A New Era for Black Women is three-year initiative that celebrates and elevates Black women as leaders of a powerful movement for change. Together, we’re shining a light on economic inequality, fostering solidarity with Black low-wage earners, and building a collective vision for a brighter future. By centering the economic realities of Black women, especially in Southern states, we’re ensuring that Black voices lead the way in creating a robust policy agenda that benefits everyone. With this initiative, we aim to secure job protections, workplace advancements, and more pathways and higher-paying jobs. Together, we’re building a movement grounded in the realities of Black women’s lives, creating a foundation for lasting, impactful change.
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At the heart of A New Era for Black Women is our deep commitment to being present in communities, connecting with Black women, and understanding their lived experiences. We believe that real change starts by listening— hearing directly from those whose voices have too often been marginalized. Through conversations, community gatherings, and grassroots engagement, we are learning from the stories, struggles, and triumphs of Black women. These insights guide our work, ensuring that our initiatives reflect the true needs and aspirations of the women we work alongside.
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Story
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Our world is shaped by narratives, yet we rarely take the time to question how these narratives are shaping our future. Black women deserve a narrative that reflects their resilience and contribution to society.
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Webinar Series
This webinar brings researchers, entrepreneurs, and economic development and financial experts together to discuss how we can create an equitable, inclusive, and dynamic economy to benefit all Americans.
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hello everyone uh thank you for joining today's webinar um we're going to givefolks a few moments to get logged in and while we wait I invite you to answer ouropening question which is where are you calling from um I am calling from DetroitMichigane forfor the folks that recently joined us um my name is Janelle and um we are justgiving folks a couple more minutes to join um if you would like to uh please share in the chat where you're callingin from um I'm calling in from DetroitMichigan eawesome um please continue to share in the chat um we invite you to use this feature throughout our time togethertoday um and we're about to get started uh we are made aware that there was somechallenges with the chat so I believe it's been uh fixed but um welcome to today's webinarcommunities that care Justice for black moms my name is Janelle Munger and I will be your host for today'sconversation I am the owner of GPM Consulting and a program consultant with Kia Harrison Associates race healing andjoy initiative our conversation today is called convened by oxfam's a new era forblack women and Kesha Harrison Associates race healing and joy initiative this is the first entry inour black Futures webinar series a four-part conversation that uplifts the expertise and vision of black womenshaping the future through reproductive and Care Justice economic Mobilityenvironmental justice and democracy Kesha Harrison Associates is ablack woman-owned social impact consulting firm khaa operates the racehealing and joy initiative which works to Center the voices of black leaders and the reproductive Justice movementand cultivate deeper unrestricted investments in reproductive Justice organizations and theirleaders Ox bam is a global nonprofit committed to fighting sorry fightingthen inequality of poverty and Ox Bam's New Era for black women initiativelaunched in 2023 takes a comprehensive approach to uplifting and empowering black women theinitiative highlights the structural barriers and economic disparities that have created generational limitationsintersecting all aspects of quality of life for black women for moreinformation about each of these initiatives opt into our mailing list when you complete the survey today'sconversation communities that care Justice for black moms centers the needs to lift up the care for birthparents throughout pregnancy labor and delivery and postpartum using a carelens we hope to show that reproductive Justice is always a care issue care is asocietal need but often viewed as a individual responsibility in the in theUS today's conversation will highlight how and why that is wrong but Al butways they are actively challenging that in their work our panelists will walk us througha conversation that Daylights present realities and disparities for black birthing parents uplifts interventionsand practices for better care centers the role of collaboration and partnership in creating change andunderscores the importance of investing in infrastructure for Reproductive care and Justice to facilitate ourconversation we are joined by Danielle Adams the senior advocacy advisor foroxam America and in her work Danielle sits on the organizing and influencingteam in the campaigns Department working with grass toop leaders now pleasewelcome Danielle and ourpanelist oh Danielle you're still muted I thought I did the work to dothat good morning everyone thank you for that introduction and um thank you toour panelists I'm so pleased to be here with you today moderating this panel of Powerhouse black women in theirrespective Fields our panelists who you will meet in the moment are nikra bur umdror a PhD in public health and maternal health expert Dr Veronica GES Bell anOBGYN and medical director of the Louisiana perinatal quality collaborative and pregnancy Associatedmortality review for the Louisiana Department of Health um Tamara Masondirector of maternal and Child Health Collective impact at March of Dimes inthe certified labor Doula and Tenisha Duncan founder and CEO of orchid CapitalCollective Dr nikra bur um I would love to start with you I'd like for you tohelp us ground in the issue postpartum care for black birthing parents and whythis is an important conversation for all of us and my question is what are the current realities andchallenges faced by black birthing parents in accessing quality postpartum care and how do these conditions reflectbroader systemic inequality yeah well good morning um wasgood morning in Mississippi everywhere else and maybe good afternoon uh first thank you all for having us um I'mexcited to join this panel and um thinking about grounding in this thethought of what the issues are and what black women face um I think the bigpicture is of course access to care and so we are now moving into this phase andI know um Dr Gillespie Bell may talk about that postpartum period being what the fourth trimester but many um of usare just moving into that piece of recognizing the postpartum period as anarea that really needs to be looked at studied and a lot of attention attentionum given to and I think that's just because of how it has been framed youknow you have this baby you go home and everything is good um but that's notnecessarily the case for every woman specifically black women so access topostpartum care what does that look like that looks like having access to health insurance um health insurance covers onepiece of that um but then if if you are living in an area I'm in Mississippi ummany we're a rural State and so many of our areas are hard to access um whetherthat's if you live in the Mississippi Delta where you don't have a lot of providers then you may have to drive twohours an hour and a half to get to any type of quality services and even inthat case when we look atst that postpartum period if something likepostpartum preclampsia happens where you need to get to a facility if you're in an area like the Mississippi Delta youmay not make it to where you need to go because hospitals have closed um andyour place may be two hours away and that's that is a critical thing thatwe're seeing not expanding Medicaid in Mississippi has been very detrimentalnot just to the health of black mothers but also to the type of care that womencan receive we we've had Nick units closed um so manythings and we've even had cases that have made the news of women trying to get to care um but they they had todrive so far did not have a hospital in their area um and then another thing isaccess to or really bringing in this model of comprehensive care and whatthat looks like so we of course we have douas Miss Mason I know you'll probably talk about Doula rolebut douas midwives and having access to just this range of types of care thatyou would like to have has we don't have that black women just don't always havethat privilege to say Okay I want a doula I want a lactation professional I want to have a birth and a birthingcenter there are a lot of things that we just may not have access to because ofour position in society right now just being honest um and so I think having acomprehensive care team or a model that supports doulas being able to come into the hospital and um or just having arange of midwives that folks can select from is important and then also I'm notI'm not a health care provider but we do know that chronic illness is a part of all this and when we say chronic illnessbeing a part of it these comorbidities I still I take the I take the onus off ofblack women and I put it on the system and so my last piece to this is um racism being the core of all of this umnot just those one toone interactions where they didn't feel good and we didn't have an opportunity to changeproviders which is a huge piece of it but how this system was created developed and how we have to navigate itI always say we have amazing Health Care Providers I know Dr Gillespie Bill I've heard of your work um and so many otherproviders that we have in Mississippi but you can only do so much in the system system that was not designed umto honor black bodies and so I think that is the core of what we're up against and that trickles down into theway we seek and receive Health Care specifically in that postpartum periodand that that Superwoman C you know we going to take care of that baby we're g to take care of those babies but if ourhead is swimming it may be harder for us to go try to seek um the care that we need and one advantage that I think wehave as I close out this is I think we have a great advantage ofwe we do have the communal system of support uh black women we we are I I wasraised in all kind of woman's family so everybody kind of takes care of you now that may not look the same way but Ithink that is a piece that we can kind of build from building on that communal system of care and how what that lookslike for each woman and we don't always have um all of those pieces that Imentioned pulled together for black women and then we see these um very Grimoutcomes that we're all working to change thank you so much for that answerum I one of those folks who did have postpartum preclampsia but I did havethe privilege of a care team and the privilege to advocate for myself and to have folks advocate for me which we meto you Dr glesby Bell um I'd like for you to give us more information tounderstand how the system presently Works um at its best and worst I knowthe state of Louisiana can be challenging um to a place to provide comprehensive care for black birthingpeople so um my question is what does it look like to provide robust care againstthe backdrop of these challenges and what steps can be taken to ensure carefor black parents after birth um is accessible and integrated into maternalcare practices so thank you so much uh Danielle for that question thank you for uh allowingme to be here thank you oxam and and the Kesha Harris Association for even hosting hosting this um just importantthings that we need to talk about um just to piggy back on um some things that nikra said we have to understandthat a system will produce exactly what a system is supposed to produce and right now I'm about dismantling systemsbecause this system is not working it's not working for any woman in America and it really is not working for black womenwe know that we have the highest maternal mortality in the United States compared to any other High inome Countrywe know that three black women die at a rate of every one white woman we know even when we adjust for socioeconomicfactors three uh that a black woman is twice as likely as a white a black woman with a college degree is twice as likelyas a white woman with an eighth grade education to experience a pregnancy related death so this is a system thatis not working we're not getting good maternal outcomes and so when we think about what is not working in the systemum and we can talk about what is what is working but when we think about what is not working specifically for black womenand specifically in the postpartum period which I think is as MRA said is so important for us to talk aboutbecause when we look at our maternal deaths the majority of deaths are not happening in the hospital they're happening after discharge up to one yearpostpartum with the with the majority of those happening in the first six weeks and as nikra said if we think about thesystem the system is designed for us to deliver our babies and then we go home and we come back in one in six weeks forthis arbitrary postpartum appointment when clearly there's a lot of things that are happening in that six week timeperiod so really when we think about Solutions we think about we need to think about how do we make sure ourpatients are connected to care in that six week time period um and so thatagain is dismantling the system because that's not how the system is designed some things that we um have done inLouisiana some things that are being done nationally and some things that we need to think about um one is postpartumhome visits we again are the only High income country that does not guaranteeat least one postpartum home visit um we have to think about how do we providethat here in Louisiana we do have the nurse Family Partnership program which is a national program um which is partpart it works well for the patients that qualify for the nurse Family Partnership program we also have a program thatwe're piloting um specifically in New Orleans at two hospitals called family connects where a nurse from the hospitalwill come and see patients during that postpartum period but overall we arepiecing things together in every state to try to create what should be auniversal home visiting program um I think uh one of the other things that wehave seen uh specifically in my role at Ashner to help with that postpartum period is to do tella health so with ourprogram is called connected mom we give patients a blood pressure cuff a bluetooth enabled blood pressure cuff atthe beginning of pregnancy we offer it to any patient that wants to be in the program they don't have to pay anythingfor it we're able to check blood pressures throughout the pregnancy but more importantly we're able to checkblood pressures in the postpartum period so it gives a patients aut omy becausewhen they check their blood pressure if it's elevated the patient gets a message that says hey your blood pressure is elevated take it again if it's stillelevated you need to call your doctor go to the emergency room I on the physician in I also get a message telling me thatpatient's blood pressure is elevated the other part is that of that is that we're able to do virtual visits through thisprogram much like I'm coming to you today doing this panel presentation and so when we do that I'm able to do bloodpressure checks for my patients 3 days after discharge from the hospital they had severe hypertension I'm able to do ablood pressure check one week if they had a hypertensive disorder or pregnancy but didn't have severe hypertension andduring that one week or two week uh time period I'm able to do a postpartum mood check um in which we uh don't talk aboutenough especially in the black community uh we don't talk about it but actually when we look at our leading cause acrossuh 38 maternal mortality review committees mental health conditions is actually our leading cause of pregnancyrelated deaths in the US um and so we're able to check those blood pressures able to check those moodchecks while the patient is able to stay in the in the comfort of her own home umI think the other part of the system that we need to address and uh Nik started was talking about it as well isum postpartum uh visits from doulas as well as mid as midwives um when we thinkagain about the system our data shows us that by 2030 in that's in six years wewill be short 5,000 OBGYN in the United States5,000 I think that number is actually underestimated because we're seeing even fewer medical students choose to go intoOBGYN so I think that those numbers are probably going to be much larger and so we have to think how we have anintegrated model of care where we can have our midwives that are able to take care of our low-risk patients I as aOBGYN can take care of my high-risk patients and then we have a doula that is helping our patients to navigate thehealth care system during pregnancy and after pregnancy so that you have thatperson that's able to say hey that that blood pressure is not okay or that that headache that you're having you need togo to the hospital to be evaluated or you're not