Structural Racism Resources
The Roundtable serves as a clearinghouse for resources on structural racism. We present research on structural racism, case studies on emerging practices in the racial equity field, syllabi for our Racial Equity Seminars, information on how to discuss structural racism, organizations with a core focus on racial equity, and documentaries that address issues of race and racism.
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Publications on Structural Racism from the Roundtable
Dismantling Structural Racism: A Racial Equity Theory of Change (Revised 2008) provides a method for designing initiatives that promote racial equity. It combines a "theory of change" logic with the structural racism analysis to help practitioners define their racial equity goals and map out a strategy to achieve that outcome.
Structural Racism and Youth Development: Issues, Challenges, and Implications (2005) describes the problem of structural racism with a particular emphasis on racial disparity in education and juvenile justice. It suggests the implications of structural racism for the youth development field, including an explicit emphasis on racial disparity in education and juvenile justice and an engagement with the wider policies, practices, and institutions that impact youth.
Structural Racism and Community Building (2004) describes the problem of structural racism and shows its manifestations across policy domains, including poverty, education, health, and criminal justice. It suggests implications for the community building field, including an increased emphasis on building civic capacity to challenge public policies and institutional practices that reproduce racial disparity.
Structural Racism Annotated Bibliography lists and summarizes key works in understanding structural racism in political cultural and civic life; social policy; neighborhood conditions, housing and education; employment and labor market opportunities; economic development and urban revitalization; as well as through broad analytical perspectives.
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Recent Research on Emerging Practices in the Racial Equity Field
Community Change Processes and Progress in Addressing Racial Inequities (2007): A report by Maggie Potapchuk, in partnership with the Roundtable, examining emerging practices in racial equity with case studies of four "leadership sites": Long Island, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; St. Cloud, Minnesota; and Seattle, Washington. The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder's December 13, 2007 article "St Cloud's Create CommUNITY Fights Systemic Racism" cited this report as well as the Roundtable's structural racism framework.
Community Change Initiatives to Address Racial Inequities: Building a Field of Practice (2007): A report by Maggie Potapchuk, in consultation with the Roundtable and the National League of Cities Institute, outlining the growth of the field addressing racial disparity and improving race relations within community change initiatives.
"Why We Can't Wait" (2007): A Ford Foundation report which reviews programs, policies, services, and research that address and impact outcomes for African American males. The report provides a comprehensive review of the problems, opportunities, structure, and dynamics of research and activism in this field.
Promising Practices to Address Racial Disproportionality (2006): This report, from the Center for the Study of Social Policy, offers case studies of ten sites where government, non-profit organizations, and communities collaborated on extensive programs to address racial disproportionality in the child welfare system: San Francisco, California; Connecticut; Illinois; Sioux City, Iowa; Michigan; Ramsey County, Minnesota; Guilford County, North Carolina; Wake County, North Carolina.
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Syllabi and Selected Readings from the Racial Equity Seminars
Lists of all readings for racial equity seminars can be found in the January 2005 Racial Equity and Society Curriculum and the July 2006 Racial Equity and Youth Development Curriculum. In addition, the full texts of several readings from the seminar are available.
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Domains of Structural Racism
Structural Racism "refers to a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity" (Aspen: 2004). Given the complexity and scale of structural racism, its particular manifestations are often difficult to grasp and confront. To help racial equity practitioners parse, comprehend, and dismantle structural racism, we have organized research and journalism on racism into different "domains" of law, culture, and institutions. These domains, such as criminal justice, health, and finance, are not altogether separate or unrelated. Rather they form a network of practices, traditions, policies, and discourses that mutually inform one another, and together produce symptomatic, racially disparate outcomes. Here we present the latest research and journalism on the manifestations of racism and racial disparity in the context of these multiple domains. The resources we present do not necessarily take a structural perspective, but nonetheless contribute to a sharp and adequate understanding of the material, institutional, and cultural manifestations of structural racism.
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Resources for Talking About Structural Racism and Advocating Racial Equity
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The Roundtable offers a database of tools for dismantling structural racism. The database lists organizations and publications that offer methods for incorporating a racial equity lens into philanthropy, community development, or policy advocacy. The tools address research strategies, internal organization, programmatic goals, and strategies for presentation and communication. -
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Race Matters Toolkit provides strategies incorporating a racial equity lens into community building, philanthropy, and policy advocacy. The accompanying power point presentation introduces key concepts, methods, and arguments for a racial equity agenda. Also, the "How to Talk About Race" tool provides suggestions for making discussions of race, racial disparity, and racial equity maximally informative, productive, non-confrontational, and transformative. -
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Grant Making With a Racial Equity Lens provides information for foundations seeking to incorporate a racial equity focus into their grant making. While written from a grant making perspective, this publication also provides useful information for organizations pursuing racial equity work directly.
