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Through its work with the America Healing initiative, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation has supported approximately 1,000 national and community organizations representing Native American, African American, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Arab American and white communities, which want to jettison the antiquated belief in the hierarchy of human value that limits the even distribution of opportunities throughout the nation.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched its next step in pursuit of racial equity for the nation, an unprecedented Truth, Racial Healing &Transformation (TRHT) enterprise that will help communities embrace racial healing and uproot conscious and unconscious beliefs in the hierarchy of human value. Over the last nine years, the nation’s sixth largest private foundation invested more than $200 million in organizations working to heal racial divides and eradicate structural bias in their communities.
Already, more than 70 diverse organizations and individuals ranging from the National Civic League to the YWCAUSA to the National Congress of American Indians are partners in the TRHT process. This broad coalition seeks to move the nation beyond dialogues about race and ethnicity to unearthing historic and contemporary patterns that are barriers to success, healing those wounds and creating opportunities for all children.
“Our nation looks at far too many people as deficits, instead of assets,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, WKKF’s president and CEO. “Entrenched beliefs create an uneven disbursement of opportunities that give advantages when it comes to jobs, education, housing, civic participation and health. TRHT follows a proven and structured process for implementing change that can allow all children to matter and have opportunities to succeed.”
Through its work with the America Healing initiative, WKKF has supported approximately 1,000 national and community organizations representing Native American, African American, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Arab American and white communities, which want to jettison the antiquated belief in the hierarchy of human value that limits the even distribution of opportunities throughout the nation.
The TRHT process will adapt some practices and learnings of previous Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC), which have been instrumental in resolving deeply rooted conflicts around the world, and apply them in the United States for a national, comprehensive enterprise to resolve the consequences of centuries of racism and structural inequities. By uncovering human rights violations and tragedies, and engaging populations in a healing process, TRCs have historically restored dignity and respect on many occasions, paving the way for the transforming of societies – a prevailing objective of the U.S. effort.
WKKF believes the stage is set for this pioneering enterprise. The repeated police and civilian killings of unarmed people of color, well-documented bias within our education, health, civic and justice systems, and escalating divisive rhetoric over religious and ethnic intolerance and immigration policies have created an environment where race and ethnicity are driving our national discourse and fueling anxiety and fear in our communities.
In conjunction with WKKF, the Northeastern University School of Journalism today released an analysis of recent polling data showing that public opinion among whites in the U.S. has shifted significantly, with polling data underscoring that a large segment of the public is ready for a comprehensive initiative on racism, such as the TRHT.
Jonathan Kaufman, director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism, a TRHT partner, recalled the optimism after President Obama was elected in 2008, saying there was hope the election marked a turning point in race relations. “But you don’t unwind centuries of pain on one election night,” he said. “What makes TRHT so promising is that many Americans have acknowledged there are race-related problems. The hope is to use the TRHT for earnest discussions on these issues and for finding solutions that will help to heal communities.”
Specifically, the TRHT enterprise will prioritize inclusive, community-based healing activities and policy design that seek to change collective community narratives and broaden the understanding that Americans have for their diverse experiences. TRHT will assemble national and local commissions that will hold public meetings on the consequences of racial inequity and work toward mobilizing systems and structures to create more equitable opportunities. Together, civic, religious, philanthropic, corporate, civic rights and government leaders will create ways to hold the nation and communities accountable and monitor progress.
The TRHT enterprise will be led by Dr. Gail C. Christopher, who will become vice president of TRHT, and remain a senior advisor to the foundation. “Dr. Christopher has provided leadership and expertise on health and well-being, racial healing and racial equity in designing and guiding America Healing,” Tabron said. “It was Gail’s vision that a TRHT process could be the next step to help America heal the wounds of the past, and move forward in expanding racial equity. She is the right person to lead at this unprecedented moment in time when the foundation is launching this groundbreaking effort.”
Christopher said that racial hierarchy plays a central role in social, economic and government policies, and that an effective Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation process can lead to sustainable change. “Until we change the consciousness of this nation to one that embraces all of humanity as having equal worth and all of our children as deserving of equal opportunity, our democratic ideals will not be realized,” she said.
One component of the TRHT enterprise is a multi-faceted media campaign – “Remix the Narrative” – that premiers today and will help counter negative perceptions of people of color and various religious and ethnic groups. The campaign will provide a platform for inviting and empowering individuals, especially youths and young adults, to amplify their own stories through their own voices. Watch the video at www.remixthenarrative.org and engage by remixing your own narrative.
Former Mississippi Gov. William Winter and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick are honorary co-chairs of the national TRHT Commission. The partners, including legendary TV producer Norman Lear, the Schultz Family Foundation and National League of Cities, are working with WKKF to shape TRHT’s activities. “We will continue to invite and accept new partners, as we build a powerful coalition to transform this nation,” Christopher said.