acting like yourself something's not right you need to go tothe hospital and I think doulas and midwives because they are able to spend so much more time with their patientscompared to what we are able to do as as OBGYNs they have such better relationships to understand thoseintricacies of when something is not quite right um and so again just thinking about how we keep our patientsconnected to care now some things that we are doing in Louisiana to help with that I mentioned the home visitingprogram I mentioned the connected health program um we also have passed legislation to create a doula registryum this was is completely run by douas um they have come up with the criteria to be in the registry the applicationprocess once duers are in the registry there other legislation that we passed that then requires um insurancecompanies to reimburse for dual coverage um again we know the data shows thatwhen dla's midwives are involved in our pregnancies and delivery um care duringthe prenatal and postpartum period we have better outcomes but everybody is not able to access a doula one just thenumber of douas but also when it comes to how they how they are able to pay for them um some of the patients that needthe duel need duelist the most are not able to access them and so we're hoping that this will create some more um moreuh Equitable access uh to duelist um I talked about telea health and the benefit there but it really it doesn'tbenefit you if you're in an area that has no broadband access um and so there has been a lot of work in Louisiana umunder our previous governor to expand our Broadband access we're not where we need to be but we're better than wherewe where we were um I actually was at the FCC speaking last week um they theyhave the FCC has a Broadband uh map that I encourage all of you to go look at youcan see by County what your access is to broadband and you can see how thatrelates to maternal mortality to maternal morbidity to diabetes to all ofthose things um and so the FCC has said and I definitely agree with this and promote that um Broadband access isanother social determinant of health so the solutions that we're coming up with we don't think about it through a lensof equity it's not going to be a solution for everyone and so um and so I'm glad to see again that the FCC isshowing that so that other states can really invest in the Broadband uh access as we have in in Louisiana um to be ableto make sure that our patients have access there um and then I guess the final thing I would say in terms of whatwe're doing in Louisiana we know that this is a conversation we were having actually Danielle you and I were having beforethe panel started um the data shows that when you have concordance of race between the patient and the provider youhave better outcomes um we've seen that from the work that Rachel Hardman um has done in um California that show I'mExcuse me in Florida that showed when the neologist and the infant and their family were the same race that we hadlower infant mortality we've seen that in Primary Care work and with primary care physicians when the when you have ablack primary care physician you have a longer life expectancy as a black patient but only 5% of Physiciansidentify as black 5.7% to be specific 6% identify as Hispanic and then when welook at our residency programs the distribution as far as R race and ethnicity is not any different so we arenot creating a better pipeline to have diversity amongst Physicians we aretrying to solve that um at Ashner Ashner and Xavier have partnered together to create the Xavier Ashner College ofMedicine um we're current L doing all the processes that we need to do to be accredited um but we are doing this andmaking this collaboration so that we can have more black and brown Physicians umcoming through and trying to increase that pipeline so that we can have better representation uh amongst the physicianpopulation and I can go on and on and on but I don't want to monopolize the time so I think I answer the question nothank you so much you dropped so many words and so much information I didn't even know and hopefully it resonatedwith all the folks who were joining us to listen in and I think um it connectsbeautifully um to our next guest um Tamara Mason uh we have heard a b andfirst I want to give all of you your flowers thank you for being a black OBG in thank you for being in all of you inthe health care profession and taking care of women and I will say a black Midwife and a black doua saved my lifeso I'm excited um for this um whole panel and this ation uh Miss Mason we'veheard a bit about the realities and importance of this care um we also knowthat for the changes we seek to happen it's going to take co-conspiratorsacross sectors um and from this lens of your work with Collective impact andapproach to Bringing diverse organizations together to work on systems change I'd like you for you tospeak more about what this collaboration looks like and how it happens um specifically how can different sectorssuch as healthc Care Community organizations and activists policy Advocates funders collaborate moreeffectively to improve care for black birthing parents thank you Danielle thank you somuch for having me and thank you to Oxfam and kha Associates first of allwho wants to speak after Dr gesi Bell right I'm like I'm just going to go ahead and sit down she said everythingthat needs to be said um but as Danielle said in my introduction I work at the marchad dimes as a director of maternaland Child Health Collective impact specifically in Atlanta Georgia so at the marchad we're leading the fight forthe health of all moms and babies and we are working to end preventable maternal debts and infant debts and moreimportantly which I appreciate this about marchad dim' mission in recent years we're working to close the HealthEquity Gap so definitely appreciate Dr bur's comments and Dr gesell's commentspreviously in Ms of access to care and framing the issue and our system rightour Health Care system that honestly has been designed to not really care for black bodies black birthing families andI did want to mention in terms of access to care the marchan we've recently released a maternity care desert reportwhere we show that unfortunately accessing Health Care is an issue for everyone in this country um butparticularly for our communities of color and in particular in terms of maternity care deserts which that meansthat there are no OBGYN centers or birthing centers 35% of the counties inour country are considered maternity care deserts and about 60% of those counties are rural so just in general aswe've already heard in the conversation just getting that General access to care is a huge issue in our country so frompreconception Health right before you're even thinking about a baby or starting to think about having a baby all the wayto postpartum care so just National that's a conversation that we need to engage in more and figure out within ourcommunities how can we address the actual getting the access to the care that you need um secondly I reallyappreciated Dr bur's comments about the system and how the system is is not designed to care for us and so at Marchand ISS when we're talking about closing the Health Equity Gap and addressing a large scale issue like maternal deathinfant deaths pre-term birth we realize and understand no one organization incl us can do this work alone and so that'swhy we are utilizing the collective impact approach in Atlanta and throughout other cities in the countryto really address this large scale issue we also know pregnant women don't live in a vacuum right so if a woman is foodinsecure if she's housing insecure if she's poor which here in Atlanta if youare born into poverty you only have a 4% chance of escaping poverty and there area large number of women of reproductive age who are in poverty right all of that is going to impact your birthing Journeyso in addition to working with our maternal and child health providers we also have to work with our folks acrossthose other systems and all the other partners that you mentioned Danielle in your you know your initial question andso here in Atlanta we're really proud that for the past three years we've been leading this Collective impactinitiative working with as you said funders Community Based organizations one of our main Partners is the centerfor black Women's Wellness love love them I shout them out every chance that I can get they are in the Mechanicsvillecommunity of Atlanta doing great work serving black moms and families for the past 30 years um and just really comingtogether as a collective to First understand the problems for black Worthing people here in Atlanta but notjust stopping there and talking about the challenges the problems and the issues what are solutions and so withCollective impact we really feel because we are at the end of the day about system change we have to addressdifferent levers and pull different levers of the system so that includes research that includes advocacy thatincludes direct service programs and so when we are talking about the different levers that we need to pull to close theHealth Equity Gap also looking at who needs to be at the table to be involved in those conversations including thecommunity because in my opinion the solutions are already in the community and we have to stop talking at thecommunity and the community needs to be at the table from the GetGo I'll stop there but definitely Ely can go on butwant to leave time for other folks as well thank you so much for that thankyou thank you thank you um our final question to our panelist before we go toour question and answer um is to miss Tanisha dunan um you offer a uniqueperspective on this topic with your work to seed investment in reproductive careinfrastructure ensuring capital is available for um ecosystem changes andneeds and you play a key role in Shoring up resources for this work um I'mwondering what strategies can be employed to strengthen the ecosystem of care for birthing parents ensuringadequate resources are available um sturdy infrastructure is in place which we've heard is like a critical need umand the community served um and that communities are served um drivingforward this change yeah good afternoon thank you so much for having me today um this is agreat question and it's often one that I start with a few frames before jumpinginto the strategy pieces and so a lot of people have talked about these other elements here and at Orchid we are anonprofit impact investing firm our work is about redirecting the flow of capitaluh to realize reproductive and economic Justice and so when we start withreproductive Justice as a framework and a strategy it encompasses our rights to decide how our families are created andnurtured how we make decisions about our reproduction and how our communities are actually structured to live in and raisefamilies um this right to raise a family in a safe and healthy environment and so for this to exist we have to ask whatmakes a community health a community safe and healthy how would we actuallyinvest in that how do you design the infrastructure of a community what would we Implement and who leads designs andbenefits from it the next frame would be about racial capitalism which which asks us to question where divestment andextraction has taken place um we can note this in the history of how we removed Midwifery care from the HealthCare System what assets do we have that are actually not being resourced and why and what are the barriers to moving thisforward and who is sitting or not sitting in a place of power um the next is that this placewhere we I think need to talk a lot more about the interplay of the economic system with our Care Systems there are alot of moving parts to this and a lot often these conversations come down to money and so we have to really look atthis business of Health Care the business of birth and who gets to have what outcomes and at what cost um thenthere's this place around Collective care that asks us to consider everyone's wellness and if we're doing this webuild from a place of how we want to see people enter and leave this world um andwhat they experience in the meantime so how do we shift to actually create a genuine culture of care balancing thereality of trauma to build a new and different future and then complex adaptive systems ask us to consider howdo we know when a system has fallen apart or is falling apart and like someone mentioned earlier it's whenpeople are being irreparably harmed because of the system so this currentsystem in a lot of ways it's on its way out we're dismantling so much here it's a question of when will this happenhappen and I think we're actually nearing that moment so we all are collectively having to Doula thistransition into something more restorative so the question what are the strategies that can be implemented atOrchid we talk a lot about this ecosystem of care we Define it or call it a community care infrastructure whichis the assets the providers the care models uh that ensure access toculturally and racially congruent care safety rights education and economic power um so this actually just startswith even acknowledging the value of an ecosystem one approach is not going towork right it's not about seeing one model or one organization do everything and scale everywhere but actuallyenabling the resourcing that ensures caregivers and Care organizations can excel in their place in an ecosystem andthen really mindfully integrate with other parts of the ecosystem in order to serve families most effectively um the next is the nextstrategy or approach is actually about exploring all of our Collective relationships with money with financialand non-financial resources and how that allows us or doesn't allow us to Centereconomic mobility and wellness in the work change takes time love and morethan just money that's something we are learning a lot about at Orchid and so it's inviting people to see money as atool along with support resources and strategic Partnerships and care toensure that these shifts take take place um um and so with that we explore and wethink we can explore different approaches to Grant making to lending to investing and especially how we usephilanthropic and public dollars to support care ecosystems away from a relationship of dependency and towardself-determination um building on that economic Mobility encourages us to understand anduh consider the ownership of the structures being built so the infrastructure that we can build canstabilize families create local jobs improve Healthcare outcomes and there is a way for this to be owned and led bythe communities that it serves and actually that is the strategy that's the imperative is that any funding strategyany investment strategy and I say investment a little bit Loosely because I think that can happen at the citystate federal public private level um any investment system has to include uhCommunity ownership and that allows it to actually mindfully integrate with the system around it and hold its powerwhile it connects in and works with the system that we have um this is an investment in owners in accountabilityin building longevity and in community wealth uh we look at that through three lenses of Community Care Centers wherewe think land and real estate is a is a reproductive justice issue um Community Care ecosystems sogrowing nurturing and maintaining the workforce of perin care providers and then Tech and services like Dr GIS VBell mentioned we need to activate and invest in the the tech the range ofservices these things that enable care access as well the fourth strategy is that is taking a multi- generationalapproach so from wherever you sit in the ecosystem as a funer we see these Investments as seeding a new future onewe may not get to see ourselves and so when we operate from that lens of a long-term reparative regenerativeapproach it means that we make different decisions we iterate early and often and mistakes are actually part of the designit changes this Narrative of how we must be perfect in every Pro program or project that we do but actually thiscould allow communities to continually design based on the inevitable political economic and cultural shifts so it's apath to a delicate balance between patience and urgency and understanding that the work ahead is both vital andtime sensitive um so I think the gaps are clear the data is clear you know howwe support families um how we invest in this work as many RJ leaders have saidfund us like you want us to win and that's the approach that we take atOrchid um we've seen that people are midwives duelas perinatal care providersthis community work is it's working um the proof is there we're delivdelivering better outcomes people are asking for this care and experience so really the main strategy is to takeaction and I think these four points are just a starting point to also push us tothink about how we do the work as being just as vital as what we do thank you so much I love that fund uslike you want us to whenn and I love the concept of like ownership Community ownership of our care infrastructure andour needs um I am so grateful to all of you for being disruptors and dismantlingthe systems that we know do not work for us and thank you for sharing um all of your knowledge and information with usum I want to open it up to our um guests or attendees who if there are anyquestions um from the folks um who