports: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Article: Christian Weller, African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs – African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs – Center for American Progress
Video: Janet Stovall, How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace –(137) How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace | Janet Stovall – YouTube
Policing:
Article: A Roadmap for Re-imagining Public Safety in the US – 14 Recommendations for Fundamental Police Reform in the United States (hrw.org)
A Curated Collection of Links: Police Reform – Police Reform | The Marshall Project
Article: Danyelle Solomon, The Intersection of Policing and Race – The Intersection of Policing and Race – Center for American Progress
Article: Jason Bailey, 12 Documentaries You Should Watch About Racism and Police Brutality in America – 12 Documentaries About Police Brutality in America (vulture.com)
Podcast: Jelani Cobb, Race, Police & the Pandemic – (137) Race, Police & the Pandemic (podcast) | FRONTLINE – YouTube
Article with links to radio streams: The Code Switch Guide to Race & Policing – Episodes About Police And Race From NPR’s Code Switch : Code Switch : NPR
Radio Stream: A Decade of Watching Black People Die – George Floyd’s Death At The Hands Of Police Is A Terrible Echo Of The Past : Code Switch : NPR
General:
Talking About Race | National Museum of African American History and Culture (si.edu)
Taking Action…
Here is a listing of Hudson Valley Black-Owned Businesses: Where to Support Black-Owned Businesses in the Hudson Valley (hvmag.com)
Some Black SUNY students have started their own small business: 5 Local Black-Student-Run Businesses to Support this Holiday Season – The New Paltz Oracle
For on-line shoppers:
ETSY has a special collection: Black-owned Etsy shops
WeBuyBlack > The largest marketplace for black owned businesses
There are many listings. Here are a few:
55 Black-Owned Businesses You Can Support By Shopping Online (goodhousekeeping.com)
Black-Owned Businesses To Shop Online From (buzzfeed.com)
Black-owned online brands you can shop online (sfgate.com)
And more:
U.S. Map of Black Banks & Credit Unions | BLACKOUT COALITION
Black Real Estate Brokers: NAREB – National Association of Real Estate Brokers
How to Find and Support Black-Owned Businesses – YES! Magazine
Here is an extensive search engine: BlackBusinessList.Com – Business Directory – BlackBusinessList.Com
There is significant legislation that is being proposed, under consideration, and being voted on that will help shift current systems. Contact your legislators to support anti-racism issues and make these structural changes happen.
Websites for individual legislators provide easy email communication. Telephone calls and letters to the legislator’s office are encouraged. Attend town halls or representative days in your district. For example, Rep. Delgado has had a staff member representative at the local library. Constituents are invited to come and share their concern.
If you are concerned about a specific piece of legislation, it is helpful to know the designation number. For example, if you are concerned about humane alternatives to solitary confinement in N.Y. State prisons, there is a specific bill: It has an assembly number # A2277 and a Senate number # S1757. At the NY State legislature website, you can track this bill by using these numbers. Also, when you call your legislators, they will often ask for the bill #, so they can pull it up on their computer and give you the latest status. You can also search for federal bills at the US Congress legislature website.
Or you may be concerned about an issue, but not be aware of a specific piece of legislation. That is fine. Email, call or write to communicate your concern and ask your legislator where they stand on the issue. Telephone calls are especially helpful because it gives you the opportunity to interact with the staff.
Finally, there are days, annually, when people go to Albany to lobby for a particular bill or issue.
Information to contact our state and federal government representatives for the New Paltz area (your representatives may be different):NY State Assembly District 102
Kevin A. Cahill
District office:
Gov. Clinton Bldg, suite G-4
1 Albany Ave.
Kingston, N.Y. 12401
845-338-9610
Albany office:
LOB( Legislative Office Building) 716
Albany N.Y. 12248
518-455-4436
email: Cahillk@nyassembly.gov
N.Y. Senate district 42
Mike Martucci
District office:
90 North Street, suite 205
Middletown, N.Y. 10940
845-344-3311
Albany office:
188 State Street
Legislative Office Building, room 415
Albany N.Y. 12247
518-455-2400
email: martucci@nysenate.gov
District office manager: Jane Kunzweller
845-344-3311; kunzwell@nysenate.gov
If you live in a different NY State district, you can search for your senator: Find My Senator | NY State Senate (nysenate.gov)
New York State Governor
Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
518-474-8390
email: use website contact form
US Congress House of Representatives
Antonio Delgado. NY-19
Website; https://delgado.house.gov
Website is very easy to use. You can easily sign up for email alerts. Rep. Delgado is big on contact with constituents.
