The need to address racial justice is in the spotlight in America, more now than it's been in decades, says Susan M. Ifill, NeighborWorks America's chief operating officer. She highlighted other hallmarks of this time, such as the pandemic contributing to an economic decline that is "touching more industries, people and local municipalities, simultaneously than ever before. The impact on communities of color is almost immeasurable."
Ifill made her remarks to set the framework for a discussion about Racial Equity as the Building Block for Our Future Organizations. She spoke on the third day of the Strength Matters Financial Management Conference, where affordable housing officials gathered online for financial learning. Strength Matters is a collaborative of three national networks of nonprofit owners and developers in affordable housing: NeighborWorks America, Housing Partnership Network and Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future.
Community development lives at "the intersection of racial injustice and working to build communities that are racially just," she said. "What is affordable housing, what is racial justice, and how does it all come together?" she asked, before introducing Michael McAfee, president and CEO of PolicyLink, the keynote speaker.
Chief financial officers and people on the operations side of organizations can have a huge impact on organizational culture, said McAfee, co-author of A CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity. "That's critical to where this nation's going to go," he said. "If you're going to have a strong democracy, you're going to have to have strong institutions."
McAfee said he worries that "this nation is in the last miles of either realizing the promise of its ideals -- ultimately the promise of equity -- or on an accelerated decline. The choice is still ours. We've got to decide."
There are questions we need to ask ourselves, he said. Who's missing? Who should be at the table? "If you want to get good at racial equity, struggle with it internally…If you're doing it internally, it's going to make you better externally." Follow through by creating a culture of belonging, he added. There are things that were once comfortable, that once seemed to work, that will have to change. But "I think those are all great tensions for us to hold in our organizations. That is the work of equity."
It's time to get real about accountability, McAfee said, adding that it shouldn't take 20 years to pay women equitably or to find a Black board member. "Now is the time to ask ourselves: What do we want our institutions to be? How are you activating yourself … to bring about the world you want to see?"
When he gave examples, he often used his own life, which led him from the Midwest to the military to Harvard, a Black man in a world that "really has a bullseye on my back, and still having the grace to love everyone."
One in three people in this country are economically insecure, according to PolicyLink. McAfee said those are the people he keeps centered as he works with PolicyLink, an organization focused on equity and inclusion. He said he asks himself these questions in his work, and asked others to do the same: Who benefits? Who pays? Who owns? Who is being left behind?
"How are you imagining what you can do in your role that is transformative, that is worthy of honoring all that energy in the street?" he asked. Our job, he said, is to see systems of oppression hiding in plain sight and take them on. "We all have work to do at this awakening moment."
The conversation hit on justice and reparations and whether it was possible to close a wealth gap when white people had a 400-year head start. But McAfee said that in spite of his frustrations, he sees people out there doing the work, which gives him hope and which leaves him with a last question for the audience to ask themselves. "What will be my contribution?"
11/06/2020