are in the audience um if you have aquestion for our panelist please write it in the chat um use the Qor use the hand raise button and you will be unmuted when you are acknowledged to ask your question to thepanel and I'm seeing there were some questions that were alreadyanswered in the in the Q&A are there any questions from any ofthe folks in the audience and if I am missing any I hopefully someone willping me so I can make sure that I don't uh leave anyoneMara uh if uh you are unmuted so you can ask your question thank you very muchfor for caring for the vulnerable and marginalizedwomen um I have one question regardingthe funding organizations as as you see there's there is evidence pointingtoward um the less care provided to women uh from the minority group and thequestion is if we have all the evidence and all the um research studies thatsupporting that do we have an organization or programs um to support a communityum like maybe um businesses like say if if if a grouplike like your group right now decided that they want to start start a womanHealth Center for just caring for the for theuh underserved Community there is any program or funding programs in the in thegovernment that we can maybe write a business plan and submit our plan andthen work start from there that's all thank you I'll jump ina little bit there I'm sure others can add um I think we're starting to see more and more funding opportunities hereI know in The Proposal around the Omnibus there is proposal and allocation of resources um in order to fund HealthCenters birth centers um and Community Care Centers that's part of the work butit's not widespread quite yet and that momni buus legislation has not gonethrough at a federal level however we are seeing that this is some legislationis being passed in particular States so Massachusetts uh the birth center therethat's developing just got helped to push through legislation for um allocation for money for birth centersin the state and other states are following suit so I think it's happening more at a local level and notnecessarily at the federal level quite yet and then on the philanthropic side there are some funders funding this workthere are groups like birth center equity which is a national network of about 40 black indigenous and people ofcolorled birth centers um that is both a network and they're providing seed funding for organizations like that wework with them very closely and then they're individual funders and um impactinvestors and others who are moving resources in that way but no there's not just one Collective organization andthen there's also the Venture Capital side of things where folks are receiving resources to build there but that's notnecessarily targeting um lower income people and families in communitiesthat's uh more of a commercial or you know larger scale approach yeahso and just to piggy back on what Tenisha said um you may want to partneror to to check with your um State Health Department I know we just received the maternal Health Initiative Grant umwhich it it was required that State Health departments apply for it but but as part of that Grant we have to have amaternal Health task force that's designed by Comm that is organized andled by Community um birth Advocates and Community those individuals in thecommunity community based organizations um and so we're we were thankful to get that reward and we'recurrently um developing who the team of of the maternal Health task force because then that's going to lead torecommendations and implementation of of of other uh strategies and other programs also CMS has a teema grant um Iforgot what that stands for transort transformation and maternal health I think is what it stands for umapplications just had to be submitted they're going to uh award 15 states umin this grant under that uh or under that Grant the states do have to um do anumber of of things including addressing um the the Midwifery Gap and and how toincorporate midwives into practice how to promote birth centers um as well andremove barriers around that um and so there are some things out there oh I'm sorry and the CDC also had a grant umwhere uh it could be tech companies Community Based organizations had to partner with paranal qualitycollaboratives so I know myself uh Tennessee and Illinois all worked withuh the the Earth app um to create an initiative um as well through thatfunding so there is there is some federal funding out there um but from what I have seen a lot of the federalfunding has to go through the state department because Medicaid or the state department has to be the one that'sactually applying for the grant thank you very much I and I'll addone thing you know what we're seeing with folks is that there there's benefitand it's a necessity to actually get resources from a lot of multiple sourceshaving one place and a dependency actually create creates doesn't createsustainability for the organization so people are you know depending on revenuefrom care whether that's you know private or public Insurance um thenthey're getting resources from maybe more traditional or local community banking in order to purchase a buildingor do those sorts of things so the money has to come from multiple sources andthat's part of the work that we do with Partners is to make sure that they're looking at all of the options in orderfor um this work to continue especially because they're prioritizing familieswho are eligible for Medicaid to accessCare thank you very much I appreciate it thank you for your question um we dohave uh time for maybe one more question from the audience um but while we waitfor you all to formulate the question I wanted to ask our panelists um we know that we're coming up um an importanttime and a lot is at stake um as we moveforward and I think there's opportunities for us to talk about as you all talked about the comprehensivecare but things like paid leave um long-term in home care I know many of usare in that sandwich generation where we're caring for Littles planning our families and also caring for the oldergeneration and a lot of that care burden um and stress Falls um heavilyespecially on black women and I'm wondering um if you could talk to us about like the totality of what's atstake and what we should be prepared for um moving forward in the next few monthsand yearsahead I guess I can start um and try not to get emotional in themeantime I mean everything is at stake every everything is at stake there arethings that you that may not be on your radar um that will impact how you areable to be cared for what decisions you're able to make about your care umwhat access you have what resources you have so I think it's really importantthat when you are going behind that curtain to to to vote that you considerall of those things move past the rhetoric move past pass what's been saidin campaign ads and all these other things but really understand thedecisions that are the that the individuals that are running for office the decisions that they have made in thepast what they say they're going to those decisions they're that they're going to make in the future because it really does impacteverything everything and I feel almost as a black community I hope I don't gettoo much trouble saying this I feel almost as a black community we have beenlulled to sleep so many things have changed so small and so incrementally that we're going to wakeup in five years and we're not going to have the right to vote we're not going to have the right to choose choose whoour providers or any of those things because our rights are slowly being taken away from um not just thinkingabout the national election but even our state and local government when thereare things again that decisions that are made they impact Us in such a way umeven around Reproductive Rights when it doesn't matter where you stand on theabortion issue if you're for abortion you're against abort whatever that isyou have to understand the ramification of the do's decision and what that has meant Downstream those unintendedconsequences I mentioned one earlier that when we look at um since the do'sdecision when we look at uh Physicians and and medical stud students choosingwhere they're going to go into residency the states that have the strictest abortion bands have had a decreasednumber of medical students applying for residency in those States well the otherfa part of that is that lots of Physicians that are practicing in an area choose that area because that'swhere they trained I'm not from New Orleans I'm actually NRA I'm from Mississippi I'm from Meridian Mississippi but I trained in New Orleansand so I chose to stay in in in in New Orleans so if you don't have medical students that are coming to train and doresidency Pro residency in your state you will have an overall decrease of of Physicians and so that's just one smallexample but just understand the that that small decision that may seem sosmall has such a greater um impact even if that consequence isunintended okay can I come in Quium yes that's that's like Workforce things what every time I hear theconversation around um you know the do's decision Robeing overturned this is one policy that weimmediately see the impacts of and typically like those of us that live inthis nonprofit world we understand that um Administration es and flows so youknow when we're have a democratic Administration most of the work that we're doing there's funding out there umand then when it's a little more conservative on the Republican side and this I'm I'm speaking for myself so Idon't have I don't have any you know body pulling my coattail um so then weknow that some of those fun that funding dries up we saw it in HIV we we see itover and over um in these four year cycles and so those of us that kind oflive in this space are able to kind of prepare you know depending on whatwe expect for administration to potentially look like the preparationnow um is not as subtle as we have typically looked at it is is it is notjust the financial impact to our organizations but it's the direct impactto the people that we serve and what it looks like when we go behind that boothand put someone in office that has that continues to double down on the thingsthat we talk about these pieces of racism when we are talking about we maywe talk about these one toone instances but this is much bigger it's the systemsthat Dr Gillespie Bell talked about dismantling them being able to dismantlethem is lifelong work and it will be even harder um that's what's at stakeyesterday y'all know that Facebook is a no Never Never Land of of politicalpundit um and someone said to me abortion is not on the ballot I don't even do this I don't even talk to peopleon Facebook about politics but someone said abortion is not on the ballot that's a big talking point for peoplebut it's reproductive Health rights and Justice it's all of our health care inthis big umbrella that's actually on the ballot and if we go down a rabbit holeof abortion care which is actually a part of reproductive health care then that gets people off their rocker all ofour health is at stake everyone's health and so I think it is so important thatwe continue to I mean we only have a couple of weeks left but our communities have to understand and it's ourresponsibility those that we're sitting on here talking amongst the choir butwhat's really important is those people that we serve on a day-to-day basis yes everyone has the opportunity to choosewhat they want to do when they go behind that voting booth but it's our opportunity to tell what we know andwhat we see from this perspective rant over sorryno thank you for that I I think you're you're right we may be speaking to the choir but I heard uh someone say oncewhat we need the choir to sing so um I think as we come to close Iwould like to give you all an opportunity to share one last thought or Vision um or moment of action for ouraudience that we can take forward with us um on this important topic I knowwhere my one action is but I would love to hear from all of you um starting with toNisha yeah I mean it I'll Echo what other people have said that this whatwe're up against and what's coming is really to me zooms all the way up to just being an issue around bodilyautonomy and sovereignty which is everyone's issue and when they come for one of us they come for all of us whichI think requires Us My Moment of action or my ask of people is where figure outwhere you sit in the ecosystem and let's please all be reaching out to each otheracross the ecosystem because our work is deeply interconnected and we don't existwithout the rest of the people on this screen um and that we don't exist without the people who are here joiningus um in in this webinar as well so um build relationships grow your ecosystemsand invest in that from where you are and from where you can thank youTamara I had a feeling you were going to call on me and my comments Dil with Tanisha so always going to Echo we knowthat we have a very important election coming up voting but not just in the national elections are local electionsright because at the end of the day we're in our local community and underground that that impacts us manytimes much more so what's coming down you know from the federal pipeline so just want to put that out there likeeveryone else is already done but also piggybacking on tanisha's comments I think for me recently just reallyunderstanding the importance of advocacy and advocacy can take many forms rightor or several forms um and for me the two that have really jumped out recently our personal advocacy but reallyprobably more Central to this conversation is community advocacy but all of us can be an advocate and so forme using the personal advocat example that's actually how I became a d based on my lived experience of my twopregnancies I was like there's something else that needs to be done to help black women during the birthing Journeys Ithink I would like to become a doula um so that's been my personal advocacy for the past four years but Communityadvocacy is so impactful again where you live locally part of advocacy you knowis this type of conversation that we're having so let's take it off the screen have it in your communities where youare and what are the solutions where you are we don't have to wait on on systemsfunders yes we do need money and all those things but we can start to you know have the conversations right in ourcommunity and it can grow scale out we apply together for funding X Y and Z so I just encourage all of us to figure outwhat community advocacy means for you in your local community to address whether it is expanding you know postpartum careaccess to care or whatever the issue is that is Central to you and lastly because I am a member of a nonprofit I'malways going to plug that people donate to nonprofits that are doing the work that you feel passionateabout thank you nikra Dr bur yes so my vision um for nowand the future it's it's always that black women have the birth that wedeserve and desire and postpartum and so whatever it takes for all of us to worktogether doing that whether that's funding whether that's Primary Care DirectServices um and even voting I think we all have the responsibility from where we sit in this ecosystem to do our partto get um realize that Vision thank you and to close this out Dr B yes I um have a quote uh that Ithink really it encompasses what everybody else has said but it's a quote that I commonly end with when I dolectures on Health Equity and I think is applicable to now it's from Dr Martin Luther King Jr and it says that theultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at timesof Challenge and controversy and I would say that at least for me in medicinethis is the most challenging and controversial time I have ever practicedin I never thought I would be practicing and fearful of going to jail for practicing medicine um and I think allof us have different ch challenges um to um as Tanisha was saying to ourReproductive Rights um to bodily autonomy it's a very challenging time and it's a controversial time and wehave the option to sit and say nothing but if you sit and say nothing you're still saying something it says you'reokay with the status quo so everybody that is listening everybody that you talk you touch you can touch everybodyhas something to do and to say to improve our maternal outcomes and toimprove the systems that are not designed for us to to not only not only survive but tothrive thank you all so so much thank you for the audience and thank you to our panelists over to youJanelle once again thank you for joining us for today's discussion I hope we haveleft you with some important insights on how we can all contribute to a more robust ecosystem of care and the role ofthe reproductive Justice movement is playing and getting us to the vision umwe hope you will join us for our next conversation on economic Mobility on November 19th uh please take a moment tocomplete our brief survey after the webinar ends here you can opt in for more uh information about futurewebinars I hope you all have a beautiful day and keep onfighting thank youEnglish (auto-generated)AllFrom Oxfam AmericaPresentationsWatchedLearning
In the Green and Just Transitions webinar, the second of a four-part series of A New Era for Black Women series, we heard from Southern women with deep ties and experience in this field about what a green and just transition means and needs to look like.