Contact info:
1007 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-5614
Local office:
256 Clinton Ave.
Kingston, N.Y. 12401
Phone: 845-443-2930
US Senate
Charles Schumer, website refers to him as Chuck
Website: www.schumer.senate.gov
Contact info:
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone 202-224-6542
Email: use website contact form
There are 6 local offices in New York State: Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, NYC, Melville and Peekskill.
Kristin Gillibrand
Website: www.gillibrand.senate.gov
Contact info:
478 Russell Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-4451
Email: Use website contact form
There are 9 local offices in New York state: Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Hudson, Rochester, North Country, Long Island, New York City and Yonkers.
NOT EVERYTHING THAT IS FACED CAN BE CHANGED, BUT NOTHING CAN BE CHANGED UNTIL IT IS FACED.
—JAMES BALDWIN
From day one, the U.S. mourned the tragic loss of thousands of lives in the September 11 terrorist attacks, vowing to “Never Forget.”
Today, and always, we must Never Forget the lives lost to the terror of racism, excessive force, and countless other injustices.
To move forward, we must Never Forget the Black lives taken unjustly. We must demand policy changes, equality, and justice for all.
In order to bring about lasting change, we must speak up, vote, and fight the cancer of inequality, racism, and white supremacy.
Learn the stories of Black people that have died from police violence:
SAY THEIR NAMES LIST 2021 📢 #SayTheirNames (sayevery.name)
Decolonize your bookshelf: Juan Vidal: Decolonize Your Bookshelf : NPR
United Methodists Stand Against Racism (umc.org):
Join Church & Society in their work for civil and human rights.
Connect with United Methodist Women in their work for racial justice.
Explore the Racial Justice Advocacy Toolkit by United Methodist Women
Creating Change Together: A Civic Engagement Toolkit from Church & Society
Suggested Resources for Becoming Anti-Racist: Discipleship Ministries
Give to The United Methodist Committee on Relief’s Community Developers Program.
Work for justice in your church, community, work and school.
Ways United Methodists can stand against racism | The United Methodist Church (umc.org):
Change beliefs
Becoming an agent of transformation includes focusing within ourselves. We need to allow God to shape our inner thoughts and attitudes toward race.
Pray – Prayer “is foundational to everything we do as Christians,” writes Katelin Hansen, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Training, at the United Methodist Church and Community Development for All People. Ask God to change your heart and attitudes. Hansen offers a sample prayer: Triune God, help us be ever faithful to your example: affirming of our unique identities, while remaining unified as one body in you. Help us seek out the voices that are missing, and empower the marginalized. Let our witness of repentance, justice, and reconciliation bring glory to You, O Lord.
Listen inclusively – It is important to hear from a variety of voices. Find authors and thinkers with racial and cultural backgrounds different from your own. In a video produced by the General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) Hansen shares, “I turned to the digital world to continue my racial education, to serve as the professors of justice and theology that I never had.”
Seek new relationships – There is no substitute for sharing consistent, ongoing, authentic relationships with people of color. Hansen and her husband became members of a multi-race and multi-class church. “We joined out of a belief that isolating ourselves among believers of similar backgrounds just deprives our own souls of God’s majesty,” she says in the GCORR video.
Understand that forming new, authentic relationships takes time.
Katelin Hansen teaches about these concepts in a free video called “Being an Ally With People of Color.” Image courtesy the General Commission on Religion and Race of The United Methodist Church.
Change behavior
Next, live out your changing beliefs through changing your behavior.
Empower leaders – Use your resources to promote and equip leaders of color. Then, be willing to follow. Listen and act on opinions, activities, and points of view different from your own.
Show up – “At the guidance and invitation of leaders of color,” Hansen writes, “show up when called upon.” As we come together for conversations and demonstrations, we build a culture of justice in our community and model multi-cultural love and understanding.
Spend responsibly – Support racial equality through your shopping and donations. Shop at local markets owned by people of color. Donate to charities and ministries led by and supporting those of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Examine your media intake – Expand your social media follows and news sites to include voices and opinions different from your own. For big stories, be sure to consult multiple sources from a variety of points of view. Don’t rely on just one.
Consider your entertainment choices also. Select movies, music, and television shows that promote equality. Listen to more voices and be aware of how they shape you.
Change society
Author and professor Robin DiAngelo reminds us in a Vital Conversations video from GCORR, that racism is “group prejudice backed up by institutional power.” Therefore, to take a stand against racism we cannot simply change our own beliefs and behaviors. We must also work to change the world.
