Re: “We Need a New Language for Talking About Race”

This was originally posted to the Spirit of 1848 listserv on March 5, 2022 involving a discussion about a New York Times article, “We need a New Language for Talking about Race.”

Public Health Liberation (a non-profit) is preparing a new lexicon around race. Our primer will be available this summer. Check out this recent article, "Liberation vs. Antiracism and Public Health"

• The public health discourse does not generally situate Public Health Liberation theory. As a preview, liberation concerns optimal resources, information, and power to provide communities pathways for their own self-seeking liberation practices. Public health can often be concerned with the impact of racially biased policies (e.g. assessing the association with gentrification and health outcomes). Public Health Liberation provides a blueprint or a set of political, social, economic, and legal options to secure health equity throughout the process. For example, over the opposition of the community, Washington, DC approved two new sources of industrial pollution about ten years ago next to a Black public housing community. We resolved to stop the environmental racism, so we challenged the renewal permit (to pollute) last year. We brought together community leaders, researchers like myself, and former employees in the EPA. We argued that the polluter was not doing x,y,z to mitigate harm to the community by comparing it to standard practices. We also discovered that the polluter had not had a business license for over ten years, for which they received a hefty fine.
  
  Washington, DC is the top city for gentrification in the US. Over the objection of the community, DC Council and the mayor continued these polices when it passed a revised economic plan in 2021. So we sued! The case is still working its way through the court, but we had our first victory when the judge denied the city's motion to dismiss and cast doubt on the city's planning in accordance with established law.
  

• We need more honesty around intragroup racial violence. - Here in Washington, DC, many of the racially unjust policies whether environmental racism or gentrification/displacement trace back to Black leadership. Our mayor, majority or near-majority of our city council, head of the Housing Authority, and head of the Zoning Commission, etc. have been historically African American. The self-harming in Black America is an unexplored area of applied racism.
  

• I was recently in an antiracism training that fixated on whites as the object of antiracism. This is dead wrong. First, casting all members of the majority group in this way breeds resentment that should be avoided. We need to primarily understand the "clusters of racism" and how they vary geographically. Based on my own unpublished research and experiences, here is a major cluster that drives social and racial inequity.
  

  • Political-Economic Cluster - This is defined by a coalition of public officials and capitalists that work in tandem to accelerate economic policy and development at the expense of social and racial equity. For example, they may push to revitalize a neighborhood, but give little attention to displacement, wealth-sharing, or middle class values like home ownership opportunities. Johns Hopkins and other universities have been accused of perpetuating these inequities in local community "investment" efforts. As least in Washington, DC, it is multiracial. Although Blacks tend to be more on the political side here, racial concordance has often given license to act in ways that are contrary to racial justice.
    
    On the other hand, many cities have political-economic clusters that exclude minority voices. Politicians and capitalists can operate as a shadow form of government with little regard for minorities. I did economic development work in Charlottesville, VA many years ago and was flabbergasted that the local Chamber of Commerce had only a single Black-owned business. This was around 2010. We exercised liberation principles by going door-to-door to collect contact information for Black owned business and created a microloan program to support women-, minority-, and small businesses.
    

• The United States is fertile ground for racial violence. The perceived or actual threats against liberation expression is a potent form of racial violence. Many Black Americans are simply afraid of exercising their liberation - an inherent right to speak about one's human suffering and condition and to seek relief. This can occur in an employment situation with fear of firing or non-promotion or concern a vulnerable community's fear of retaliation. Read more
  

Sincerely,

Chris Williams