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Organizations Working Towards Racial Equity
This section features descriptions and links to organizations with a core focus on racial disparity research and/or racial equity advocacy:
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The African American Policy Forum brings together scholarship, activism, and policymaking in order to tranform the public discourse on racism, and the intersection of problems of race and gender. The forum serves as a thinktank and clearinghouse, hosting seminars for journalists, activists, and policy professionals. The forum's website also provides extensive legal background and a news blog on affirmative action.
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The Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture provides a forum for expression of and engagement with perspectives, attitudes, norms and culture of African American youth ages 15-25. Black youth are at the center of major public policy issues such as affirmative action, high rates of minority incarceration, and sex education, and yet their own takes on such issues remain unheard and underrepresented. With a combination of large-scale surveys, in depth interviews, and an online forum, the Black Youth Project seeks to build knowledge about black youths’ perspectives, and enable them to debate and contest the policies that affect them. In addition, the Project culls background academic research on topics related to young African Americans, such as political efficacy, gender politics, health, hip hop, political participation, adolescent sexuality, the social psychology of race, and religion. -
The Applied Research Center conducts research, advocates change through the media, and trains leaders in journalism, community building, and government in furthering racial justice. The Center focuses on issues such as racial disparities in health, race in rural regions, and racial equity in philanthropy, and publishes a blog on race-related news.
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The Center for Social Inclusion is a research and advocacy group dedicated to comprehending and combating institutional and structural racism. The Center's projects include studies of racism in the rebuilding of New Orleans; school, prisons, and race in Mississippi; and racialized land use in South Carolina. The Center for Social Inclusion also provides technical assistance to the Latin American Workers Project.
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The Civil Rights Project, of Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles, brings a multidisciplinary and consensus-building approach to the study racial disparity and advocacy of racial equity. The CRP links America's future prosperity to a racially equitable society and economy, and so seeks to combat the rollback and evisceration of the Civil Rights Acts. The Project convenes researchers, lawyers, and advocates in the racial equity field, and publishes reports on racial disparity, particularly in education. Given recent lackluster Federal Civil Rights law enforcement, the Project has also focused on raising the capacities of state and local agencies and actors to defend Civil Rights.
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The CUNY Black Male Initiative aims to further the inclusion and success of black males in higher education, particularly in New York City. The Initiative funds projects which directly or indirectly seek to improve enrollment and graduation rates for black males in CUNY schools, and which seek to understand and redress racial disparities in employment, health, and criminal justice. The Initiative's websites includes the findings of the Task Force on the Black Male Initiative, briefings to the City Council, and conference archives.
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The Diversity Advancement Project develops and tests strategies for transforming public opinion about racial, ethnic, and gender equity. The project aims to bring about a broad shift in cognitive frames and public discourse that would render society more democratic and less hierarchical, particularly with reference to gender and race. Towards this end, the project offers tools for dismantling racially-charged mental frames; conducts research on best practices for discussing diversity, structural racism, and other race-related topics; and convenes academics, racial justice advocates, trade union leaders, and other stakeholders to discuss strategies for achieving racial equity.
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The Institute on Race and Poverty from the University of Minnesota conducts academic research on policies and practices that create and reproduce racial inequality. The Institute has explored such topics as race and regionalism, smart growth and racial equity, and racial disparity in education and housing.
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The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University explores causes and solutions to racial disparity through academic research, including studies African American males and education, criminal justice, and structural racism, as well as conferences with non-profit, public policy, and grass roots organizations. The Institute is home to the Structural Racism Caucus, which convenes structural racism researchers, and publishes a blog on race-related news.
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The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond is an anti-racism training and organizing institution. Working on both the national and international levels, The People's Institute hosts workshops and provides technical assistance for community leaders and community building practioners to address the causes rather than the symptoms of racism.
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The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity works with foundations to increase and improve the resources allocated to programs combating institutional and structural racism. The Initiative hosts gatherings of foundation associations, has published a tool kit on the racial equity framework, and convenes other non-profits to share best strategies and lessons learned.
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The Poverty & Race Research Action Council is a civil rights policy organization that brings social scientists together with advocates to undermine poverty and structural racism, and further racial equity. The council's current projects include the Baltimore Regional Housing Campaign, and Organizing Parents In Support of School Desegregation. In addition, The Council publishes articles, policy briefs, and a bi-monthly newsletter, "Poverty and Race," on related issues such as housing, health, education, and civil rights.
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Race Talks develops new pedagogical, communicative, and deliberative strategies for discussion and problem-solving on the topics of race and gender. Race Talks has run programs in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the New Haven, CT Police Department, the Cambridge, MA public schools, and the Cornell University School of Criticism and Theory.
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Documentaries on Race and Racism
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