About the Racial Justice Challenge
YWCA Greater Lafayette is excited to announce the launch of YWCA Racial Justice Challenge, to begin on April 17, 2023. The Racial Justice Challenge is the action component for the Until Justice Just Is campaign, which will run throughout the month of April to raise awareness of systemic racism and how each of us can take action to advance justice.
Previously known as the Stand Against Racism Challenge or 21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge, the YWCA Racial Justice Challenge was developed by YWCA Greater Cleveland in 2019. YWCA USA is excited to be partnering again with YWCAs across the country to offer this unique virtual learning community to participants across the country.
YWCA USA has a long and proud history of advancing justice within and outside the organization, from modeling a more diverse leadership representation to striving for fair housing where all people can live harmoniously in the same neighborhood. We will continue to build on our momentum for advancing justice, and the YWCA Racial Justice Challenge is a critical component in realizing this vision.
The YWCA Racial Justice Challenge is designed to create dedicated time and space to build more effective social justice habits, particularly those dealing with issues of race, power, privilege, and leadership. The Challenge works to foster personal reflection, encourage social responsibility, and motivate participants to identify and act on ways to dismantle racism and other forms of discrimination.
For four weeks, daily challenge activities (reading an article, listening to a podcast, reflecting on personal experience, etc.) are posted in the Challenge app and website, allowing participants to connect with one another, discover how racial and social injustice impact our community, and identify ways to dismantle racism and other forms of discrimination. Each week covers a different topic related to equity and social justice. Daily activities are not posted on the weekends.
2023 TOPICS
The weekly topics that will be explored during the 2023 YWCA Racial Justice Challenge are:
Disability | Explore the history of Eugenics, the Disability Rights Movement, the intersection of race, gender, and disability, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those with differing abilities.
Housing | Learn how redlining continues to impact communities, who can access housing, and how racism, homophobia, and transphobia have become drivers of homelessness and its criminalization.
Mental Health | Dive into how psychology has been used as a tool of marginalization, access to mental healthcare, and discrimination’s impact on mental health outcomes.
Music | Discover the legacy of musician activists, racism in the music industry, cultural appropriation, how music pushes against gender stereotypes, and access to music education.
Click here to sign up to take the challenge.
Download the Racial Justice Challenge app here:
How You Can Challenge Racism in Your Community
SPEAK OUT
Starting out with declarations, we can lead to change by speaking out against the systemic and institutional racism that has created the public health crisis we face today. Take the first step towards accountability and reform by making your community aware of the economic and social determinants of health. Get input from community members and public health experts, contact your local legislators, and gain support for declaring racism a public health crisis.
Social determinants of health are the conditions of the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect wide-ranging health and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. In addition to the social, economic, and physical conditions in schools, churches, workplaces and neighborhoods, patterns of social engagements and sense of security and well-being are also impacted by where people live. Decades of unfair social, economic, and political systems have created inequitable communities that are disproportionately burdened by injury, disease, and premature death. These unfair systems are not random. They are rooted in racism.
HISTORICALLY NEGLECTED COMMUNITIES
There has been a historical disinvestment from communities of color, including schools, fewer parks, sidewalks, bike lanes and transit. This has blocked access to quality education, safe and affordable housing, government-financed homeownership, financial development opportunities, access to transportation, access to affordable/healthy food, and other key determinants of health. Public health concerns were often used as a pretext for discriminatory policies, however public health professionals—and the entire field—were notoriously neglected in the policymaking process.
Did you know? Racist housing practices from more than 50 years ago can be linked with poor health outcomes today. In 2017, researcher Andrea Weiler examined the relationship between racist real estate practices and health inequities in Seattle and King County, Washington. By mapping racial restrictive covenants and health indicators (such as low birth-weight, infant mortality, life expectancy, and overall mortality), they were able to find a geographic connection between restrictive covenants and poor health outcomes. Though racial restrictive covenants are no longer legal, they were common from 1926-1968, however they were not removed from property deeds! The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project and the University of Washington surveyed deeds and found 416 racial restrictive covenants still present in deeds, estimating that tens of thousands of additional Seattle homeowners have restrictive covenants in their deeds, unknowingly.
ENGAGE
Engage your public health officials to begin a conversation about approaching racism as a public health crisis and the ways structural racism can be dismantled to address and improve public health. Structural racism in the United States has led to far higher rates of acute and chronic disease in communities of color and much higher rates of death from disease. People of color are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, hepatitis, and hypertension) and infectious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19) compared to their white counterparts. Starting conversations with elected officials, local leaders, public health experts, and community members will raise awareness about the public health impact of systemic racism and help foster calls to action.
Did you know? In the 20th and 21st century, one of the big trends in medicine was and continues to be the use of computer technologies to manage health care – but medical software can also be racist. In 2019, researchers discovered an algorithm that helps to manage healthcare for 200 million people in the US systemically discriminated against Black people. Individuals who self-identified as Black were given lower risk scores by the computer than their white counterparts, resulting in fewer referrals for medical care.
Support Black owned businesses in our community with this guide created by Sohinee Bera, and help other Black business owners get listed.
