John A. Powell discussed structural racialization and opportunity in Seattle. He explained that structural racialization involves mutually reinforcing policies and institutions that restrict opportunity and perpetuate racial disparities, often through spatial segregation. Considering how institutions interact as systems is important to understand opportunity and racialized outcomes. Analyzing specific regions requires thinking about structures and social relationships that mediate access to resources like housing, employment, education and transportation.

1. john a. powell
Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for
the Study of Race & Ethnicity
Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties,
Moritz College of Law
Seattle, Washington
December 10-11, 2010

2.  Structural Racialization and Opportunity
 Systems and Structures
 Seattle’s Landscape of Opportunity
 Leadership
 Making Transformational Change
2

3. 3

4.  Individual
 Institutional
 Structural
Racialization
4

5. “Much of what we call race is nonphenotypical.
All of what we call race is nonbiological.
Race is a process.”
~john powell
5

6.  It is a very different way of looking at race
 The practices, cultural norms, and
institutional arrangements that help create
and maintain (disparate) racialized outcomes
 Structuresunevenly distribute benefits,
burdens, and racialized meaning
6

7. Context: The Dominant Consensus on Race
White privilege National values Contemporary culture
Current Manifestations: Social and Institutional Dynamics
Processes that maintain racial Racialized public policies and
hierarchies institutional practices
Outcomes: Racial Disparities
Racial inequalities in current levels Capacity for individual and community
of well-being improvement is undermined
Ongoing Racial Inequalities
Source: Adapted from the Aspen Roundtable on Community Change. “Structural Racism and Community Building.” June 2004 7

8. Traditional Understanding {-} Structural Understanding {+}
An independent-isolated- An outcome that results from
individual psychological interactivity of institutions &
issue actors
De jure De facto
Static Dynamic
Past, if present an anomaly Present
Overt Overt and covert
Irrational Rational
Tautological Non-tautological
(multidimensional)
Source: Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (1997) 8

9.  Our understanding has changed over time
 From single-dimensional understanding…
 One variable can explain why opportunity has
been restricted
 …to multi-dimensional understanding
 Structural inequality
 Example: a bird in a cage—examining one
bar cannot explain why a bird cannot fly;
but multiple bars, arranged in specific ways,
reinforce each other and trap the bird
9

10.  …to an
understanding of
processes and
relationships
 Understanding the
relationships among
these multiple
dimensions, and how
these complex intra-
actions change
processes
 Relationships are
neither static nor
discrete
10

11. …Some people ride the “Up” …Others have to run up the
escalator to reach opportunity “Down” escalator to get
there
11

12.  A series of mutually reinforcing federal policies across
multiple domains have contributed to the disparities
we see today
 School Desegregation
 Suburbanization/ Homeownership
 Urban Renewal
 Public Housing
 Transportation
Disparities in how federal
government invested in
people and in places….
12

13. This historic exclusion is perpetuated
through our institutions…
Source: Barbara Reskin. http://faculty.uwashington.edu/reskin/ 13

14.  We can define opportunity through access
 Opportunity includes access to
 Education
 Healthcare
 Employment
 Services
 Healthy Food
 Housing
14

15.  In 1960, African
American families in
poverty were 3.8 School
Segregation &
Lower
Educational
times more likely to Concentrated
Poverty
Outcomes
be concentrated in
high-poverty
neighborhoods than
poor Whites
Increased
Neighborhood Flight
Segregation of Affluent
Families
 In 2000, they were
7.3 times more likely
15

16.  Structural racialization involves a series of
exclusions, often anchored in (and perpetuating)
spatial segregation
 Historically marginalized people of color and the very
poor have been spatially isolated from opportunity
via reservations, Jim Crow, Appalachian mountains,
ghettos, barrios, and the culture of incarceration
16

17.  Our world today is more complex and
interconnected
 Current and future changes will not only be
driven by local/national issues, but
influenced by systemic global trends and
challenges
 Examples
 Globalization
 Climate change
 The credit and foreclosure crisis
 Growing diversity and widening inequality
17

18. We must adjust our lens of analysis to
reflect these changing conditions
Moving toward a systems approach of
problem solving and identifying solutions
18

