2022 Black Well-being Final w links for Web 11.29.22 - Flipbook - Page 22
BLACK WELL-BEING REPORT 2022
Community Identified
Approaches to Civic
Engagement
BLACK FUTURE CO-OP FUND
We continue to grow wiser in this moment, having
learned from our ancestors — living and passed. We’re
moving more boldly toward creating the world we
want to see: exercising individual and collective power,
stepping into our joy, having time to be and rest so
that we heal and dream, and listening, learning, and
organizing intergenerationally with attention to healthy
interdependence.
Interrogate and shift harmful narratives
“A Color Of Change and Family Story study finds that Black families represent
59% of stories about poverty in news and opinion outlets like CNN and Fox
News — even though they make up just 27% of poor families in the country,”
according to Media 2070. In a society where you can pay to have the microphone,
looking at how thought is shaped, our own and that of the collective, is an
important starting place. The information we receive has an impact on how we feel
about what changes are possible through the vehicle of civic engagement.
• Learn to identify anti-Black narratives; start with
understanding history.
• Get curious about the information you receive. Who wrote it,
what’s their motivation, where’d they get their information,
how are Black people characterized, what aren’t they saying?
• Invest in and elevate Black-led media and media makers.
• Fund communications work for Black-led organizations.
• Hold media outlets and institutions accountable for
narratives that harm Black people.
• Put Black people in senior leadership roles.
Stop looking to a small handful of Black leaders to represent us
We’re moving away from the narrative that one or two leaders are positioned to
“save” us. Many of us work within these systems, where the unspoken way to get
ahead is not to challenge the way things are done. We put our head down, do our
jobs, don’t rock the boat, focus on getting our paycheck, and go home. How much
of this is born from trauma and rooted in survival? How are our decisions on the
job rooted in trauma? How willing are we to disentangle ourselves from it?
• Refuse to be tokenized. Assess what power you have to
make decisions. Make it a requirement of your presence that
more of us stand beside you.
• Stop tokenizing Black people.
• Resource Black communities to participate in civics as a
form of repair.
• Create and fund ongoing, community-designed spaces
for dialogue.
• Pay attention to unintentionally causing harm and practice
repairing relationships.
22
• Define, seek out, and practice accountability.