Show video transcript
welcome everyone we're going to give just a couple more more minutes for people to come on to the space thank youokay thank you I see people coming in to the space welcome to this webinar greenand just transitions good morning good afternoon good evening my name is Sophialonton and I work at oxfam's us domestic programs thank you so much for joiningus for this urgent And Timely conversation on green and just transitions this conversation is thesecond in a four-part series of our new error for black women initiative whichcovers issues that are impacting low-wage workers and communities sponsored by Oxfam in the Mississippiblack women's Round Table our planet and communities standat a critical juncture in the fight against the climate crisis to avert thecat the catastrophic impacts of climate change including devastating floodfloods heat waves droughts fires we must act quickly anddramatically to reduce global warming emissions this fight is aboutsafeguarding our health protecting our environment and ensuring a sustainablefuture for current and future Generations as weknow those with the fewest resources and who've done the least to cause thisproblem particularly black brown and Indigenous communities are hardest hitand suffer the worst consequences of climate disasters all the while rich countriesand corporations continue to pollute and emit to maintain their wealth andpower rather than stepping up to meet the moment the US is on Pace to expandfossil fuel production in the next decade prolonging fossil fuel companiesstrangle hold on our economy on politics and theenvironment but the women you're going to hear from today are taking action andimplementing Solutions towards a clean and Just EnergyFuture to help Stuart our leaders in this conversation about this issue I am so honored tointroduce our illustrious moderator Colette Pon battle co-founder and visionand initiatives partner of tap rot Earth Colette is an awardwinning lawyer andclimate Justice organizer she's a trusted voice in theclimate Justice and Black Liberation movements and her work Focus is oncreating space for Frontline communities to gather andstrategize as a generational native of Bayou Liberty Louisiana she's a 2019Obama fellow and is the recipient of many prestigious Awards including the2023 H's award for the environment the 2022 Catalyst award from Rachel'sNetwork work and the 2022 William O Douglas award kette is a formercorporate lawyer internationally she has gained recognition for her heroutstanding use of the legal and judicial process to achieveenvironmental goals after 17 years of work leading thegolf co- Center for Law and policies development of programming focus onEquitable climate resilience in the Gulf South in 2022 she expanded her visioninto tap rot Earth inspired by her learnings with GCgcp um and movement Partners across the South when she's not working to save theworld you can find Colette and Rule Louisiana spending her free time amongthe land Waters and people who have poured into her love andnourishment since birth Colette I'll now turn it over to you thank you so muchSophia what a beautiful welcome and thank you for welcoming us to this second in the four-part series of thisconversation very critical conversation I would like to say thank you to all ofthe work that's going on behind the scenes and to the many women um and black women in particular who areworking um on behalf of their communities and I'd like to start this this conversation by briefly introducingeach panelist and inviting her to join in the discussion by answering thisquestion green and just transitions is a phrase that is thrown around a lot inthe environmental circles but the public the communities may not be familiar with it what does it mean and what does itlook like in practice it's my honor to introduce Dr Crystal Martin founder ofGreater Greener gluster Crystal how would yourespond hello first let me say thank you so much for thisopportunity to amplify the voices of some of the people in mycommunity and thank you to Oxfam the black women's round table and thisphenomenal uh platform of black womentoday I want to give a special shout out right fast to my mom and to the amazingresidents in gler who trust me to leadthem and who continue to tell their stories regarding the health issues andthe environmental Injustice that we Face daily again I am Crystal Nicole Martin Iam an educator turned Environmental activist and I lead the work for thegreater Green gler community uh we arefighting to hold draxx accountable for the multiple Clean Air Actviolations we intend to seek Justice for the people and the damages associatedwith the air pollution problems and we want to ensure environmental publichealth and quality of life improvements for the residents in the in thecommunity so as a leader I bring my community along withme in this fight and together we are on the front lines advocating for a greenand just transition because we want to protect the public health of ourchildren their children and all the residents in the community so forus um this green and just transition is aboutmeeting with state and federal government to advocate for clean air andfor laws to hold these industries accountable for their pollution in May2023 we collaborated with EPA Region 4 to host a CommunityWide meeting to talkabout our concerns regarding air pollution we were able to bringapproximately 20% % of our community to attend that meeting so we can share ourconcerns and for us so we can learn about um this green and just transitionthat we need to get to uh we shared our concerns with officials from EPA mdeq USDA forestryand other federal and state agencies so for us in order to get to a justtransition we have to work and we have to meet and we have to Advocate withthose who are at the um tables to make decisions to those who are in positionto help us make the change because we recognize as a small rural community wecannot do this fight we cannot do it alone so the EPA was instrumental inhelping us to draft what I call our initial document of uh advancing to ajust trans the EPA sat down and listened to the voices of the people of the in thecommunity and we were able to put together a document that talks about ourdesire to see a greater Greener gluster as a result of that document now or as aresult of that meeting we have been able to connect with people like Dr EricaWalker and her community noise Lab at Brown University they're helping us to have a betterunderstanding and helping us to advocate for a green and dress a green and justtransition that benefits our community right based on what our desires and whatour needs are uh at the time so I when I thought about what we're doing inpractice we are having those meetings we are having those conversations but in addition to the conversations we arecalling on action we need to see action behind the conversations so we arepartnering with our state federal um government and then we are also workingwith other community-based organizations such as nrdc Echo Oxfam um DogwoodAlliance Deep South Center for environmental justice all of these organizations along with so many othersare working with us to advocate for cleaner air Greener jobs more economicinvestment we are asking for energy efficient um homes and we need laws thatthat going to hold these industries accountable and laws that actuallyprotect the public health of the people not just say this is our mission but actually help us to to um protect thepublic health of the people in our community so that's what we are doing on the front lines in practice to helptransition to a Greener to a just in green the um gler I I I hear the actionI hear the accountability I hear um being at the table really getting in there accountability was huge and thankyou for that introduction let's get a little more into that as we go um in the meantime let's just introduce our secondpanelist aulo oo Esquire who is the co-founder and CEO of inner wealthSolutions aulo what does the green and just transition look like in your neckof the woods in your sector what's that looking like foryou and I think we have a julo thank you and I'm gonna apologizein advance that my internet is a little unstable I shouldhave yeah good to go aulo I think we got you back now oops or not all right wellwe're going to keep going um we'll get a julo back and we'll um get a note from the tech once we come back in but we cankeep going it's not just one it's not just two it's a whole crew of us and so um I next want to bring in our thirdpanelist uh Dana Davey Esquire senior policy advisor of the US Southeastregion at Oxfam Danielle what do green and just transitions mean and look likein practice can you come on in and en join that conversation thank you so much and Ijust want to pick up the thread of where Dr Martin left off uh you you elevatedaccountability I think a huge opportunity that we have in having a green and just transition is that blackwomen have been on the front lines of this work for the entirety of the movement I mean if you go all the wayback to the Federation of southern cooperatives land assistance funds new communities right here in Albany Georgiauh the community in Western in eastern rather North Carolina that were callingout Industries for abusing black rural communities there's been a long Legacyof black women's leadership and so I think a first step towards putting it into practice is financially investingand politically investing in black women's leadership and that black women's best framework uh that has beenapplied by many women that have come before me if we look at legislation from the perspective of the most oppressedthe most burdened the most harmed by political inaction and economicdivestment we find the black woman and so the solutions politically and economically must be investments inblack women's leadership and insight in this space I also think that Community ownership and Leadership of theindustries the renewable Industries and especially making sure that as as a J'swork is doing making sure that Rural and black communities are growing their wealth in the new types of Technologythe new types of grids all of the ways in which our Southeastern and Global Southern communities have been divestedfrom in the ways that put us on the front lines of climate change those are the very ways in which we can grow thewealth of the black community and I also think that the appropriations of federallegislation the justice 40 program um of the the white house that has set aside40% of the financial investments in federal infrastructure and other piecesof federal legislation those can't just stay uh as talking points of the administration they have to really maketheir way into Community leadership Community possession and the decisions need to be made at that locallevel thank you so much um I think this is you know to keep hearing this locallevel to keep hearing the um participation at the community level um and even to keep hearing the role of theblack woman in This Global um what sounds like new but sounds like it might have been going for a long time struggleum for justice and Equity um and access sounds like we're moving things along Ithought we had a julo back but I think she's still trying to connect so we'll keep the conversation going but I dowant to just acknowledge um that we want to hear a definition but we also want to hear a little bit more as was brought upabout this um bring bringing in renewable energy making sure that these rural communities are uh brought intothe conversation but while we're oh and we have a julo back right on time umaulo we were just talking a little bit about what the Justin Green transition means but I think it would be a greattime to also ask you a little bit about your work in North Carolina um specifically how you came to the to thefield um and why is this crucial for black communities in addition to whatthis this green transition look like can you jump in for us and then we'll keep the sure sure sure my apologies for thetechnical difficulties everyone and I want to add my word of thanks alongside Dr Martin toOxfam and um the black women's Roundtable in Mississippi for the timetoday um as I look at the question of equity um there are sort of three areasthat are most important to me or that I pay particular attentionto and um the first is around procedural equity which is making sure that we havea voice at the table that um we understand who's participating in decision making and who wasnot the second area is around um restorative equity which is um how do weuse this moment to repair the damage that has been donehistorically from fossil fuel production and then the third areathat's of interest to me in particular around my work in the Solar industry is around distributive equity which iswho's actually benefiting from this transition now and in thefuture and while my work is really focused on this narrow slice of the trans transition I am uh super focusedon solar and how solar energy can be used um to benefit families andcommunities more than simply in terms of a uh Bill savings but also in terms ofownership and um ownership of this vitalsort of um human need electricity umall of those Equity considerations are at play even in this narrow slice of the transition but compoundthat those Equity considerations as Dr Martin said when you're thinking about Energy Efficiency other forms ofGeneration Um electric vehicle access it's not simply about the technology butit's about applying these various procedural regenerativerestorative distributive Equity aspects alongside that this is a momentin history where it's once in a lifetime it's generational but in manyways for our country it's actually the firsttime where communities of color arepositioned and policy is somewhat aligned to allow there to be a historictransformation in our economy for the benefit of people ofcolor every other industrial transformation has kind of missed us andnone of them has had this focus on uh policy directed in the way that this currentAdministration and the current policies are directed towards redressing sayinghistorical injustices as well as creating greater benefit and EconomicOpportunity going forward so it is a moment and I'm I'm grateful to be inpartnership with all of you all as we move towards um the vision that we seek well let's let's keep talking aboutthis aspect of public policy I mean we're in a moment where we're seeing um you know particular types of leadershiptake hold um we're seeing particular types of legislation uh come through through uh Dana you specifically broughtin um some of the opportunities that we're seeing now let me pivot to you fora policy view on this um specifically around the inflation reduction act um it was passed it was arguably the mostsignificant climate legislation in US history at least 515 billion in publicinvestment from the IRA alone and more than 170,000 green jobs also have beencreated in the wake of the IRA a majority of them in red States somewhich have the largest and fastest growing black black populations in the country what does what does it get rightuh what concessions were made what issues does it not address I know this has been a real concern in the Southright all of the things that aulo said is right right some of this stuff is historic this is a moment also umsacrifices were made concessions were made what is this mean what what your read on this one so I'm extremelyexcited about this piece of legislation if it's not obvious from my enthusiasmbut one of the things that it really gets right is that in the EPA report climate change and social vulnerabilityin the United States they found that blacks were 40% more likely than non-blacks to live on the front linesand that's because of redlining that's because of a long history of the ways in which African-American land loss hasbeen devised of by Our Own federal government and the interest of of offinancial institutions um and corporations and so um by looking atdata and having datadriven legislation as someone who's worked um in this fieldof rural uh communities working with black farmers and black co-ops for over 15 years it's not frequently that we seelegislation that really talks about the the numbers and the ways that the numbers directly impact ourdisenfranchisement our dispossession and the ways in which we are risk and so Ithink that 40% and that number doesn't only pertain to African-Americans theright around 40% are the ways in which both Asian-American uh indigenous um anduh Latin communities are impacted by the disproportionate impact of climatechange and so by setting justice 40 as a whole government framework we're reallylooking at the ways in which our entire federal government really needs to take a look at the ways in which theseparticular communities on the front lines really need to be invested in and that's what Equity is I think a lot oftimes folks confuse equity and equality and what we really need is when folkshave been re you know resource have been have been removed from a community a series of communities for Generations wehave to make particular investments into those communities to help them get caught up and so using data um and andputting those in investments into the most uh vulnerable communities that's what it gets right now one of theproblems that is occurring is that the time frame that we're facing the realityis that we've gone so many decades we've gone over 40 decades knowing the climate change was scientifically factual anddisregarding that evidence that now the damage is really urgent and so all ofthe asthma all of the lung diseases all of the health diseases all of the infrastructure degradation the housingstock degradation all of those things are now multiplied by what's happeningin our environment and so trying to get everything caught up and those Investments made in a timely urgent waywhile slowing that process down enough to make sure that the fastest way to Resto resolve it would be to give all the really bad polluters all the money and tell them to clean up their act rightand so that's one of the things that we saw when the USDA was trying to get the climate smart Commodities program up andgoing huge corporations got big amounts of money and those communities on the front line just didn't have enough timeto get their documents in order to get access to those resources but now we have until November of this year for theclimate change grants and I really think that communities need to get as much information and as much conversationsgoing amongst local leadership to make sure that those resources make their wayfrom a federal construct into a local reality that's locallyLED yeah thank you from that Federal construct into locally LED action andand we're back to action again Dr Martin you're on the front lines organizing and educating your community and decisionmakers about air quality issues in Gloucester um as can you tell us a little bit more about your um communityin Gloucester Mississippi and as you know we really need to fully and hastily stop emitting greenhouse gases can we doit while centering communities is that even possible can you talk to us a little aboutthat yes well we'll go back to gler gler of course is a really small rural Townwe're located in Southwest Mississippi approximately two hours south of JacksonMississippi I tell people if you've ever traveled 55 South um from Jackson to NewOrleans then you pass a town called mome Mississippi we are are about 30 mileswest of mome so I always tell my friends if you drive at Gloucester and you drive too fast because we don't have too manyuh markers landmarks well if you drive too fast you will drive right past GLbut we are approximately 900 people U living in Gloucester 80% of that population is black and 40%live in poverty unfortunately we are a community that um has been described asan environmental justice Community again we're small we're rural we're umdisproportionately affected by air and noise pollution we are majority black umHigh rate of poverty uh many of us are related we are related by blood bymarriage I tell people we even related by your baby mama family your baby daddyfamily uh but we are all some kind of way related right people in the umGloucester Community are dealing with a lot of breathing and respiratory issues as a result of this air pollutionwhether they know it or not um but we know it stems from the pollution a lotof parents are reporting High rates of asthma and allergies in their children we have many adults who are reportingHigh rates of asthma chronic breathing issues COPD lung cancer I got a callrecently that quite a few people have kidney cancer people are dealing with skin and eyeirritation dizziness um just to name a few of the issues that we are dealingwith in our community a lot of people um have died from lung cancer heart issuesand other forms of cancer in my community so here we are the greatergreen of gler project we are just a small rural grassroot Outreach educationinitiative um that was established by my n nonprofit K Martin group and severalresidents from the community this initiative began in response to the $2.5 million fine thatwas imposed against drax's biomass facility we wanted to know why thiscompany dra you know why they had to pay this fine which led us to finding out thatthe fine was the result of um our air being pollutedwith hazardous air pollutants I had to I'm I'm having to learn a lot of this so I can help educate my community theykept talking about haps I kept asking what in the world are haps only todiscover that it's not just air pollution that's in gler um the federal government said we have haps and theseare hazardous air pollutes so after we collaborated with um othercommunity-based organizations and I just want to take a minute to shout out Rachel ma fromSouthern Echo because I share with people often times we haven't given herenough credit for being there with us on the front line she's a black female outof Jackson who showed up for us during a really critical time and that reallyhelped us to amplify our voices it helped us to come together as a community so I just wanted to um shoutout Rachel ma because her work in Gloucester and her labor has not goneunnoticed I see so with her help and the help of so many other amazing blackwomen we started the greater green of gler project to help bring about thisawareness and to help educate our people our community on these issues that theywere dealing with and to talk about this facility and the air pollution you knowthe fine we need to talk about that with the people in our community so today weare fighting um as the greater green of gler project because we want to holddrax's account we intend to seek Justice for the damages that have beenassociated with the air pollution and we want to ensure um that we are not leftbehind right we're talking about this just transition this justice 40 we atthis point we will not be left behind share with people years ago we lost ourschool a long time ago right after I graduated high school I think it was 19the year I graduated 1988 we lost around 1989 our voices were not at the tablethen so we intend to not be left behind this time and that's why I tell people Ihad to return back to my community so I can help us in this fight to ensure thatthis time we won't be left behind so fighting to ensure the public health anda better quality of life for the residents in Gloucester I I hear thatand thank you Dr Martin I I think to ensure that future right to ensure a better quality of life to keep thatfight and also really you know how do we stop this pollution um you know holdaccountable for what has been done but how do we stop the pollution ajulo this this there's a there's a DOT that rarelygets connected that black folks deal with all the time one is this impact that Dr Martin is talking about thesepolicies that Dan has really like showed us what the opportunities are but then how are we talking about