seen from China
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seen from Australia
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seen from China
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seen from Netherlands
seen from United Kingdom
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Race Forward @RaceForward
In addition to @harikondabolu & @TaranaBurke, #FacingRace attendees will hear from other leaders - including speakers like @rashadrobinson, author @adriennemaree brown, actress @dawnlyen Gardner of #QueenSugar, & our very own former pres @rinkuwrites: http://bit.ly/2DiBiYO
It's not the height of the mountain that challenges most, but the pebble in the shoe. Let's not be the pebble in each other's shoes.
Rinku Sen at Facing Race 2016
www.coloredgirlshustle.com #FacingRace, #coloredgirlshustle
Watch our keynotes and plenaries live Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12.
This was just shared with me. If you have a moment, please watch and listen to some amazing leaders talk about #FacingRace. See more of their live streams today!
Facing Race keynote speaker Jose Antonio Vargas has tips for how to remain resilient in the face of anti-immigrant and racist attitudes.
this. THIS. THIIIS. i need more content like this in my life. all the time. i wish i’d had enough courage to pursue acting. REPRESENTATION MATTERS. it is literally the reason i never thought performing on any screen, be it big or little, was a viable option. because i wasn’t white and didn’t have blonde hair or blue eyes. i mean, i guess it’s never too late to try. i still want to make a difference, to contribute content that will broaden people’s understanding of what it means to be asian american.
It was all good just a week ago... Last Sunday, I got back from the Facing Race conference where my Heinz colleagues, Melanie Brown and Carmen Lee and our partners on this effort, Karris Jackson and Mark Lewis of The POISE Foundation, went with 7 additional colleagues to Dallas to the Facing Race Conference. Shouts to Melanie and Karris who did great thought and logistics work to make the effort a success. Facing Race is focused on promoting racial justice, which the sponsoring organization, Race Forward defines as the following: "The systematic fair treatment of people of all races, resulting in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all." I loved having the experience of attending the conference with so many folks working in Pittsburgh on what might be called racial justice. They were as follows and pictured from left to right in top photo.
Tiffany Wilhelm, Deputy Director, The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
Karris Jackson, Vice President, The POISE Foundation
Rinku Sen, Executive Director, Race Forward (obviously not a Pittsburgher, but it's great to have her in the picture)
Etta Cetera, Core Committee member, WHAT'S UP Pittsburgh
Mary Parker, Director of Training and Learning Development, Coro Pittsburgh;
Me, Justin Laing, Senior Program Officer, Arts & Culture, The Heinz Endowments
Celeste Smith-C.E.O. One Hood Media Academy
Melanie Brown, Program Officer, Education Program, The Heinz Endowments
Not Pictured in top photo
Karen Abrams, Manager, Community Relations, The Urban Redevelopment Authority (Karen is in the 3rd row of photos on left side)
Dr. Gretchen Generett, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, School of Education, Duquesne University (Gretchen is 2nd from right in left hand photo in 2nd row of pics)
Majestic Lane, Director of Community Engagement & Strategy, A+ Schools
Carmen Lee, Communications Officer, The Heinz Endowments
Kimberly Merrell-Director of the Metro Urban Institute, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Mark Lewis, CEO, The POISE Foundation
From the Heinz perspective, our purpose in attending the conference was to see the way racial justice was positioned and how we might apply it to our work at the foundation. Seeing as how Facing Race was well supported by philanthropy, this seemed like a good place to see how this particular racial justice frame might apply to our work at the foundation. We wanted to go with folks who have been working on issues of racial justice, so that we could not be in a vacuum but be with folks who are working in this space on a daily basis and see whether they found the ideas useful. We also wanted to share the privilege that we have as Endowments staff to travel to conferences with a section of the community so that the conference would be more likely to benefit Pittsburgh than it would if just Heinz staff went, particularly since this is not a current focus of the Endowments.
We picked folks by looking within our grantee pool and in the general community, so the bias was clearly to our networks (Tiffany pointed this out at our wrap up dinner in Dallas). There were some great sessions and conversations in Dallas. Highlights for me:
Keynote Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Toshi Reagon and Tashawn Reagon. Three generations of African American women working on justice in the US, singing, talking to the audience, conversing amongst themselves. Powerful. Quote I remember "Risk your privilege."
Youth led racial justice work-Pointed out by Melanie, the youngest person on the panel was 26 years old. Good reminder to keep this in mind in my own work;
Moving Foundations Towards Racial Justice Grantmaking-A comment from Woods Fund Chicago Program Officer, Caroina Grimble that we need to look at outcomes and not just process to name something as RJ grant making;
Frustration with Philanthropy-There were were more than a few murmurs of frustration with philanthropy that I heard in the sessions/plenaries re: how our sector needs improvement if its going to be a force for justice.
The overall good time and good conversations with all of the Pgh folks. Learned a lot from going as a group.
There is much more to share and maybe I'll do later posts. One source that looked helpful was from one of the closing speakers, Ian Haney Lopez. The book is titled Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. We'll have a chance to share this work with colleagues and continue the conversation at Heinz, so I look forward to that.
Super shout out to Celeste Smith AKA Haute Muslim of 1Hood Media for the lovely photographs. Thanks, Celeste!
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