ADVOCATE
There are many ways to advocate for improved public health policies and resources for marginalized individuals and communities. Supporting investment in public health determinants such as affordable housing, quality education, economic advancement opportunities, reliable transportation, availability of healthy foods, and environments free of contamination are just a few of the ways you advocate for individuals, families, and communities of color.
Did you know? During the 2015–2016 school year, Black students represented only 15% of total US student enrollment, but they made up 35% of students suspended once, 44% of students suspended more than once, and 36% of students expelled. The US Department of Education concluded that this disparity is “not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color.” This means Black and Latinx students face harsher discipline in school. They are taken out of the class and punished for subjective offenses at higher rates than their white peers, which disrupts their ability to access quality education. Additionally, the average non-white school district receives $2,226 less per student, and the persisting achievement gap means Black students are less likely to attend college, thus reducing their lifetime earnings by 65%.
YWCA has been at the forefront of the most pressing social movements for more than 160 years — from voting rights to civil rights, from affordable housing to pay equity, from violence prevention to healthcare reform. Today, we combine programming and advocacy in order to generate institutional change in three key areas:
- Racial Justice and Civil Rights
Increasing equal protection and equal opportunity for people of color - Empowerment and Economic Advancement of Women and Girls
Increasing economic opportunities for women and girls of color - Health and Safety of Women and Girls
Improving the health and safety of women and girls of color
Stand Against Racism takes place annually in April and is a signature campaign of YWCA USA to raise awareness about the negative impact of institutional and structural racism in our communities and to build community among those who work for racial justice.
This campaign is one part of our larger national strategy to fulfill our mission of eliminating racism. Founded by YWCA Trenton and YWCA Princeton in 2007, Stand Against Racism quickly grew to a national presence by 2010, when an additional 80 YWCA local Associations across the nation participated.
In 2019, over 134 YWCAs along with community organizations joined in the Stand Against Racism, holding over 179 events across 44 states and the District of Columbia. YWCA USA hosted a policy briefing on Capitol Hill: “Ensuring Safety and Opportunity for Immigrant Women.” In collaboration with the vast YWCA network and our partners, both national and local, YWCA raised our collective voice around the critical racial justice issue of supporting and protecting immigrant women, children, families and communities.
While there may be a wealth of data available about some of these issues generally, there is a lack of specific currently available data through a racial justice lens that can help us better understand where we’ve been, where we are and where we need to go from here to make the necessary changes toward a more equitable community.
Sources
https://www.ywca.org/what-we-do/data-map-landing/national-clearinghouse-research-and-data/
https://www.iyi.org/county-snapshots/
https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/health-equity/racism-and-health/racism-declarations
https://salud-america.org/health-equity-report-card/
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/tippecanoe-county-in/
https://powertodecide.org/what-we-do/information/national-state-data/indiana
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/indiana#demographics
https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-counties/in/tippecanoe-county-population
https://lifesmartyouth.org/resources/pregnancy-std-prevention-resources/teen-pregnancy-in-indiana/
https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/state/indiana/crime
https://cdn.iuhealth.org/resources/Arnett-Hospital-CHNA_2018-compressed.pdf?mtime=20181219131955
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Bhutta, N., Chang, A., Dettling, L., & Hsu, J. (2020, September 28). Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. The Fed – Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm
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Center for Responsible Lending. (2020, April 6). The Paycheck Protection Program Continues to be Disadvantageous to Smaller Businesses, Especially Businesses Owned by People of Color and the Self-Employed. https://www.responsiblelending.org/sites/default/files/nodes/files/research-publication/crl-cares-act2-smallbusiness-apr2020.pdf?mod=article_inline
KFF. (2020, October 23). Uninsured Rates for the Nonelderly by Race/Ethnicity. KFF. https://www.kff.org/uninsured/state-indicator/nonelderly-uninsured-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22%3A%22Location%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%22asc%22%7D
Alker, J., & Corcoran, A. (2020, October 6). Children’s Uninsured Rate Rises by Largest Annual Jump in More Than a Decade. https://ccf.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ACS-Uninsured-Kids-2020_10-06-edit-3.pdf
U.S. Department of Education: Office for Civil Rights. (2019, May). 2015–16 Civil Rights Data Collection School Climate And Safety. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/school-climate-and-safety.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, November 30). COVID-19 Hospitalization and Death by Race/Ethnicity. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html#footnote01
Peterson, E., Davis, N., Goodman, D., Cox, S., Syverson, C., Seed, K., & Barfield, W. (2019, September 6). Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths – United States, 2007–2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm?s_cid=mm6835a3_w
In 2014. Black women had the highest rates of 21 of the 25 severe maternal mortality indicators. Creanga, A. A., Bateman, B. T., Kuklina, E. V., & Callaghan, W. M. (2013, December 1). Racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity: multistate analysis, 2008-2010. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002937813021534 However, in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control issued an updated list of 21 maternal mortality indicators. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, December 26). How Does CDC Identify Severe Maternal Morbidity? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/smm/severe-morbidity-ICD.htm
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Ledford, H. (2019, October 24). Millions of black people affected by racial bias in health-care algorithms. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03228-6
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