19. 19

20. An analysis of any
one area will yield
Health
an incomplete
understanding Childcare Employment
Housing
Effective
Education
We must consider Participation
how institutions Transportation
interact with one
another to produce
racialized outcomes
20

21.  Discussions about regions are enhanced by
thinking about opportunity both structurally and
socially
 We need to think about the ways in which the
institutions that mediate
opportunity are arranged—
systems thinking
 The order of structures
 The timing of the
interaction between them
 The relationships that
exist between them
21

22. Health
School segregation
Educational achievement
Exposure to crime; arrest
Neighborhood
Segregation Transportation limitations and
other inequitable public services
Job segregation
Racial stigma and other
psychological issues
Community power and
individual assets
Source: Barbara Reskin, http://faculty.washington.edu/reskin 22

23. Where would you want to live?
It’s more than just a matter of choice
23

24. 24

25. Homeownership Rate by Race/Ethnicity (2000) High Interest Rate Loans as Share of Home
Purchase Loans by Race/Ethnicity and
Metro Area
Income (2008)
Black 36.8%
Low- Middle- Upper-
Indian 44.9% Income Income Income
Asian/Pac. Islander 55.7% Hispanic 9.5% 10.7% 4.6%
Hispanic 36.2% Non- 5.5% 4.0% 3.5%
Non-Hispanic White 66.0% Hispanic
White
High Interest Rate Loans as Share of Home Non- 5.6% 6.6% 7.8%
Purchase Loans by Race/Ethnicity (2008) Hispanic
Black
Metro Area
Non- _ 3.2% 6.9%
Hispanic 8.4%
Hispanic
Non-Hispanic White 4.1% American
Indian
Non-Hispanic Black 6.7%
Non- 4.0% 2.9% 3.6%
Non-Hispanic American 5.3%
Hispanic
Indian
Asian/Pac.
Non-Hispanic Asian/Pac. 3.5% Islander
Islander
Source: http://diversitydata.sph.harvard.edu/Data/Profiles/Show.aspx?loc=1276&notes=True&rgn=None&cat=-1 25

26.  For the state of Washington
 41,800 projected foreclosures for 2010
 132,092 projected foreclosures for 2009-2012
 $19.5 billion projected home equity wealth lost
due to nearby foreclosures
 65% of foreclosures are concentrated in low and
very low opportunity neighborhoods
Sources: Kirwan Institute. Geography of Opportunity: Mapping to Promote Equity Community Development and Fair
Housing in King County, WA. April 2010.
Center for Responsible Living, http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/tools-
resources/factsheets/washington.html 26

27. Poverty Rate of School Where Average Primary School
Student Attends by Race/Ethnicity (2007-08)
Metro Area
Hispanic 50.2%
Non-Hispanic White 28.3%
Non-Hispanic Black 55.4%
Non-Hispanic American 44.6%
Indian
Non-Hispanic Asian/Pac. 38.5%
Islander
The poverty of a school, more than the poverty
of the individual, determines students’
educational outcomes
Source: Center for Responsible Living, http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/tools-
resources/factsheets/washington.html 27

28. Low Birthweight Births by Race/Ethnicity (2005-2006)
Metro Area
Hispanic 4.9%
Non-Hispanic American Indian 6.0%
Non-Hispanic Asian/Pac. Islander 6.2%
Non-Hispanic Black 8.5%
Non-Hispanic White 4.0%
Low birthweight babies are more likely to suffer
from impaired physical and cognitive
development and decreased health overall
throughout childhood
Source: Center for Responsible Living, http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/tools-
resources/factsheets/washington.html 28

29. Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity (1999)
 Increases in child
Metro Area
poverty,
Black 19.0%
homelessness, and
American Indian 20.0%
temporary relief
Asian/Pac. Islander 18.0%
indicate that children
Hispanic 6.0%
across the U.S. are
Non-Hispanic White 12.0%
experiencing “a quiet
Child Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity (1999) disaster.”
Metro Area
 “We are seeing the
emergence of what
Black 25%
amounts to a ‘recession
American Indian 26% generation.’”
Asian/Pac. Islander 14%
Hispanic 22%
Non-Hispanic White 7%
Source: Bob Herbert, “Children in Peril.” New York Times Op-Ed published April 20, 2009. Herbert is quoting Dr. Irwin
Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York. 29

