Center for Social Inclusion President Glenn Harris presents at the 2014 Convening on Racial Equity in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In this presentation, Glenn shares his story and the opportunities he sees in operationalizing racial equity at a local, state and national level.

1. TRUE DEMOCRACY?
Racial Equity Opportunities for Government and
Our Communities
Convening on Racial Equity
Glenn Harris, President
August 6th, 2014
Twin Cities, MN

2. Do you work for…
A. Community
B. Local Government
C. Regional Government
D. Philanthropy
E. Academia
F. Business

3. I believe we can end racial inequity.
A. Strongly Agree
B. Somewhat Agree
C. Neutral
D. Somewhat Disagree
E. Strongly Disagree

4. Racial inequity in the U.S.

5. 1) Think of a number between 1 and 10
2) Multiply that number times 9
3) If it is a two digit number add them
together (for example 32 would be 3+2=5)
4) Subtract 5
5) Convert to a letter (a is 1, b is 2, etc.)
6) Country starts with that letter.
7) Animal that starts with that letter.
8) Fruit that starts with that letter.

6. Family

7. Tuskegee

8. The Center for Social Inclusion
CSI is a national policy strategy organization
working to transform structural barriers to
opportunity for communities of color, and
ensure that we all share in the benefits and
burdens of public policy.
 Ideas
 Leadership
 Communications
Structurally
Transformative
Policies
Leadership Communications

9. 1. It’s not about the individual

10. Frames
 Filters to make sense of the world.
 A collection of anecdotes and stereotypes, that
individuals use to respond to events.
 They largely reside in the sub-conscious.
 They exist in and are shaped by our
environment.

11. Explicit bias
Expressed directly
Aware of bias
Operates consciously
Example -- “I like whites
more than Latinos.”
Implicit bias
Expressed indirectly
Unaware of bias
Operates sub-consciously
Example -- sitting further
away from a Latino than a
white individual.
Source: Unconscious (Implicit) Bias and Health Disparities: Where Do We Go from Here?

12. Examples of implicit bias
• When conductors were placed behind a
screen, the percentage of female new hires for
orchestral jobs increased 25% – 46%.

14. What is Bias?
• Suppressing or denying prejudiced thoughts can
actually increase prejudice rather than eradicate it.
• Research has confirmed that instead of repressing
one’s prejudices, if one openly acknowledges
one’s biases, and directly challenges or refutes
them, one can overcome them.

15. Institutional/Explicit
Policies which
explicitly discriminate
against a group.
Example:
Police department
refusing to hire
people of color.
Institutional/Implicit
Policies that
negatively impact one
group unintentionally.
Example:
Police department
focus on street level
drug arrests.
Individual/Explicit
Prejudice in action –
discrimination.
Example:
Police officer calling
someone an ethnic
slur while arresting
them.
Individual/Implicit
Unconscious attitudes
and beliefs.
Example:
Police officer calling
for back-up more
often when stopping a
person of color.

16. structural
institution
individual
Individual racism:
Pre-judgment, bias, or discrimination by
an individual based on race.
Institutional racism:
Policies, practices and procedures that
work better for white people than for
people of color, often unintentionally.
Structural racism:
A history and current reality of institutional
racism across all institutions. This
combines to create a system that
negatively impacts communities of color.
(Race and Social Justice Initiative)

17. Structural Inclusion

18. Structural Inclusion
 Deep education
 Equitable policies
 Operationalizing equity in our institutions

19. 2. Talking about race right

20. The Meta-Frames and Race
 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
 LIMITED GOVERNMENT

21. How race gets triggered cognitively
Implicit
Bias:
Unconscious
bias developed
through
networks of
association on
race
Symbolic
Racism:
The use of
images, code
words, and
metaphors that
implicitly signal
race
Using
symbols to
trigger
unconscious
racism

22. Our Fiscal Policy Debate: 2012
“I don’t want to make
black [sic] people’s lives
better by giving them
somebody else’s
money; I want to give
them the opportunity
to go out and earn the
money.”
Rick Santorum, 2012 Iowa
Campaign