the newopportunities what is that um how is the word getting out to Black communities about um blackowned solar and windcompanies or how to even enter uh that industry we we we know we're beingpoisoned we're being polluted these things are happening we know that there's even a federal construct tostart to address this but how do we connect the dots to this blackowned solar and wind talk to us a little bitabout that sure you know when I I listened one of the reflections I hadColette was way back in 2005 2006 when you and I worked together in response toHurricane Katrina at Oxfam and um one of thestrategies was really around what are the economic development opportunities for peoples whose livelihoods are tiedor contributing to their ownvulnerabilities and there wasn't always a good answer forthat one of the other Reflections is that often in the work of ruraldevelopment communities have a vision and ideas about uh projects that they want toimplement in their Community but then they have to go outside their Communityto actually get the Technical Resources to put the shovel in the ground to do the engineering studies putthe capital together and if you think about this historic investment if we're notactually implementing the projects then that $1 trillion will leak right out ofour communities and be Consolidated back into the handsof um large multinational corporations that have zero accountability to ourcommunities or interest in sort of recycling that money withincommunity so one of the just one of manyuh strategies is to try to bring folks together people who are already in business um people who are aspiringentrepreneurs people in Roofing and other other contractors to say this is a trilliondoll opportunity what is going to take to build your capacity to standshoulder-to-shoulder with our community based organizations to help them Implement theirvision and so one of the outcomes of that for me was the creation of bosswhich is black owners of solar Services it's an organization that brings together businessowners um to think about and you know one of the hurdles that I personally had toovercome was the relationship with capital andcapitalism recognizing that capitalism was a primary driverofvulnerability particularly for for black womenyeah yeah but yet itis the at the same time potentially a tool on the pathum to our freedom oh girl we gonna have to talkabout that one I hear it I mean I think it's I think it's the challenge I think I think this is definitely theconversation um the role of capitalism not just in vulnerability um but in these systems that we're saying we needto change right um and then there's a reality let's talk a little bit about umthe reality and we're going to open it up to the audience in just a few moments um but for the last questions before weopen it up to the audience I'll invite any of the P panelists to answer you know the climate crisis andenvironmental degradation show us that the most that we must end fossil fuel production it's got to stop we talkabout ajust trans I but what isn't said often enough is that the same companiesextracting resources and polluting are also employers if we were to end fossil fuelproduction today our communities prepared to transition to renewable sustainable energy sources and what dothey need to do to ensure there are green jobs in their community that can be trained or transition to I mean Ithink there are a lot of presumptions in this question right that we all have the same definition of green job that we all have the same value of jobs um thatcertain jobs aren't you know a lot of lowp paying jobs that blow you up are not necessarily the same as moderatepaying jobs that can give you you know a good life so there's some nuances here with these questions and ways we Definethese things but there's a broader question here which is are we ready are we ready for the transition are we readyto win are we ready to ensure that this change um in this change people are going to have what they need um I'mcurious who wants to pop in on this and then we'll take um some questions from the audience can I just quickly jump in I'llbe super quick because like you said Colette there's a difference between cost and value and there's a differencebetween neoliberal version of success and the scarcity mindset that it drivesand the ways in which even black women leaders have been put in positions uh of leading nonprofit organizations that areput in competitive modes against each other when what we really need to do isgoes back to what we've always done as a people and that goes back to um one ofmy sources of inspiration is Reverend the late Reverend Charles sherad um uhwas a leader in the Snick movement and one of the founders of the Federation of southern cooperatives land assistancefund and he asked when he was uh working with the Albany movement what do we haveand at that time you know that led to the first ever land trust it was the largest largest and first land trust inAmerica America in Albany Georgia new communities and that was a blackowned land trust and so I do think that wehave everything that we need we have the expertise we have the passion we have the connection to the ancestors and wehave the connection to the land and and I think that one thing that gets mold in the history of our enslavement is thatwe were actually agricultural engineers and we really uh our ancestry is reallyin building Futures and building Legacy and so one of the challenges is that theway in which the tax credit structure uh for justice 40 is set up is that thosepeople who own multif family businesses and own um multif Family Properties andhomes uh and can purchase electronic Vehicles those folks are highly incentivized to get in on the front endof the green transition and those of us in our community that are renters and tenants um and may be living in homesthat just don't have access to a lot of the techn technology even don't have access in some of our rural communitiesto internet right and and that's a way that all of this information that's being disseminated is coming through theinternet and so a huge challenge is making sure that this process that isquickly uh advancing and it seems like it's getting faster and faster as time goes by it still needs to be slow enoughto be at the pace of what our community can respond to our community you've heard these experts on this panel um ourcommunity has the expertise we have the land we have the Cooperative Ventures weknow how to form co-ops I think a huge opportunity for us is to have more tenant cooperatives to have moreblackowned cooperatives in the same way that the rural electric companies um forthe most part don't have black representation on their boards why don't we have a a black solar Cooperativemovement where we own the grid there is a Native American wind grid that's being being developed right now I think thatwe can be positioned to be on the front lines we have the engineers that can develop the microchips all we need isthe capital uh and and that is really the opportunity that I think justice 40gives us and that's why I'm so excited that if we really come together and have these conversations um in ways that areaccessible to our people to our elders in particular we'll get all of the wisdom and the knowledge we need to takeadvantage of this opportunity thank you so much for that let me umpull in the audience here um and and and put one more question on the table but I just want to say thank you um to thepanelist really for laying out some of the most poignant considerations of a green and just transition audience nowis your opportunity to participate in the Q&A portion of the webinar please use the raised hand function so that Ican invite you to ask your question please remain on mute until I call your name if you are unable to use the raisedhand function or simply prefer to write your question you can use the Q&A box orthe chat we'll attempt to answer as many questions as we can for the remainder ofthe webinar so let me see I can't see raised hands but I think someone's goingto help me with that um but I can see a couple of questions um I Dan I just wantto say out loud someone is looking for more resources on how to access this Federal um these Federalum and so um hopefully hopefully we can get them um you know you said until November I heard a deadline Novemberlet's get that stuff to the communities um and also a couple of folks um have mentioned um just you know what arethese products what are these things that are being produced we're clearly not just talking about energy something's coming out of this um and soif we any of us want to address that that would be great but we do have a hand rais from Jacqueline Quinn heyJacqueline you want to ask your question please yes can you hear me yes ma'am loud and clear okay justexcuse me I'm I'm at work and but but I wanted to make sure that I joined in andI appreciate you ladies for um having this panel um and discussion Dr Martinis my first cousin and she invited me but I own a ranch here in Houston Texasand I had an episode where fracking was involved and in that process I have awater well system and because I have a water well system the fracking took place by a pipeline company that decidedthey were going to drill which the pipeline goes under my home and so when the fracking took place I was veryconcerned because there was this ground peanut butter residue that came all overmy property and I very concerned about how it affects my health going forwardhave having a water well system and having to contact the EnvironmentalServices have them come out and test they're saying oh everything's okay but to me it doesn't seem like everything'sokay because there's different type calcium buildup in my pipeline from mywater well system that's causing me to have to now spend more money on getting a uhwater water I'm sorry it's okay a water treatment center uhsister so I wanted to know is there a and I know I did ask the question in theQ&A um is there a local will you have a local um chapters Statewide where we canhave someone from every state or have a place where we can go to have thisconversation when we can't meet online but there's someone you can sit down and talk to who may also be able touh for my situation come out to my land and test it not like they tested it notlike the company who did it tested it but the way it would give all the details whether or not they have harmedmy property in which I live and own understood understood thank you Miss Jacqueline and I think Daniel um juloI'm I'm curious what I'm hearing a few things you know environmental Injustice um blackowned land um but also hearinguh Daniel you made a reference to you know nonprofits being able to do their own research or do their own um I thinkjulo mentioned you know we don't have the space to do our own engineering and then the financing and it feels like abroader question about what's out there what are the resources that are out there that folks can use um and if thoseresources out aren't out there what's the opportunity with this federal dollars to create the things that we don't have can either of you speak tothatI'll start Dania I think um I do want to Echo dania's Point earlier which is thatwe do actually have the experience and the resources and um this Cooperative modelis definitely one of them um the main thing that I think about when I thinkabout energy generation is ownership there is the tech techologicalability for us to own energy generation and to benefit directly fromit and so um I think that part of this is helpingpeople helping us all to understand that um the way that energy wasproduced is actually changing and it was changing before theinflation reduction act but now that public money has beenput towards that shift those public dollars are intendedto help the most vulnerable they are intended to help lowincome householdsthey are intended to be a subsidy for communities that wouldotherwise not transition with themarket so these dollars are for usand I think the more that we get that socialized within ourcommunity the the more we will find the resource you know Colette part of thiswe know is when you ask for that ask that question where are the resourceshow do I get connected there will be ananswer yeah yeah and and there are more questions about resources in the chatShar Shara um asked um how can we get connected with this group so so they canbring information to the rural community leadership um and there's a really good question by Maya in here Maya is keepingit real I hope I'm saying your name right um and it says thank you so much for this conversation my question is inresponse to the comments on the practicalities of a just transition inaddition to the dependency on some of these top emitters and transgressors foremployment talk about it there is also often somewhat of a dependency foreveryday living EG on Amazon or similar corporations for householdnecessities what are some ways to challenge or address these dependenciesin this transition how can we prepare ourselves and communities to adjust tosuch a transition what a great question that's one of those keeping it real questions thank you for that I'm curiousU Dr Dr Martin do you have a thought on this um you know we we we're talking about the pollution we're talking aboutthe health of our community we're talking about the future of it and we are part of a consumer culture that isboth polluting our communities and bringing an imbalance to the planet howdo we how do we start to wrestle with this um how do you talk about this youknow I was thinking about the industry in my community and umjust thinking for us we have industry butthey don't hire the people in our community again we are a very small rural community so we really don't havethe workforce capacity we don't have industry we don'thave um we're not really close to um colleges or places where our umresidents can go and get Workforce training no nobody's investing in our community nobody is investing in ourpeople to ensure that they have what they need to work at Big Industry so forus it's like we are being um pimped prostituted or whatever in myindustry that's in my community um nobody's there taking care of us rightyeah I would I had the opportunity to go to London where I had the opportunity to meet with the CEO of the company um andand I got a chance to speak in their shareholders meeting and they looked at me and saidthat uh I asked the question how many people actually work in your facility like I want to hear from you and theytold me 72 they said but 49 come fromgler you cannot imagine what went through my mind 49 people out of glouMississippi you're telling me work in that facility so we've been askingaround we have asked so many people we have yet to get past maybefive that we can count and they said that these people live within a Fourmile radius so for us the industry is not investing in our people not makingsure that we have a work force that's ready to for those jobs so even with wewe talking about a just transitionifry people first right we need people to be trained we need people to beskilled so they can get the jobs and right now that's just not happening weneed for us we need leadership it's unfortunate we a small rural communitybut we lack leadership we need leadership who are compassionate about people we need leadership who areconcerned about making sure that we can transition to a more green and just umindustry or Community nobody in my opinion we have no local leadershipthat's concerned so our fight is a little different because we just don't have that on the ground but we but we dohave but we do have you and I see you on the ground it might not I'm on theground doing it all tough yeah I let's let's acknowledge the number of womenfighting for their communities fighting against multinational corporations traveling and speaking truth to powerand bringing things and bringing people together but but we also have to acknowledge that um I think what you'resaying is is real people have to be able to work in these industries and theeducation system in my state of Louisiana your state of Mississippi across the red States is not built to todevelop critical thinking independent creativity it's built to serve a systemthat was meant to enslave us let's be clear about what we're training people to do um and how do we do thisdifferently how can this um how can we think about our financial systems aboutour Energy Systems about the systems of resources that we need um in a way thatdoes not uphold the oppression that is required to get this kind of profit and lossmargin to get these kind of wealth Ides to get this kind of opportunity um for the Haves and Have Nots so let's talkabout this let's let's um I just want to um I see you coming in Daniel let me just say to the audience if anyone elsewould like to raise your hand we're reading out of the Q&A um so you can feel free to post there Post in the chator raise your hand and we'll come to you Daniel over to you look like you wanted to get in on that one I did because I Iwanted to just amplify a concern that a black Forester my good friend Freddy Davis from the Federation of SouthernCooper has expressed to me and and what the they do is they go out and they help black folks manage their Forest at nocost and a lot of times I'm a black lawyer several of us are are black professionals a lot of times ourcommunity shies away from employing us and supporting black businesses or they they want to support us in ways thatdon't allow us to afford our livelihoods and our lives and so I think that onething that we do need to look at is coming out of the pandemic black women are essential in so many roles and somany opportunities that the community has we have those experts we have thosefolks um you know there's Cooperative Extension is one community resource thatI think that folks are not aware of someone mentioned testing and finding out about other government resources theland grant University in your local community the the EPA has technicalassistance providers I put the link in the chat that are in their different regions that you can go to withquestions not just about the the change Grant uh process but also environmentaljustice concerns there's a national environmental justice uh Council that meets monthly there's a call for that uhthere are so many resources and I think that a challenge is we're so um there wehave to put out all the fires at all the times and there's just so much urgency going on around us um and and so onething that I've tried to do is to develop a newsletter through usdp that domestic programs of Oxfam to send outjust kind of a concentrated list of what those information sources and resourcesare for our community um because there are uh folks that are poised to provideWorkforce training I know that there's several oxan partners that do Workforce training one of those is the Deep SouthCenter for environmental justice and they've been doing Workforce training since Katrina and so I just wanted toamplify that we when I say that we have everything we need one thing that we need to realize is there's no group thathas an advantage in a just transition since the Industrial Revolution Humanityhas relied on fossil fuels and so as black folks who have a particularizedunderstanding of underinvestment and making something out of nothing I'm originally from Jamaica I was thinkingabout it this morning how we re we've been recyclin since before it was like a thing I think that's just like a part ofbeing black in this world and so we have so many Innovations we just never hadthe resources we just never had the financing to make sure that those businesses could be in our communitiesand we know what happened with black wall streets so I just want to amplify and assert again that these resourcesthat we finally have a chance to access can make the difference between our ideas and implementing those solutionsfor our communities and and let's talk about the solutions I want to bring in Dove Dove's comments uh they live in anapartment building what resources are available to us and I I want to say what I hear from that which is if we'retalking about solar and wind right you got so not everybody has a farm or a ranch you know um shout out to the tothe to the ones who held on to it and the ones who do but a significant number of black folks live in apartments livein these Urban settings what do they have available to them a julo specifically when it comes to solar windhow do we think about this um in in that regard can you speak to that in our last couple of minutesI sure sure I can so just you know briefly in response to thatquestion um despite the fact that we have a significant amount of resources we arealso constrained by our regulatory environments and so for instance if youare in the Southeast we're unfortunately are not able to take advantage of things likeCommunity solar so we have to think about ways to be more creative in the way that we umdesign our projects so that people can um directly benefit from them and aCooperative ownership model is one way to do that um the other piece I wanted to bring in and related to Dan's commentis that as black womenwe adaptand there will be a significant amount of change not just in the um naturalenvironment as a result of climate change but also from a policyperspective with the rollbacks and the um um outward oppression of people ofcolor that is increasing the idea that we can have umprogram programs or initiatives that are specifically designed for black andbrown people is under legal attack it is it not only is it getting rolled backbut it's becoming illegal so it's it it behooves us asblack women to think about how we adapt yeah in this new environment and that isone of our you know I hate our superpowers we do this yeah I like thathash weo this hash weo this Sophia I hate to I hate to end it here um but Ido want to thank the panelists and Sophia call you back in to say we didn't finish we got more to talk about I hopey'all doing another round I hope this ain't it um we hope there's um we're number two and four we hope that there'smore good conversation but I'll turn it over to you with my deep thanks um and respect to all of the panelists today umand for having this conversation and for starting raising and ENT ing Mississippiif we don't have Mississippi we do not win a over to youSophia wow thank you all so much for this really rich and dynamicconversation um thank you so much for joining us today spending an hour with us I want to thank our moderator Coletteour amazing panelists Dana Dr Martin and ajulo you all have my deepest gratitudeyou're doing the work and you're doing it beautifully um just thank you for thank you everyonefor joining us we all have the power as has as we've talked about not only toadapt but to create a a just and Equitable future for everyone um a cleanenergy future a future that we deserve that prioritizes the care of our communities over the pocket books ofbillionaires and millionaires um and these fossil fuel companies the wayforward is clear we need a decisive break from the fossil fuelinfrastructure and we just need to embrace clean energy Alternatives that are at ourdisposal please scan the QR code on the screen if you can sign the petition tostop dangerous gas emissions uh we are going to be coming back for our thirdround of webinars um on June 13th but before that we are going to have a veryspecial web inar that our campaigns team is running on um methane gas on June 3rplease join us for that join that call to action it's going to be on June 3rd at 800m we will be following up with allof you with additional resources and a thank you email um by tomorrow thank youso much for joining us and spending time withus for
This webinar brings researchers, entrepreneurs, and economic development and financial experts together to discuss how we can create an equitable, inclusive, and dynamic economy to benefit all Americans.
