George Floyd’s agonizing death at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has galvanized a diverse coalition of people, organizations, companies across the country who are saying “enough is enough.” But let’s be honest, enough was enough a long time ago for our Black sisters and brothers and should have been for all of us.
In recent years, many good people have spoken up and spoken out, done their research, read books about racial injustice, engaged in serious introspection as individuals and within their faith communities, lamented our country’s original sin and their part in perpetuating it, prayed, advocated for change, and more. Nevertheless, it persists. So as important as it is for more and more people and institutions to say the words Black Lives Matter and to proclaim it from the streets, the pulpit, and this era’s favorite megaphone, social media, it is not enough. And as essential as it is to engage in introspection, we should beware of tipping into navel gazing. We definitely have deep inner spiritual work to do. Likewise, we must name injustice and proclaim a different way. And as a systemic problem, racism also requires us to problem-solve.
By definition, a systemic problem has taken root in the systems that we rely on to organize and manage our society. It’s like a weed in the garden - we rip it off at the surface thinking we’ve destroyed it, but the roots are deep and it will keep growing back until we remove the whole root. We exasperate ourselves ripping that weed again and again, yet it keeps showing up. So let’s stop ripping the weed and actually dig out the root. It will take effort, resources, and creativity, but we can do it. Here are a few innovation principles we might apply and some examples of innovators pointing us to solutions. We encourage you to learn from them and support their work.
Change the narrative
For too long, we well-meaning people have approached the world’s challenges with the wrong narrative - one of bringing relief to a victim. That narrative problematically keeps power in the hands of the relief-giver. In recent decades, the concept of “empowerment” has grown in popularity, but our overarching narrative and actions still tend to reinforce existing power dynamics. Faith communities, in particular, have a challenge here as we tend to be quite proud of our actions to “care for the poor” through our ministries. Even when we move beyond traditional mercy ministries to advocate for justice, we sometimes do so by defining a group of people by what they lack, or positioning ourselves as a “voice for the voiceless.” Both mercy and justice work are essential, but if done out of a narrative of victimhood, we will never achieve equity because we are not modeling it ourselves.
Trabian Shorters, founder of BMe Community, shares in this Chronicle of Philanthropy article why changing the narrative matters and how the BMe community is advancing a new narrative for Black America. Because the way we currently tell the story, one would never know that 82% of Black men are not poor or that Black fathers are the most engaged fathers in the country.
Reframe the problem
In the mode of prophetic voice, we must name the problem for exactly what it is - racism, white supremacy, state-sanctioned violence against people of color. When we move into problem-solving mode, meaning we’re interested not just in preaching the right words but in solving the problem, we need some new tactics. Generally if our efforts to solve a problem keep failing, it means we probably need to think differently about the problem itself. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, the Minneapolis City Council decided to reframe the problem. Tackling racism in the police force hasn’t worked. The Council decided that Minneapolis needs to think about public safety more comprehensively. For instance, police may be a logical response to a problem of criminal activity, but crime is often a symptom of deeper social challenges rooted in inequality. If we see the problem as inequality in our cities, rather than crime in our cities, we can start seeing new solutions.
Some have also seen success in reframing the problem of community violence more broadly from one of public safety to one of of public health. Dr. Joseph Marshall was an early innovator in this space. His organization Alive and Free addresses youth violence by considering it as a disease that can be treated. (See also Cure Violence.)
Find the levers for change
Systemic racism doesn’t start and stop with police brutality, though it is a particularly disturbing symptom of the problem that needs its own immediate solutions. If we focus long-term on individual battles, we find ourselves in a game of whack-a-mole because those weeds keep popping up. We need to find the levers that can not only uproot the current weeds but prevent them from growing in the future. This means looking to the factors shaping our world and systems of decision-making. As many have noted, we must look around the table and change who is making decisions. That alone, though, will not suffice when the problem is systemic. We also have to change how decisions get made. If, for instance, a biased algorithm determines whether Black people get loans or mortgages or are profiled by the police, then we will get biased results, regardless of who wields the algorithm.
Yeshimabeit Milner, founder of Data for Black Lives, shares in this Medium article how data can be a lever for change by making visible the more hidden aspects of structural racism. Data and technology increasingly shape our lives. Will we let it reinforce racist systems or use it to create a more equitable world? Yeshimabeit brings scientists together with activists so they can co-create a better future together.
Shape new roles
People feel disempowered in the face of racist systems because they’ve been repeatedly traumatized by those systems or they depend on those systems yet have no control over them. If a loved one gets arrested, you feel powerless on the outside looking in at a bunch of police, lawyers, judges who hold the fate of your loved one in their hands - a fate that seems influenced by factors of race, resources, and influence, as your loved one is forced to make impossible choices like whether to plead guilty to a crime they are innocent of just to get out of jail or obtain a lighter sentence. Broad mobilization helps build political will to change a system like criminal justice. At the same time, creating new roles for those affected by the system to drive change can both authentically empower people and lead to more relevant solutions.
Gina Clayton-Johnson and the Essie Justice Group bring together women with incarcerated loved ones—often suffering in isolation as they fight their individual cases—to heal and grow into advocates to change the system. Read about her work in this Essence article. (See also Participatory Defense Network, which mobilizes families to be part of their loved ones’ legal defense teams.)
Create new solutions
Frederick Douglass famously asserted that “power concedes nothing without a demand.” In the last couple of weeks, we have seen this in action as those with political power have responded rapidly to people mobilizing in the streets to make demands for change. A few weeks ago, defunding the police was a radical idea. Today, numerous cities are considering what it could look like, and prominent white-led publications are embracing the idea on their editorial pages. Bookstores are selling out of books on anti-racism as white people try to figure out how to cede some of their privilege. Once the emotion of this moment has waned, though, and power remembers all the other demands being made on it as well, will things change? Even as we make essential demands on the powers that be, let’s recognize and seize our own power to create solutions in our communities. Showing new ways of doing things tends to have a snowball effect of empowerment, imagination, hope and change.
Watch this video from Sojo.net to hear Rev. Dr. Heber Brown talk about starting the Black Church Food Security Network to address food insecurity in the Black community. Instead of waiting for someone to bring healthy, affordable produce to his community, he created a way to make it happen.
Don’t just give, invest
Giving is a deeply held value and practice in most of our faith traditions. This is a good and beautiful thing. Hospitality, generosity, and all the ways in which we encourage selfless giving of time, talent, and treasure represent one of the greatest gifts faith communities bring to the world. If we marry this spirit of giving with a mindset of investing, we can bring even more. Not investment in the financial sense of generating returns (though it might take that form), but in the sense of committing resources to people and communities in a way that bolsters their own ideas and leadership for thriving in the long-run. A community might need social services, yes, but more than that, it might need investment in the aspirations and talents of its people and in opportunities to create wealth.
Derrick Braziel cultivates entrepreneurs in Cincinnati through his organization Mortar. Meet Derrick in this Obama Foundation video. Then read in this story from Faith + Finance about how a wealthy church partnered with Mortar to make the shift from giving to investing.