Challenging Racism With Action

History matters. My grandfather was a quiet man, but he told me a few stories.  He told me how he and his sister weren’t allowed to attend the White schools. Born in the United States, he was of Mexican descent, and spoke only Spanish until he went to school in a small Arizona mining town. Where he grew up, racism and discrimination against Mexican people permeated everything.

Yes, some things have changed since my grandfather’s story of segregated schools, but that change only happened because people named the injustice and went to work to change it. There is a history of racism in every part of this country, and that history shows up today in pervasive social hierarchies, in every aspect of dominant culture, and even in the subconscious of the most “woke” among us.

Words matter. In my 14 years at The California Wellness Foundation, I’ve seen an evolution in the words we use to describe our work. When I first started, we targeted funding to support the needs of the “underserved” and “low-income.” Then, our grantmaking focus shifted to the social determinants of health – where you live, work, learn, and play, and how it impacts health and well-being. Then, we worked to embed DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – in our work, and started collecting data to help determine whether organizations led by people of color were underrepresented in our grantmaking. Now, our conversations call for racial justice, with an emphasis on grantmaking that addresses systems change and drives justice-informed action.

The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of color, along with the protests against the killing by police of George Floyd and so many other Black people, have forced our nation to acknowledge the unconscionable pain that we allow to carry on by failing to confront systemic racism.

Actions matter. As a health funder, we know that systemic racism makes our vision impossible to realize. While we have to understand history and name racism, that’s not enough. We have to ask ourselves, “Where are our dollars going? Do our grantmaking and investments support the status quo? If so, what can we do differently? And how can we use our voice?”

If we acknowledge that racial justice underpins a better world, our grantmaking and investments should show it. Philanthropy can lead in this moment by taking actions that challenge racism. We can fund organizations addressing racial injustice, raise our voices, and use our influence and our full endowment – think PRIs and MRIs – to disrupt systemic racism through targeted investments. We can add to the transformative potential of this moment and bring about change that disrupts cycles of injustice, and unlocks the human potential of all of us.