30. Exposure to Neighborhood Poverty by
Race/Ethnicity (1999)
Metro
Area
Living in a
Hispanic 11.0% disadvantaged
Non-Hispanic Asian/Pac. Islander 10.7% neighborhood is
Non-Hispanic Black 13.6% equivalent to missing
Non-Hispanic White 7.8%
a full year of school,
Children’s Exposure to Neighborhood
Poverty by Race/Ethnicity (1999) and these effects
Metro continue on even
Area
Hispanic 10.8%
after a family has
Non-Hispanic Asian/Pac. Islander 10.3% moved
Non-Hispanic Black 13.5%
Non-Hispanic White 7.0%
Sources: Sampson, 2007 30
Center for Responsible Living, http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/tools-resources/factsheets/washington.html

31. 31

32. 32

33. 33

34. 34

35. 35

36.  Transformative thinking to combat structural
racialization
 We need to find new approaches
 Personal and social responsibility are
important—we should maintain them in our
advocacy and analysis
 Approaches should consider the structures
that are creating and perpetuating these
disparities and work to reform them for
lasting change
36

37.  Structural
Racialization
 Policy is important,
but only one piece
of the puzzle
 Understanding
relationships
between
institutions, not just
within one
organization, is
critical
Source: Leadership for a New Era 37

38.  Shift in thinking from leadership as the
influence an individual exerts over others
by virtue of skills/position to
understanding leadership as a dynamic
process exercised within groups
Source: Leadership for a New Era 38

39. Types of Leadership
 Laissez Faire Leadership
 Autocratic Leadership
 Participative Leadership
 Emergent Leadership
 Transactional Leadership
 Transformational Leadership
Source: http://www.legacee.com 39

40.  Laissez faire leadership
 Hands off view that tends to minimize the
amount of direction and face time required
 Works well if you have highly trained and highly
motivated direct reports
 Autocratic leadership
 Falling out of favor in many countries
 This style is popular with today’s CEOs who have
much in common with feudal lords in Medieval
Europe
40

41.  Participative leadership
 Addresses difficulties in demanding someone to
be creative, perform as a team, solve complex
problems, improve quality, and provide
outstanding customer service
 Presents a happy medium between over
controlling (micromanaging) and not being
engaged
 Tends to be seen in organizations that must
innovate to prosper
41

42.  Emergent leadership
 Contrary to the belief of many, groups do not
automatically accept a new “boss” as leader
 A number of ineffective managers do not know the
behaviors to use when taking over a new group
 Transactional leadership
 Emphasizes work within the umbrella of the status
quo; almost in opposition to the goals of
transformational leadership
 Considered to be a “by the book” approach in which a
person works within the rules
 Commonly seen in large, bureaucratic organizations
42

43.  Transformational leadership
 Transformational leaders have been written
about for thousands of years—praised and cursed
 Implement new ideas
 Continually change themselves
 Flexible and adaptable
 Improve those around them
43

44. From slavery to the age of Obama
Charismatic, religious, spiritual leaders
and activists
Modern political leaders who influence
policy directly but also are more symbolic
44

45.  Black politics and leadership has “transformed itself in
response to the dominant society in at least eight
distinct sociopolitical regimes throughout American
history”
 Black Slavery, Black Freedom, and White Supremacy (1619-
1865)
 Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Nullification (1866-1883)
 The Nadir: Terror, Lynching, and the Reimposition of White
Supremacy (1884-1914)
 The Struggle for Black Leadership (1915-1944)
 The Struggle for Civil Right or Racial Integration (1945-1965)
 The Rise and Fall of Black Power (1966-1976)
 The Golden Age of Integration (1970-1980)
 The Disappearance of Black Leadership and the Emergence of
Symbolic Politics (1980-present)
Source: Kelley, Norman. 2004. The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. 45

46.  For the past 100 years, Black politics had
been geared toward ending de jure and de
facto segregation and challenging White
supremacy
 The Million Man March represented a shift
away from results oriented politics to
symbolic politics
Source: Kelly, Norman. 2004. The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. 46