Ramón Murguía, chairman of the WKKF Board of Trustees, cited the importance of having influential media figures such as Lear join the TRHT enterprise. “It is critically important to have influentials engaged in the TRHT work. Just as it is important that people of color are energized to lead and participate. There are thousands of untold stories in communities of color that must be shared to shape authentic perceptions of our lives.”
The National Civic League, which annually presents an All-American City Award for civic innovation, will make TRHT a centerpiece of the 2016 and 2017 All-America City Awards and leverage its Model City Charter and Civic Index materials to support TRHT efforts.
“We welcomed the partnership and support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation on the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative which now engages nearly 40 corporations in helping young people overcome so many barriers to opportunity, to literally ‘beat the odds’ in their communities,” said Daniel Pitasky, executive director of the Schultz Family Foundation. “We also applaud the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for their pioneering and steadfast leadership on the deep issues of racial healing and racial equity and look forward to exploring ways to deepen our organizational partnerships to help ‘change the odds’ for so many young people facing racial and economic barriers.”
Over the last 30 years, WKKF has worked to end racial bias, and in 2007 the board of trustees publically declared it was an antiracist organization that promotes racial equity.
“The TRHT is our call to action,” Tabron said. “To get results, to keep moving toward equality, our ranks must swell with those committed to racial progress, committed to blocking efforts to limit voting by people of color, committed to ending racial disparities in school discipline, committed to quality education for all, committed to jobs for residents of underserved communities, committed to restoring fairness in our justice system, committed to ending segregated housing patterns, committed to promoting health equity and committed to providing opportunities for all of our nation’s children.”
Organizations and individual partners supporting the TRHT enterprise are available here.
The Northeastern University School of Journalism polling analysis report is available here.
About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. Visit www.wkkf.org.
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
Partner Quotes
Cornell William Brooks
President and CEO
NAACP
“Our nation cannot truly correct the longstanding oppressions caused by centuries of enslavement, terrorism, economic and social ostracism until we accept and acknowledge the damage it has caused. We hope this effort will help more people see the scars that racism has inflicted in our homes, neighborhoods and communities, and to confront the casual indifference that has denied opportunities for quality education, economic prosperity and civil rights across this country to generations.”
Philip Tegeler
President/Executive Director
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
“PRRAC is honored to support the Kellogg Foundation’s new Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation process. It is striking that this new initiative is launching at the same time as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” process. Both of these efforts will ask American communities to take a hard look at their history of racial segregation and their current state of racial and economic disparity. This is an important opportunity for divided communities to acknowledge their past and move forward together.”
“The cumulative effects of racialized structural barriers and the everyday harms of implicit bias mean that racial difference is far too often an omni-present obstacle to full belonging in our society for people of color. While most people of all races and ethnicities subscribe to the egalitarian goal that race or ethnic difference should not prevent children from thriving, our allocation of resources and our behavior fail to reflect those goals.”
Mee Moua
President and Executive Director
Asian Americans Advancing Justice
“It is an understatement to say that these are difficult times as we contend with the rise in anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hate and anti-blackness, not to mention the efforts to dismantle the civil and human rights like access to the ballot box and the right to live free from fear of harassment, profiling and police brutality. Every generation gets an opportunity to be tested and this is our testing moment. We are proud to partner with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, because this journey toward Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation is the vehicle that will ensure that we move beyond survive and thrive to a world transform by love and care for each other.”
Jerry Tello
Internationally-recognized authority in family strengthening, therapeutic healing, cross cultural issues and motivational speaker
“Healing really is an emotional, spiritual process,” Tello said. “You can change policies, you can change systems, but unless you are willing to face one another, to sit in a circle with one another, to acknowledge where you’re at in this journey as an individual, as a community and we as a country. …Racial healing is like the sister of racial equity. They have to walk together because we hurt as an interconnected family, and we have to heal as an interconnected community.”
Rachel Godsil
Law Professor at Seton Hall University
Co-founder of the Perception Institute
“The cumulative effects of racialized structural barriers and the everyday harms of implicit bias mean that racial difference is far too often an omni-present obstacle to full belonging in our society for people of color. While most people of all races and ethnicities subscribe to the egalitarian goal that race or ethnic difference should not prevent children from thriving, our allocation of resources and our behaviour fail to reflect those goals
Jacqueline Johnson Pata
Executive Director
National Congress of American Indians
“Our country is so rich with diverse cultures, including our first peoples. The Kellogg Foundation is providing us with a vehicle to understand our differences and our collective histories in order to strengthen communities built upon relationships respectful of our diverse cultures. NCAI is humbled to be a partner with the foundation and numerous other community organizations in a manner similar to the Truth and Reconciliation effort in Canadawith Indigenous communities. With new insights and a shared commitment to healing communities, we will work as a nation of diverse peoples to bring about true respect and hope for our youth and future generations. “
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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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