Show video transcript
00:00:00.359 we got you beat over
00:00:02.240 here and so I'm glad to be here amongst
00:00:05.600 this panel to talk about economic
00:00:07.600 opportunities for particularly for black
00:00:09.960 women and I'm looking forward to this
00:00:13.320 discussion thank you Julie next we have
00:00:16.520 Sabrina Stratton she is the senior vice
00:00:19.480 president of Northeast Regional director
00:00:23.039 welcome Sabrina you have a few words
00:00:26.039 thank you so much Cassandra uh I extend
00:00:29.080 my sincere appre appreciation to Oxfam
00:00:31.640 and my fellow panelists um for the
00:00:33.600 opportunity to be a part of this
00:00:35.640 discussion um I spent my entire career
00:00:38.399 for the most part in the financial
00:00:40.039 services sector with most recently I
00:00:42.079 work for Amalgamated Bank um and serve
00:00:44.440 as Northeast Regional director uh
00:00:46.480 overseeing our Commercial Bank uh my
00:00:49.320 personal experience though with banks
00:00:51.399 began long before my career uh right
00:00:54.480 after college I vividly recall walking
00:00:56.840 into a bank with very little knowledge
00:00:58.719 of how accounts work
00:01:00.600 and fortunately someone took the time to
00:01:03.160 really explain good money management
00:01:05.400 leaving a lasting impact on me this
00:01:08.479 experience really sparked my interest in
00:01:11.040 banking and drives my commitment to
00:01:13.280 Equitable Financial access today uh
00:01:15.880 throughout my 20 plus career in banking
00:01:17.880 I've always tried to make sure Equity
00:01:19.640 was a part of the conversation which is
00:01:22.040 why it was an easy decision for me to
00:01:23.759 move over to Amalgamated Bank the
00:01:26.079 country's largest socially responsible
00:01:27.960 Bank where I was part of a team to
00:01:30.119 create aund million racial Equity Loan
00:01:32.640 Fund among other successes um
00:01:35.399 Amalgamated Bank just a little bit for
00:01:37.040 you all um was started by a union of
00:01:39.399 immigrant women um when they uh found
00:01:41.880 that the banking system at that time was
00:01:43.320 not Equitable throughout our 100 plus
00:01:46.040 year history we have prioritized
00:01:47.880 providing banking Solutions and
00:01:49.479 advocating for the most marginal
00:01:51.000 marginalized through our work with
00:01:52.479 unions nonprofit foundations and other
00:01:56.119 organizations um I definitely am looking
00:01:58.200 forward to being a part of the
00:01:59.520 discussion today and um taking part in
00:02:01.719 such an important conversation thank you
00:02:03.960 again Cassandra thank you Sabrina next
00:02:06.520 we have Dr Gloria um bramel tanbu she is
00:02:11.400 the applied Economist and agricultural
00:02:14.560 Economist at tusi University Dr
00:02:18.599 ubu yes thank you Cassandra and good
00:02:21.599 afternoon everyone I am delighted to be
00:02:24.560 here and honored that I was asked to
00:02:27.640 participate on this illustrious panel
00:02:31.239 of amazing uh young women who are doing
00:02:34.760 amazing things um it's kind
00:02:38.920 of I'm a little bit perturbed right now
00:02:42.959 because of the the uh ruling by the
00:02:46.680 court here in Georgia regarding the
00:02:49.040 Fearless fund so today while I had
00:02:52.879 certain prepared remarks I'm going to
00:02:54.959 incorporate some of my feelings
00:02:57.519 concerning that as well um we know that
00:03:01.200 black women business owners are powering
00:03:04.599 this economy and growing fast but to
00:03:08.319 have um this fund be challenged in the
00:03:11.519 way that it was is a is a is a cry or a
00:03:15.560 call for us to unleash our potential
00:03:19.280 when it comes to um economics so and
00:03:22.760 business ownership uh we have to respond
00:03:25.720 to this attack in a
00:03:28.760 very Fierce way and be un uh afraid and
00:03:34.760 fearless in our response so I'm excited
00:03:37.519 to be here and look forward to our
00:03:41.000 discussion Dr tanbu I'm so glad you
00:03:43.560 brought that up and we stand in
00:03:45.400 solidarity with the Fearless fund um as
00:03:47.720 well I know all of us do and so looking
00:03:50.080 forward to educating the public and
00:03:52.720 bringing in that conversation and last
00:03:55.519 but not least uh we have uh rahama right
00:03:59.799 she's the founder and CEO of Shia
00:04:03.360 yalen
00:04:04.879 Rah good afternoon everyone thank you
00:04:07.400 Cassandra and thank you Oxfam for
00:04:09.599 facilitating this conversation it's such
00:04:11.480 an important one I am the founder of
00:04:14.239 shayene which is a DC based social
00:04:16.478 impact Beauty brand I started after
00:04:19.000 serving in the peace score after college
00:04:21.399 and what my company does is we help
00:04:23.400 women in rural communities of Northern
00:04:25.240 Ghana take this seed which is the Sha
00:04:28.199 seed it grows exclusively in subsaharan
00:04:30.400 Africa and they transform it into an oil
00:04:33.000 that I'm sure everyone here knows about
00:04:34.720 shea butter and then we create retail
00:04:36.800 ready products that we distribute to us
00:04:39.080 retailers and through this business
00:04:41.000 model we increase women's income five
00:04:42.919 times their country's minimum wage and
00:04:45.120 at the foundation of our business model
00:04:47.199 is how to incorporate women who
00:04:50.320 historically have been in the informal
00:04:52.320 market and have not been included in
00:04:56.400 formal markets included in Global Supply
00:04:59.080 and value chains in a way that allows
00:05:01.080 them to address systemic poverty in
00:05:03.440 their communities um through building
00:05:06.160 this business we're able to see that
00:05:07.840 women are in a position to send their
00:05:10.039 kids to better schools Access Health
00:05:12.960 Services um access better nutrition and
00:05:16.080 it's a real example of how if you can
00:05:18.199 create business models that include
00:05:21.560 women who have historically been
00:05:23.800 excluded into formal markets you can
00:05:25.840 really see advancements in their ability
00:05:28.639 to generate sufficient income to care
00:05:30.360 for themselves and their children and we
00:05:32.560 are replicating this model in Washington
00:05:34.600 DC I live in DC and we are building uh
00:05:39.280 the first commercial shared Beauty
00:05:41.080 manufacturing facility in Ward 7 for
00:05:44.039 those of you who know about the various
00:05:46.039 Wards in DC it's a one of the wards that
00:05:48.680 historically has been underserved and
00:05:51.280 what we're doing is we're building a
00:05:53.080 facility that will help other Beauty
00:05:55.759 brand owners run by black women run by
00:05:58.280 women of color who have issues
00:06:01.120 addressing manufacturing constraints and
00:06:04.120 so the beauty industry is a huge one in
00:06:06.240 the US uh black women we are one of the
00:06:10.520 biggest consumers of beauty products and
00:06:13.039 the reality is not enough of our
00:06:14.880 businesses actually generate sufficient
00:06:16.919 income and so what we're doing is we're
00:06:19.319 addressing some of those barriers to
00:06:20.840 entry and creating a facility that will
00:06:24.199 allow for brand owners to access
00:06:27.960 resources as well as access
00:06:30.039 manufacturing Solutions so that they can
00:06:32.039 launch and grow amazing personal care
00:06:34.599 and wellness Brands so I'm really
00:06:36.240 excited to be here and be a part of this
00:06:38.560 conversation thank you so much for that
00:06:40.759 that's really inspiring and exciting and
00:06:42.599 I said the name of the company wrong so
00:06:44.680 is Shay Yen that's correct yen is bombar
00:06:49.400 it's the language I learned when I was
00:06:50.840 peace volunteer and it means light and
00:06:52.880 hope so we're bringing light to the
00:06:54.960 issues of disparities for these women
00:06:56.919 that we work with and hope by giving
00:06:58.639 them access to living wage jobs awesome
00:07:02.160 thank you so much I understand um here
00:07:04.440 at the Mississippi black women's Round
00:07:05.720 Table um we you know push um an agenda
00:07:09.680 called uh the Mississippi women's
00:07:11.199 Economic Security initiative where we're
00:07:12.879 advocating for increasing in wages right
00:07:16.759 uh and we understand that we got to be
00:07:18.280 Innovative and we also got to hold you
00:07:20.479 know um elected officials accountable
00:07:23.360 and companies accountable on how they
00:07:25.560 are um treating and paying our women so
00:07:28.479 let's jump right into to um the
00:07:31.160 conversation and I am going to start um
00:07:35.919 uh with you Julie um I'm sorry with you
00:07:40.400 Dr T tanu So Dr tanbu four decades ago
00:07:45.199 you sounded the alarm on the
00:07:47.240 institutionalized land theft experienced
00:07:50.159 by Southern black family land owners and
00:07:53.479 the role that played in wealth
00:07:56.039 disparities now over 40 years later new
00:07:59.520 economic opportunities for family land
00:08:01.599 owners are being created by federal
00:08:03.720 agencies including USDA and FEMA and
00:08:07.080 today you are a lead researcher and
00:08:09.479 author of Tuskegee annual report state
00:08:12.039 of African-Americans in the black belt
00:08:15.199 can you share some of the historic
00:08:17.080 policies and politics that resulted in
00:08:20.000 black women's over representation in low
00:08:22.280 wage jobs and low wealth communities
00:08:30.720 you're on
00:08:33.440 mute thank you
00:08:35.599 Cassandra in order to really give the
00:08:38.880 audience a a good sense of why we're
00:08:42.360 where we are today in terms of the over
00:08:45.399 representation of black women in low
00:08:48.120 wage jobs and low wealth communities we
00:08:50.399 have to start with the beginning of this
00:08:52.440 country the founding of this place right
00:08:55.279 um and I want to share with you a quote
00:08:58.320 from one of my favorite writers Lon
00:09:01.560 Bennett um he wrote a book The shaping
00:09:04.200 of Black America and if you have not
00:09:06.000 read that book I want to make that
00:09:07.880 assignment to you as a former Professor
00:09:11.079 uh at Spelman for nearly 20 years and
00:09:13.160 currently uh an associate professor
00:09:16.079 Tuskegee I want to just let let me share
00:09:18.399 a couple of things with you this is what
00:09:19.959 he said he said a nation is a
00:09:22.839 choice it chooses itself at faithful
00:09:25.800 Forks in the road by turning left or
00:09:28.959 right by giving up something or taking
00:09:31.480 something and in the giving up and the
00:09:33.880 taking in the deciding and not deciding
00:09:36.920 the nation
00:09:38.360 becomes then he goes on to say America
00:09:41.560 became America that way Fork by Fork it
00:09:47.000 became America that
00:09:49.600 way America or to be more precise the
00:09:53.160 men who spoke in the name of America
00:09:55.000 decided that it was going to be a white
00:09:57.240 Place defined negatively by the bodies
00:10:00.200 and the blood of the Reds and the black
00:10:02.440 and that decision which which was made
00:10:04.480 in the
00:10:05.560 1660s a policy
00:10:07.760 decision and elaborated over 200 over a
00:10:11.399 200 year period foreclosed certain
00:10:13.920 possibilities in America perhaps forever
00:10:17.440 and set off depth charges that are still
00:10:20.640 echoing and re-echoing in the
00:10:23.880 Commonwealth what makes this all the
00:10:26.240 more mournful is that it didn't have to
00:10:28.640 happen that way
00:10:30.040 there was another road but that road
00:10:32.000 wasn't taken in the beginning as we have
00:10:34.839 seen there was no race problem in
00:10:36.920 America the race problem in America was
00:10:40.120 a deliberate invention of men who
00:10:43.880 systematically separated blacks and
00:10:46.160 whites in order to make money so that's
00:10:49.560 the foundation that's this that's the
00:10:51.760 stage right and we would later on see
00:10:56.200 that black women as a part of this
00:10:59.720 process were then used as the basis for
00:11:03.600 enslaving generations of people after
00:11:06.120 that because slaves were defined by the
00:11:10.000 the the the the status of their mother
00:11:12.360 so black women were enslaved so all of
00:11:15.120 their forbears
00:11:18.200 were uh their descendants rather were in
00:11:23.399 considered enslaves so black women was
00:11:25.959 the intrical tool that was used in
00:11:28.040 policy from the early days so we lead up
00:11:31.959 to the Civil War so from
00:11:35.079 16007 when the king of England first
00:11:38.760 sent the Virginia Company which was a
00:11:41.040 private company of investors so this com
00:11:45.000 this country was started by folks who
00:11:46.560 were trying to make money in the colon
00:11:49.440 colonization game right maximizing