47.  Emerging Black leaders
 Came of age after Jim Crow segregation and the
Civil Rights Movement
 Were raised in integrated neighborhoods and
educated in majority White institutions
 Are more likely to embrace deracialized
campaign and governance strategies
 Will have a wholly different relationship with
White culture
Source: Gillespie, Andra. 2009. Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership 47

48.  Tensions within own community/group vs.
outside his/her own community/group
 Not distance the community from others but
link to other communities
 Resist the trap of focusing particularly and
wholly on one community
48

49. Universal Targeted
Programs Programs
Targeted
Universalism
49

50. 50

51.  This approach supports the needs of the particular while
reminding us that we are all part of the same social fabric
 Universal, yet captures how people are differently situated
 Inclusive, yet targets those who are most marginalized
 Example goal: Every school as a performing school
 What does each school need to get there?
 What does each student, family, teacher, community
need?
 What are their strengths and constraints?
51

52.  Targeted Universalism recognizes racial disparities and the
importance of eradicating them, while acknowledging their
presence within a larger inequitable, institutional framework
 Targeted universalism is a common framework through which
to pursue justice
 A model which recognizes our linked fate
 A model where we all grow together
 A model where we embrace collective solutions
52

53. “All residents have access to opportunities for meeting
basic needs and advancing their health and well-being:
good jobs, transportation choices, safe and stable
housing, a good education, quality health care, a range
of parks and natural areas, vibrant public spaces, and
healthful food.
The benefits and burdens of growth and change are
fairly shared among our communities…
All residents and communities are fully involved as
equal partners in public decision-making.”
Who’s measuring
this? Who’s
accountable?
Source: Coalition for a Livable Future. Regional Equity Atlas Project. 2007. 53

54. Keep grounded to your
community/group
But also serve as a
bridge for your
community/group to
other
communities/groups
54

55.  Leaders must be collaborators and connectors
 Willingness to network with other movements
 Ability to bring divergent actors together
 Commitment for the long haul
 Have a wide vision for sustainable advocacy/work
 Leaders can change how we talk about race
 Should not focus solely on disparities
 The disparity model is limiting when talking about the
racialization of poverty
 Stress of poor White middle class
 Fear of (White) middle class that welfare programs
might be disadvantageous for them (that feeling of
“what about us?”)
Source: Program for Environmental and Regional Equity 55

56.  Start from the assumption that an awareness
of racial disparities is fundamental to
fostering race-conscious approaches to social
justice policy
 When disparities are seen as absent, trivial, or
declining, support for color-conscious policies will
wane
 Increasing awareness of racial disparities may not be
sufficient to change attitudes
 It is also necessary to foster the proper
explanations for racial disparities
56

57.  Counter the perception that social justice
programs that take race into account are
somehow inconsistent with treasured
American ideals such as egalitarianism and
meritocracy
 Tell a story with everyone in it
 Talk about values
57

58. Ten Things That Could Be Done To Revitalize Black
Politics
1. Recognize Black politics has regressed and has been
demobilized; greater organizational and
institutional effort has to be emphasized rather
than symbolic posturing
2. Develop an agenda driven, grassroots, voter
mobilization politics
3. Develop an urban agenda as well as a rural agenda
for rural-based Blacks
4. Develop a national caucus-based politics in
localities that demands new ideas, methods, and
actions from local and national Black political
leaders and intellectuals that is based on
accountability, communication, and transparency
Source: Kelley, Norman. 2004. The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. 58

59. 5. Develop Black think tanks that will look
critically at problems and issues affecting
Blacks and create plans and policies to assist
organizations that are addressing issues and
problems
6. Black economic development should be based
on a new institutionalism that is a blend of
private capital, community-owned,
cooperatively run, and state supported
enterprises
7. Develop an effective public affairs
infrastructure that critically looks at issues in
the realm of politics, culture, economics, and
gender relations
Source: Kelley, Norman. 2004. The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. 59