23. Messages on healthcare and the race
wedge
Goal: To craft effective and usable messages that blunt the race wedge
1. Chose policy debates where race has played a big role
 Healthcare reform
 Finance reform
2. Developed 1 minute storyboards/commercials
 Emotional, visual, and ready to deploy
3. Pitted the following against conservative message:
 Race-explicit messages
 Race-implicit messages
 Race-neutral messages
4. Gave the test online to 900 registered voters using a dial-test

24. Which message framing was most
successful?
A. Explicit race equity
B. Implicit race equity
C. Race neutral
D. Conservative

25. Message Results
After each message, we asked respondents:
On a scale of 0 to 100, how much do you agree or disagree with the message you just saw?
Please give a rating from 0 to 100, where 100 means you totally agree, and 0 means you totally
disagree.
Average agree/disagree rating (0-100)
63.9
68.1
70.2
76.2
Explicit race
Implicit race
No race
Conservative
A progressive explicit race message wins by 22 points in the South

26. Changing minds
 Most importantly, the best way to change
attitudes is to change behavior.
 Attitudinal change tends to follow behavior
change.
 Requires both short and long-term
approaches.

27. RSJI Employee Survey 2012
“Examine impact of race at work”
“Actively promoting RSJI changes”
“Dept and City making progress”

28. 3. Government is ours

29. RSJI Community Survey 2012
“Racial equity government priority”
“Progress on racial equity”
“Schools are good or very good”

30. Government and race
 Government is the single largest employer of
communities of color.
 15% of Latinos are employed by government.
 Public agencies are the single largest employer
for Black men, and the second most common for
Black women.

31. Government and race
 Local governments shed nearly 1 million
employees since employment in the sector hit its
peak in September 2008.
 Largest contraction of public sector jobs since
1945.

32. Outside-Inside Strategies
Individual
Modes of community participation
informal
group
formal
group
nonprofit union government
Tend toward – Tend toward –
Informal Formal
Local interest Broad Interests
Voluntary Professional
Issue/identity Focused Geographic Focus
Collective Decision Making Hierarchical

33. What is Power?

34. What is Politics?

35. political
concept
political
action
Van Jones’s “Heart Space/Head Space Grid”
from Rebuild the Dream (2012)

36. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional

37. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional
HEAD
SPACE

38. Head space
 Where Rational + Conceptual meet
 Think tanks, academics and policy wonks
 Facts and rational arguments
 One cannot make meaningful, effective, and
lasting change without a sober view of the data
combined with sound policy prescriptions

39. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional
HEAD
SPACE
HEART
SPACE

40. Heart Space
 Here emotions have sway
 Great storytellers, artists, preachers, and other
resonant communicators
 Energizing emotions shared: feelings of love and
rage, contempt and compassion, pride and
shame
 Needed for inspiration and motivation

41. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional
HEAD
SPACE
HEART
SPACE
OUTSIDE
GAME

42. Outside game
 Where emotion and action meet
 Activists, organizers and volunteers
 Action not based on their immediate, rational self
interest, but on what feels right- what moves
their heart

43. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional
HEAD
SPACE
HEART
SPACE
INSIDE
GAME
OUTSIDE
GAME

44. Inside game
 Where reason meets action
 Elected officials, paid lobbyists, party operatives,
staff members at legislative and bureaucratic
levels
 People who have enough power, standing,
access or influence to impact the behavior of the
decision makers
 Natural home of the deal maker- cold blooded
maneuver and necessary compromise

45. Which do you find more
comfortable?
A. Head Space
B. Heart Space

46. Rational
Political
concept
Political
action
Emotional
HEAD
SPACE
HEART
SPACE
INSIDE
GAME
OUTSIDE
GAME

47. Head and heart
 All four quadrants are important depending on
the stage of making change.
 The key is a dynamic balance.

48. Aligning strategies
Outside Alignment Inside Alignment
Organizing community Organizing staff and leadership
Build inside capacity- having a
strategy to support inside change
agents
Build community capacity by
leveraging resources and
sharing inside information
Mobilizing community to share
their case
Creating avenues for dialogue
between outside and inside
voices

49. Power + Love

50. I believe we can achieve racial
equity.
A. Strongly Agree
B. Somewhat Agree
C. Neutral
D. Somewhat Disagree
E. Strongly Disagree

51. Stay connected with us:
www.centerforsocialinclusion.org
www.twitter.com/theCSI
www.facebook.com/centerforsocialinclusion