00:11:53.000 profits and supported by the king of
00:11:55.800 England because they were in poverty
00:11:58.240 because of the en closure movement and
00:12:00.079 all that stuff so that's how this
00:12:01.760 country got started right and and and
00:12:04.600 those policies forever have shaped the
00:12:08.839 trajectory of black people and black
00:12:11.399 women in particular in this country so
00:12:13.680 we get to the the the the American
00:12:16.800 Revolution which didn't change anything
00:12:19.240 for black people and black women because
00:12:21.519 we continued to be enslaved and then we
00:12:24.720 have the short period of
00:12:27.240 reconstruction that began
00:12:29.880 changes for us but then that was
00:12:31.560 shortlived and then we had a hundred
00:12:33.360 years of Jim
00:12:35.519 Crow but but in six
00:12:38.000 1862 President Lincoln created the
00:12:40.880 Department of
00:12:42.279 Agriculture which
00:12:45.160 was affirmative action for the
00:12:47.760 plantation owners because we know if
00:12:50.680 you've been keeping up with what's
00:12:52.399 happening there they were exclusively
00:12:54.199 used to benefit white farmers and so
00:12:57.639 from 16007
00:13:00.079 to today this country has been really
00:13:03.720 affirmative action for the majority and
00:13:08.399 nothing really crumbs for the rest of
00:13:11.360 us in 19 in the 1960s through the Civil
00:13:15.519 Rights
00:13:17.000 Movement they passed laws that did
00:13:20.519 certain things to benefit us but they
00:13:22.600 also gave George Wallace and some other
00:13:25.959 folks the Appalachian Regional
00:13:28.040 Commission
00:13:29.880 which they got a billion dollars to
00:13:32.760 begin to pour into many of the southern
00:13:35.560 states so
00:13:37.880 financially even during the Civil Rights
00:13:40.480 Movement the The South was rewarded for
00:13:43.800 for going along with the Civil Rights
00:13:45.839 Movement just as they were rewarded for
00:13:48.000 going along or or or as a result of the
00:13:50.480 Civil War movement so today we are still
00:13:54.199 as Lon Bennett said Echo echoing and
00:13:57.959 re-echoing all this stuff and it's
00:14:00.360 because of what this nation is and who
00:14:03.680 who it was founded for and I want to
00:14:05.199 share one final quote
00:14:08.360 by Alexander Stevens of Georgia and it's
00:14:12.320 only appropriate that we' talk about him
00:14:14.399 he was the vest Vice President of the
00:14:16.800 Confederacy this is what he said in
00:14:19.560 18661 right right be right after Lincoln
00:14:23.079 was elected president he said our new
00:14:25.759 government which is a conf Confederacy
00:14:28.600 was found founded on
00:14:30.680 slavery its foundations are laid its
00:14:34.160 cornerstones rest upon the great truth
00:14:37.079 that the Negro is not equal to the white
00:14:39.880 man and that slavery which is submission
00:14:43.199 to the superior race is his natural and
00:14:46.800 normal condition this is our new
00:14:50.759 government is is this our new government
00:14:54.199 is the first in the history of the world
00:14:57.199 based upon this great physical
00:14:59.480 philosophical and moral truth it wasn't
00:15:02.079 just the confeder Confederacy it was
00:15:04.880 this entire
00:15:06.519 country that was based on that
00:15:09.519 philosophy that the Negro was not equal
00:15:13.079 to the white man right so this is the
00:15:16.720 foundation that was laid and we've been
00:15:19.759 struggling with this for centuries and
00:15:23.120 unless we shift the trajectory and begin
00:15:27.079 to use the consumer purchase ing power
00:15:29.639 that we have and directing our resources
00:15:32.759 to black women business
00:15:35.560 owners to meet unmet needs in our
00:15:38.360 communities we're going to continue to
00:15:40.639 have the struggle so for me I'm 71 I'm a
00:15:43.560 grandmother I don't my grandchildren and
00:15:46.319 my grandsons and granddaughter will not
00:15:48.560 inherit this me this mess if I have
00:15:50.800 anything to do with it so I'm ready to
00:15:52.639 fight y'all I'm ready to take it to
00:15:55.800 whomever we need to take it to so that
00:15:58.199 we can create a path that is not the
00:16:01.680 path that we've been on since
00:16:04.399 1619 when we came into this country so I
00:16:08.360 don't know how much time I have left or
00:16:10.079 if I've gone over my time you are good
00:16:12.759 on your time right now thank all right
00:16:14.959 so thank you so much we'll talk more but
00:16:17.120 we have all that we need to take it to
00:16:20.279 the next level and we can start here in
00:16:22.319 Georgia just like we started with the
00:16:24.240 election and on the political side it's
00:16:26.800 n it's now time for us to have an
00:16:29.160 economic Revolution led by black women
00:16:32.920 in Georgia thank you so much Dr tanu um
00:16:37.720 you have kicked us off I got Hearts all
00:16:40.680 on the screen you have fired us up
00:16:42.920 absolutely and I think about this so
00:16:45.000 much on the lasting impacts of it being
00:16:48.120 left also in the South and still where
00:16:50.480 we have a majority of black people in
00:16:52.920 the South and where we have households
00:16:54.759 led by women majority of them are black
00:16:57.079 women in the South and so let's just go
00:16:59.839 keep going this is good conversation
00:17:02.360 Julie so you heard Dr tanu um outline
00:17:06.359 some of the historic and institutional
00:17:08.240 challenges that have attempted to lock
00:17:10.760 black women into low wage and essential
00:17:12.919 jobs and undermine their economic
00:17:15.000 Mobility um as the executive director of
00:17:17.319 the Council of black architecture and
00:17:19.199 engineering companies can you share the
00:17:21.640 role of local government contracts and
00:17:24.119 upward Mo economic mobility and the key
00:17:27.520 barriers or challenges that black women
00:17:30.000 own firms face in winning city and state
00:17:33.720 contracts this is important
00:17:46.960 conversation I'm sorry y'all it it it is
00:17:49.640 an important U conversation and Dr T has
00:17:53.320 me fired up as well goodness I want to
00:17:55.720 go outside and just really get to work
00:17:57.760 on anything to make make us go further
00:18:00.039 but one of the things that I put a lot
00:18:02.360 of my energy and effort into is public
00:18:05.400 policy around public Contracting public
00:18:08.400 Contracting is anywhere between 50 and
00:18:10.760 20% of our GDP of our economy think
00:18:14.039 about it anything you can think about
00:18:15.799 the government buys from designing and
00:18:17.880 constructing schools Parks airports
00:18:20.840 hospitals playgrounds providing Health
00:18:23.880 Services daycare repairing roads Bridges
00:18:27.480 IT consulting food beverages you name it
00:18:30.799 the government box and I think what
00:18:33.440 we're looking at is really focusing on
00:18:35.799 activities where the government's
00:18:37.679 purchasing power can drive economic
00:18:41.080 Mobility think about this that
00:18:43.480 purchasing power is one of the biggest
00:18:45.120 job creators that we have in America and
00:18:48.760 the counterweights I think someone
00:18:50.520 talked about it earlier the society all
00:18:53.000 attached to our jobs like Health Care
00:18:55.440 the ability to afford decent housing
00:18:57.880 educational supps for our children
00:19:01.000 transportation and one of the things
00:19:02.840 that I find that most people view public
00:19:05.240 Contracting is is like they're giving
00:19:06.960 something away to us like it's a social
00:19:08.960 program but truly the essence of public
00:19:11.640 Contracting because it creates jobs and
00:19:14.200 all the everything around that that's
00:19:15.840 tangental to that it's it's it's a
00:19:18.200 economic development program and one of
00:19:20.760 the things that I think that we have to
00:19:22.400 look at when we look at public
00:19:23.799 Contracting is
00:19:25.679 intentionality and and one of our
00:19:28.760 biggest barriers is access to
00:19:31.039 Opportunities and so one of the things
00:19:33.000 that I want to talk about is some good
00:19:34.799 public um programs and good public
00:19:38.120 policy that really moves forward our
00:19:41.360 economic agenda and our ability to
00:19:44.120 participate in the economy through one
00:19:46.600 public Contracting which creates jobs
00:19:49.360 and one of the first programs I want to
00:19:50.919 talk about is a New York City has a
00:19:53.600 community hiring program and that's one
00:19:55.880 of they're looking to harness their
00:19:58.039 public procur
00:19:59.440 opportunities to create local jobs for
00:20:01.919 folks in those communities where these
00:20:04.480 opportunities and these projects are and
00:20:06.799 I think that's really good because
00:20:08.400 there's a lot of stuff I mean you think
00:20:10.360 about I'm gon build a bridge and you
00:20:11.720 think about the engineering and the
00:20:13.799 construction management and some of the
00:20:15.320 Professional Services but there are a
00:20:17.400 lot of things that are adjacent to that
00:20:19.360 that especially low economic women or
00:20:22.320 low to low moderate income women can do
00:20:25.240 on these projects they hire everything
00:20:27.039 from secretaries to flag folks to you
00:20:29.960 name it they hire them and I think that
00:20:31.880 we need to really look at getting into
00:20:33.679 those opportunities because we are in
00:20:36.480 this worldclass investment and
00:20:38.440 infrastructure like we haven't seen in
00:20:40.520 this time any time in history and I
00:20:44.000 think the usdot also has a great program
00:20:47.200 where they're looking to expand local
00:20:49.080 hiring and Workforce Development and the
00:20:51.679 whole purpose is so that these good jobs
00:20:53.840 can create meaningful careers as well
00:20:56.200 because think about this some of these
00:20:57.840 projects last 20 years and so if you get
00:21:00.360 on one of these projects in a job you're
00:21:02.559 going to get higher wages and also have
00:21:04.799 opportunity to have economic means for
00:21:07.000 years one of the things that I'm excited
00:21:09.480 about the Biden Administration that they
00:21:11.240 did is what the first executive order
00:21:13.760 the first thing he did when he and vice
00:21:16.520 president Harris took office was he
00:21:18.640 signed executive order
00:21:20.799 13985 which is um furthering advancing
00:21:24.279 racial equity and support for
00:21:25.799 underserved communities through the
00:21:27.679 federal government the harness the power
00:21:30.000 of the federal government to create
00:21:31.400 economic opportunities and if you look
00:21:33.840 at that executive order number section
00:21:36.279 seven talks about advancing Equitable
00:21:39.480 procurement and they they put in place
00:21:42.400 where the government wide goal for
00:21:44.559 federal procurement dollars awarded or
00:21:46.760 on all of each agencies and all of these
00:21:49.799 projects to really include
00:21:52.120 socioeconomic disadvantage individuals
00:21:55.039 and so they looking at a whole approach
00:21:57.480 of government through procurement to one
00:21:59.919 create economic opportunities and these
00:22:02.400 good paying jobs will kind of lessen the
00:22:04.120 wealth Gap that's something that we
00:22:05.360 don't talk about too much and one of the
00:22:08.240 things that I work with this wonderful
00:22:09.919 agency in New York is one of my favorite
00:22:11.480 agencies and there's a guy there who's
00:22:13.760 really an economic activist Dr Keith
00:22:16.600 Wright we work together with him and the
00:22:18.640 executive director Rick cotton to put
00:22:21.080 together a discretionary program and a
00:22:24.039 small contracts program so that smaller
00:22:27.039 businesses smaller women black and
00:22:30.320 Latino owned businesses can have an
00:22:33.080 opportunity to compete against each
00:22:34.919 other in discretionary Awards with small
00:22:37.840 contracts most people tend to think of
00:22:40.000 agencies as uh having all these big Mega
00:22:42.480 projects and big contracts when really
00:22:45.159 they buy in smaller increments so this
00:22:47.360 was an intentional program set to look
00:22:49.679 at those smaller projects and those
00:22:51.240 smaller um opportunities so that that
00:22:54.360 they can put them to us so that we can
00:22:57.200 compete against each other and and
00:22:58.720 actually be successful in winning today
00:23:01.080 they've put the I want to say they've
00:23:02.840 awarded hundreds of million dollars to
00:23:04.640 small women and and um economically
00:23:08.640 underserved or underutilized businesses
00:23:10.880 it's been great and one other thing that
00:23:13.200 I will talk about that I know that a lot
