Whether your organization is large or small, you’re just starting out with DEI, or are further along on the journey, YW Boston will work with you to find the right solutions. Initiative, we help individuals and organizations change policies, practices, attitudes, and behaviors with a goal of creating more inclusive environments where women, people of color, and especially women of color can succeed. Through our DE&I services- InclusionBoston and LeadBoston-as well as our advocacy work and F.Y.R.E. You can learn more about this in Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law.Īs the first YWCA in the nation, YW Boston has been at the forefront of advancing equity for over 150 years. As a result of redlining policies, White households have a median wealth that is ten times that of Black households and eight times that of Latino households. Home ownership is one of the most secure ways for families to accrue wealth. But the racism was overt in the Federal Housing Administration’s manual, which stated that “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities.” Today, credit scores are used as a form of redlining, disproportionally impacting Black and Latino households. Over the past century, mortgage insurers have not always explicitly stated that race is a reason for denying coverage, instead color coding these neighborhoods as “risky”. On top of this, the newly established Federal Housing Administration refused to insurance mortgages in and near Black neighborhoods, a process called redlining. In response to the Great Depression, the New Deal included housing programs – programs which intentionally shut out Black Americans. We see a similar pattern built into our housing system. You can learn more about this from Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Thus, the disparities in incarceration are due to the design of the legislative system altogether. While Jim Crow was abolished with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, those in power simply changed tactics – continuing to incarcerate Black men through legislation tied to the “War on Drugs.” This covert approach remains an effective way to keep power out of the hands of Black Americans and utilize their labor in prison. Jim Crow laws, named for a racist Black minstrel show character, were a collection of state and local laws that legalized racial segregation directly after slavery was abolished – a tactic to both limit the power of formerly enslaved people and to utilize forced labor in the form of imprisonment. And yet, Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of White Americans, an issue that cannot be explained simply by the individual racism of the judge and jury.
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