As Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote in The New York Times, “Over and over, Black people have asserted the simple but radical truth of their own humanity and worthiness, and over and over, America has not fully heard them.” This is the moment to hear and respond by centering anti-racism: to interrupt racism by correcting the policies and practices in our organizations and in our society’s systems that are built on and perpetuate entrenched racism that harms Black people and all people of color.
In many ways, the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors serve as patchworks that keep racist systems in place.
Our organizations need to address diversity, equity, and inclusion, and do much more - we need to center anti-racism in everything we do. What’s obvious now: Why were decades of advocacy needed to make this a priority? Why didn’t we go further, more forcefully amidst such blatant racism? Well, we know why, and it’s simple – racism and privilege, including our own. Addressing racism head-on was almost unheard of. In recent years, equity became a buzzword even as its meaning remained nebulous to many. It took years of advocacy to mainstream these concepts and to build commitments to advance them. Centering anti-racism.įor decades, advocates worked to advance racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Let’s start with the following priorities. They demand new ways of learning, planning, thinking, and doing. Of course, some among us already knew these things, and now the rest of us cannot ignore them. This year, 2020, is 20/20 - the year that everything we should have known became obvious. Our understanding and perspective of phenomena or events are vastly improved, maybe even perfect, only after they have happened. Upgrading our technology earlier this year was a good call. The person we hired for that position was destined to do great things.
Buying a house in San Francisco in the early 1990s would have been an amazing investment. With the passing of time, some things become so obvious: Hindsight is 20/20.
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