Advocate – Written and unwritten policies in our neighborhoods, workplaces, churches, schools, and nation disadvantage certain ethnicities. Learn from the people of color in your neighborhood about the ways they are disadvantaged and find ways to participate in changing those systems.
Sponsor – People of color sometimes struggle to access public services, opportunities, and more. Use your money, gifts, and sphere of influence to make a difference. Sponsor friends and coworkers who need assistance to attend a career seminar. Encourage and lead your congregation toward creating programs like a Freedom School. Invest in people and programs that work toward racial justice.
10 Remedies for Systemic Racism | Vanderbilt Business School:
1. Change your mindset.
2. Rethink how you build relationships.
3. Check that you’re engaging constructively.
The next four steps were what you can do interpersonally to address biases:
4. Use privilege in a constructive way.
5. Be aware of the prevalence of stereotyping.
6. Be more systematic about how you think about your meetings.
7. Reframe difference.
Finally, here are three ways organizations can fight systemic racism:
8. Reframe the organization positively.
9. Promote social accountability.
10. Restructure key processes.
How to help fight systemic racism: where to donate, volunteer, learn (insider.com)
You can educate yourself on the history of systemic racism:
Books
“When They Call You a Terrorist” by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele
“Me and White Supremacy” by Layla F. Saad
“The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander
“So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeomo Oluo
“The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin
“Why We Can’t Wait” by Martin Luther King Jr.
“The Autobiography of Malcom X“
“How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi
“White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo
“Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Documentaries and movies available on streaming platforms now
“13th” (Netflix)
“I am Not Your Negro” (Amazon Prime)
“The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (Amazon Prime)
“Whose Streets?” (Hulu)
“LA 92” (Netlix)
“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” (Netflix)
“TED Talks: An Interview with the founders of Black Lives Matter”
Podcasts
“Code Switch” by NPR
“Seeing White”
“Come Through with Rebecca Carroll”
“Still Processing”
“Pod Save the People”
Movies and TV shows to watch to learn about racism (insider.com)
REPORT: 4 Strategies to Eliminate the Harmful Effects of Systemic Racism | Colorlines:
One potential remedy focuses on ending racist policing, which creates significant economic harm and makes it more difficult for people of color to transfer wealth across generations.
The briefing suggests that policymakers at the local, state and federal level divest from carceral systems and instead invest resources into services focused on health, education, employment and community mediation. “A call to end punitive policing is a call to end policing as we know it,” the report asserts.
Close the racial wealth gap
The enormity of the wealth gap between Black families and white families illustrates the lasting effects of racist policies and practices. Closing this gap would enable all people to invest in their own and their children’s futures, buy a home, get a quality education, and save for a secure retirement.
Eliminate inequities in public school quality
Disparities in school quality and educational outcomes engender racial disparities in employment, earnings, health, and quality of life. Quality public schools in all communities would ensure that every child has a solid educational foundation to help them succeed in a 21st-century economy.
Some advocates argue that reforming the education finance system may hold the most promise for narrowing education disparities.
Close employment and earnings gaps
Inequities in employment and earnings reflect a host of structural disadvantages and discriminatory practices, including racial discrimination in hiring, the decline of unions and worker protections, and the loss of job prospects as a result of mass incarceration. Closing employment and earnings gaps would provide people of color with the dignity and security of a quality job, the opportunity to contribute to the nation’s prosperity, and the resources to support their children’s well-being and prospects.
End punitive policing
Race-coded criminalization has resulted in sobering disparities at every stage of the criminal justice system: law enforcement, prosecution, defense, courts, and corrections.
Signs of Hope…
American Rescue Plan will expand access to minimum income to include children in families with the lowest incomes, previously this benefit had been aimed at middle-class families. :for the first time ever, the vast majority of children in families with the lowest incomes will receive access to a minimum income from the federal government. Overnight, the United States will go from one of the stingiest wealthy nations when it comes to supporting the finances of families with children to one of the most generous.” Washington Post, March 15
Ulster County will implement Universal Basic Income – Through partnerships with Project Resilience, the University Of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income, Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley and Ulster Savings Bank, Ulster County will provide 100 eligible households with direct payments of $500 a month for a year. It will all be funded by community donations, with no additional cost to taxpayers. New Paltz Oracle, March 4
Re-Imagining Policing in New Paltz: A Response to Governor Cuomo’s Excecutive Order #203
Special thanks to Kate Hymes for researching this social justice issue
Each station was researched by one or more members of our church community to help provide the detailed information that has been presented. Are you interested in this social justice issue? Do you have additional information or action items that you would like to share? If so, email us at newpaltzumc@gmail.com. These web pages are a dynamic, active work in progress, just like the people of our community!