60. 8. Encourage women to seek a larger leadership role
in Black politics since they are often the primary
caregivers and are affected by public/private policy
decisions regarding work, education, taxation, etc.
9. The Black church needs to become more actively
engaged in attending to its congregation’s and
Black America’s temporal needs
10. Rather than concentrating on reparations, lawyers,
historians, economists, and activists should
scrutinize the relationship between Blacks and the
music industry which has often been rank with
exploitation (Blacks have developed various genres
of music yet have no significant control over the
industry)
Source: Kelley, Norman. 2004. The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. 60

61.  Institutions can enhance engagement
 Not just “outreach”. That is, anchor institutions cannot
simply make their offer and “sell” the community hoping
they will buy it. Anchor institutions must engage with
the community to shape the offer itself, especially
marginalized communities of color
61

62.  Connect with leaders from other
communities to learn from each other and
open a constructive dialogue between
leadership of different communities
 Have knowledge of what is happening in
other communities; this can inform work in
one’s own community
 Recognize the importance of collaborative
discourse
Source: Walters, Ronald W.; Robert Charles Smith. African American Leadership 62

63.  Build coalitions across racial groups and
interests
 Multi-issue and multi-constituency
 Take up issues, but do not be defined by them
 Be motivated by the unequal balance of power
between the financial elite and everyone else
Source: Program for Environmental and Regional Equity 63

64. “The Four Amigos”
Roberto Maestas, Bernie Whitebear,
Larry Gossett, Bob Santos—“Four men
of different races and ethnicities who
shared a common civil rights agenda”
“‘All the issues—equality,
employment, education and housing—
with each individual group having
those kinds of problems that was sort
of the glue keeping us together,’
Santos says.”
“‘When we had black, brown and red joining us we would
see the dramatic attitudes that powerful officials would
have. University presidents, and whomever, this is a
different ballgame,’ Maestas 64
Source: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1577092/KPLU.Local.News/Honoring.Seattle%27s.Four.Amigos

65.  Collective and deliberate action
 Horizontal collaborations: regional collaborations,
public/private/nonprofit partnerships
 Vertical collaborations: local, state, and federal
policy reforms
65

66.  A systems response
 Where are your key
leverage points?
 What are the critical
intervention points?
 Equity focused
 Creating a community for
all
 Emphasis on strategic
collaboration
 Across multiple domains
 Opening pathways to
opportunity through
engagement
 People, places, linkages
Source: “Pathways to Opportunity: Partnership and Collaboration for Revitalizing the Rosemont-Walbrook Neighborhood”
available at www.kirwaninstitute.org
66

67.  Monitoringand
evaluations
 Do proposed projects:
 Perpetuate residential
segregation?
 Exacerbate jobs-mismatch?
 Perpetuate environmental
injustice?
 Without addressing the
social, racial, and
interregional inequities
facing the region, our
future is compromised
67

68.  Accountability at Both Ends
 Organizations and officials must be held
accountable, but what about the community?
68

69. 38
 Everyone should have
fair access to the
critical opportunity
structures needed to
succeed in life
 Communities are
linked to a larger
system
 Affirmatively
connecting people to
opportunity creates
positive,
transformative change
in communities
69

70. 70

71. Transformative change requires substantive
efforts in three areas
Talking about race: Understanding how language
and messages shape reality and the perception
of reality
Thinking about race: Understanding how framing
and priming impact information processing in
both the explicit and the implicit mind
Linking these understandings to the way we act
on race and how we arrange our institutions
and policies
71

72.  History has left its mark, but we can and must intervene
in segregated and inequitable landscapes to achieve a
more promising future for all. Systems and structures
can be changed.
 To do this, we need to unmask how we got here—what
policies, processes, assumptions historically shaped our
experiences and opportunities? Where should we
intervene, what resources can be leveraged?
 Then, we need to challenge those policies, processes,
assumptions and develop new ones with equity as the
overarching outcome
 These need to be developed in socially and racially inclusive,
collaborative ways
72

73. Our fates are linked, yet our fates have been
socially constructed as disconnected, especially
through the categories of race, class, gender,
nationality, religion…
We need to consider ourselves connected to—
instead of isolated from—“thy neighbor”
73

74. www.race-talk.org
Follow the KirwanInstitute
74