Increasing Democracy: Facing RACE: A National Conference

Last week in NYC, over 600 civil rights advocates gathered to discuss contemporary issues of racial justice. The Applied Research Center, COLORLINES magazine and the Center for Humanities at CUNY Grad Center sponsored the 2007 Facing RACE conference, a nationwide gathering of racial justice leaders. The conference addressed issues ranging from racial inequities in community zoning and planning to immigration reforms. It featureed such civil rights rockstars as Winona LaDuke, Deepak Bhargava, and Angela Glover Blackwell speaking on panels addressing the future of racial justice and analyzing the first 100 days of Congress. Beyond the star power, the conference discusses the deep-seated, entrenched racial inequity that presents itself in every aspect of law and legislation. As Ms. Blackwell said, structural racism as been "baked into the consciousness." For example, the lack of public transit has a much greater impact on communities of color. While historically, people of color and working class people lived in the cities, now poorer communities are being pushed out into the suburbs while the wealthy are moving back into the city. One only has to look at Manhattan rents to see this trend in person. But what happens when people are pushed into the suburbs and they can't afford to drive? And if there isn't any public transport? South Carolina Representative Joe Neal described how his district has become the dumping ground for South Carolina. Richmond County, located just outside of Columbia, is home to 8 landfills, a superfund site, nuclear waste dump, a coal fired power plant, and a paper mill. In addition, the state's "smart growth" plan is looking to zone out the poor. Three communities are planned: one for the upper class, one for the middle class and one for the working class. The first two communities will be high density, have access to water and sanitation, commercial development and a proper school system. Sounds like a perfect smart growth plan. They will also be gated communities. The third community will be located near train tracks, will not be gated, with no mixed use development and no access to sewer or water lines. Who lives in the third community? People of color. Race is present in all the issues supported by the Progressive States Network. The easy road is to ignore the race component and fight as if we are all equally affected. In reality, ignoring the racial component results in us turning our back on the damage done based on ingrained, structural racism. All presentations and panel discussion from the conference can be found online at www.racewire.org The work of the Applied Research Center can be found at http://www.arc.org