00:23:15.960 of folks don't know is section three of
00:23:18.200 the 1968 Housing and Development act and
00:23:21.600 that says that certain programs that are
00:23:24.120 covered by Hud funds that they are to
00:23:27.080 the greatest extent feasible required to
00:23:29.440 provide training employment Contracting
00:23:32.440 and other economic opportunities to low
00:23:34.520 and very low income persons and so
00:23:37.240 especially those who are the recipients
00:23:39.039 of public housing and to the businesses
00:23:42.039 that are providing services in those
00:23:43.720 areas and I think looking at the
00:23:45.640 government and the opportunities that
00:23:47.360 they have to drive um wealth and and
00:23:50.559 create economic opportunities is very
00:23:52.559 important just think about this 20% of
00:23:55.000 our economy and a lot of us are not
00:23:57.799 involved in in and I think from when
00:24:00.400 they're buying from food to beverages
00:24:02.760 there's a lot of us that provide a lot
00:24:04.279 of services that we can take advantage
00:24:07.760 of these economic
00:24:11.360 opportunities and oh some of the
00:24:13.120 barriers and access opportunities one of
00:24:15.520 the biggest barriers that we have and
00:24:17.559 through the intentionalities of these
00:24:19.320 programs that some of the policy that I
00:24:22.120 spoke of I think we can address some of
00:24:23.960 those and one of my biggest pet peeve is
00:24:26.159 when I hear them say oh they don't have
00:24:27.880 the Capac capacity to do work well
00:24:30.279 opportunity creates capacities not the
00:24:32.320 other way around and I think we've been
00:24:35.000 at the as Dr um said earlier we've been
00:24:38.240 at the Forefront of all this we lead a
00:24:39.880 lot of this stuff think about this when
00:24:41.919 we were in slavery we we innovated a lot
00:24:44.679 of the things that we use today we put
00:24:47.159 together a lot of programs then when we
00:24:49.159 came out we had the opportunities to use
00:24:51.640 that and what they tell us then in
00:24:53.440 slavery when we were doing all this work
00:24:55.279 we had all these skills we they wanted
00:24:57.480 us to do all this work then as soon as
00:24:59.360 we start asking for equal pay or right
00:25:01.360 to be paid all of a sudden we have no
00:25:03.000 capacity no skills and no ability where
00:25:05.960 where did it go where did it disappear
00:25:07.440 to so that's where I spend my time and
00:25:09.679 energy looking at public policy to
00:25:12.039 address some of these disparities and
00:25:14.360 especially for our underutilized black
00:25:16.120 women on businesses Julie wow you did
00:25:19.799 you just I know I talked fast and I said
00:25:21.880 lot did you just say opportunity creates
00:25:24.120 the capacity opportunity creates
00:25:26.520 capacity yes yes and we're going to come
00:25:28.880 back around on that I completely agree
00:25:32.240 uh you got to provide the opportunities
00:25:34.559 for people to you know step into these
00:25:38.440 roles and these positions because now
00:25:40.360 we're talking about you know not lifting
00:25:42.799 up that individual but lifting up a
00:25:44.960 household and a household lifts up a
00:25:46.840 whole community and they all are
00:25:48.960 interconnected and so yes this is this
00:25:52.559 is really good okay the next go Ahad yes
00:25:55.960 I was just gonna say our economy is
00:25:57.480 circular we're all interdependent on
00:25:59.600 each other and if I can provide a job I
00:26:02.279 get a a contract I provide a job I'm
00:26:04.120 going to go buy me some
00:26:05.360 shaying and she's going to be able to
00:26:07.240 keep some people in work and so that's
00:26:09.720 the one thing that when you listen to
00:26:11.600 the all the talk on the economy it's not
00:26:13.840 Wall Street it's our street it's Dr
00:26:16.240 Martin Luther King Boulevard that keeps
00:26:17.799 our economy going I say that because
00:26:19.279 every Community has a MLK Boulevard
00:26:21.960 absolutely thank you let's switch a
00:26:24.760 little bit to Solutions and models
00:26:27.279 Sabrina um you are the head of
00:26:30.159 Commercial Banking and Amalgamated Bank
00:26:34.320 um Bank America's most socially
00:26:37.600 responsible Bank uh what is the role of
00:26:41.159 the banking sector in closing the racial
00:26:43.880 wealth Gap in spurring investment in
00:26:46.720 underserved communities and more
00:26:49.399 specifically can you outline some of the
00:26:51.880 steps that low wage earners can um take
00:26:55.399 towards assessing Capital to start their
00:26:58.279 their own
00:26:59.360 businesses absolutely and um you know
00:27:02.600 the first thing I'll do is take the
00:27:04.440 question um around discussing the role
00:27:08.320 of the banking sector in closing the
00:27:10.000 racial wealth Gap um these are most of
00:27:13.880 what I will say today all of us know and
00:27:18.600 um you know some of this um you know may
00:27:21.240 be new to you but a lot of this are
00:27:23.279 facts that we just we we already know
00:27:25.279 exist today including that the sign ific
00:27:28.559 earnings Gap that exists between black
00:27:30.799 women white women and men drives the
00:27:34.320 racial disparities that we see today so
00:27:37.399 um what I like to let people know is
00:27:39.320 like the primary wealth building years
00:27:41.480 which is typically ages 20 to 35 for po
00:27:44.720 people um again I want to stress the
00:27:47.320 wealth building years coincide with the
00:27:50.720 largest earnings Gap that black women
00:27:53.960 face among their white counterparts and
00:27:57.120 white men this is a critical time where
00:28:00.200 black women face lower access to higher
00:28:03.399 return generating assets such as home
00:28:05.640 ownership and
00:28:06.919 Investments but they have higher
00:28:09.120 exposure to higher cost
00:28:11.559 liabilities uh compared to their white
00:28:13.679 counterpart so you can see they have
00:28:15.760 lower access to higher return assets but
00:28:20.240 higher exposure to high cost
00:28:23.519 liabilities um in addition to that
00:28:26.679 private business owners who contribut
00:28:28.480 significantly to Total wealth um even
00:28:31.960 though they only comprise the 15% of the
00:28:34.559 population um comprise and contribute
00:28:37.360 significantly to the total wealth of
00:28:38.960 this country however black business
00:28:41.360 owners particularly black women often
00:28:43.679 have to are not a part of that you know
00:28:46.039 contributing to Total wealth and often
00:28:47.600 have to rely on personal debt rather
00:28:50.480 than bank loans um which are more
00:28:53.240 expensive to be able to fund their
00:28:54.960 financing needs um we all know is needed
00:28:59.159 hence why I just want to plug in the
00:29:01.320 Fearless fund why funds like that are so
00:29:03.760 critically important because these
00:29:06.200 disparities exist and we have uh funds
00:29:10.760 like The Fearless fund providing Direct
00:29:12.760 Solutions to be able to help uh lower
00:29:16.039 these disparities so again you know just
00:29:18.600 want to express my support um with Dr
00:29:22.080 tbu and and others with the Fearless
00:29:24.640 fund um there are a few things that the
00:29:26.640 banking sector can do one of is support
00:29:28.919 The Fearless fund among other um funds
00:29:32.480 um but also increasing business loans
00:29:35.960 products uh and supporting um other
00:29:39.000 types of Investments that are
00:29:40.559 specifically targeted for black women we
00:29:43.480 need a little bit more than the
00:29:45.000 superficial Outreach that we often see
00:29:47.799 um in the uh from the banking sector
00:29:50.080 where they have these like Grand
00:29:51.760 announcements but then we don't hear
00:29:53.559 anything later on about the results of
00:29:55.760 those like did they really impact the
00:29:57.679 black
00:29:58.760 Community um investment in the community
00:30:01.679 investment in programs that help women
00:30:04.279 to be able to uh achieve um the uh the
00:30:09.399 wealth uh in in reducing the racial
00:30:11.440 wealth Gap um a couple of things that
00:30:13.679 I'll say um from Amalgamated standpoint
00:30:15.960 is we're proud supporters of funds
00:30:17.919 similar to The Fearless fund um
00:30:19.519 particularly the entrepreneurs of color
00:30:21.120 fund the black Vision fund where we
00:30:23.440 actually take our dollars um within the
00:30:25.919 bank and um increase uh increase capital
00:30:29.720 for black and other minority owned
00:30:32.120 businesses I want to just you know one
00:30:34.600 of the things that I'll I also want to
00:30:36.760 add is um it's very important to um hire
00:30:40.279 black women I think it's Julie you
00:30:43.120 mentioned this as well like you know um
00:30:45.519 I'm just using your quote with
00:30:46.919 opportunity creates capacity when you
00:30:49.799 give black women the opportunity to lead
00:30:52.440 especially in the financial services
00:30:54.080 sector it has been proven um without a
00:30:57.600 doubt
00:30:58.679 um that profitability increases I'm
00:31:01.440 proud to say that Amalgamated Bank is
00:31:03.159 led by a black woman Priscilla Sims
00:31:04.960 Brown um and since she has taken
00:31:07.000 leadership within our bank the
00:31:08.919 profitability we have experienced the
00:31:10.360 highest profitability we've ever
00:31:11.639 experienced in the history of our bank
00:31:13.960 now what happens is when you hire black
00:31:15.519 women they in turn approach their hiring
00:31:18.039 process and a little bit more more
00:31:20.159 Equitable and when that happens what you
00:31:22.440 are doing is you are increasing the
00:31:24.960 opportunities that black women have um
00:31:27.600 to be be able to uh be wealth drivers
00:31:30.440 Wealth Builders um within their personal
00:31:32.679 lives and the communities that they are
00:31:34.799 uh that are around them um again you
00:31:37.760 know stressing that um my perspective is
00:31:40.200 coming from the financial services and I
00:31:41.840 think there's so much work that needs to
00:31:43.200 be done including making sure that we're
00:31:44.880 uplifting the black the voice of black
00:31:46.679 women um in the work that is being
00:31:49.159 done now uh I'll address the second part
00:31:52.000 of the question which is regarding low
00:31:53.519 wage earners um can take and what they
00:31:56.159 can what roles they can take and except
00:31:58.039 in capital to start their business the
00:32:00.399 reason why I started with the financial
00:32:02.279 the responsibility of the financial
00:32:03.799 sector first because there are
00:32:05.240 structural issues that are set up now
00:32:07.880 that um prevent low-wage workers um and
00:32:11.799 or workers that uh black women um and
00:32:15.639 other um and black men men from being
00:32:19.360 able to have a successful thriving
00:32:22.240 business over a long period of time but
00:32:25.799 when we put those things aside there are
00:32:28.120 some things that I would just highly
00:32:29.760 recommend that uh anyone does when
00:32:32.600 thinking about starting a business one
00:32:34.600 of them being is to take the time to
00:32:36.320 educate yourself on running a business
00:32:38.519 including developing business plans
00:32:40.399 Financial Wellness measuring
00:32:42.240 profitability competitive Advantage
00:32:44.200 market analysis among other things um
00:32:47.000 most communities have small business
00:32:49.200 hubs through public and private
00:32:51.120 Partnerships that are accessible and
00:32:53.720 offer education around what I just
00:32:55.840 mentioned at no cost at all and I would
00:32:58.559 definitely recommend exploring that in
00:33:00.960 addition in most low to moderate income
00:33:03.600 communities there are what we like to
00:33:05.440 consider community development financial
00:33:07.679 institutions and Community Banks the B
00:33:10.519 these Banks typically have a goal to
00:33:12.799 increase Financial Services in those
00:33:15.440 communities um I would just highly
00:33:17.480 recommend developing a relationship
00:33:18.880 making sure you know that they exist in
00:33:20.679 your community developing a relationship
00:33:22.480 with the people um that work there and
00:33:26.039 uh and do this before you need capital
00:33:27.799 so do this before you need loans if
00:33:29.320 you're thinking about starting a
00:33:30.480 business if you're thinking about um uh
00:33:33.760 you know doing something differently
00:33:35.240 start developing those relationships you
00:33:37.519 can visit you can speak online you can
00:33:39.440 ask questions um typically these kind of
00:33:41.679 Community Banks and Comm and Community
00:33:43.519 Development financial institutions known
00:33:45.559 as cdfis they are set up to not only
00:33:48.440 provide lending Capital um in Grants but
00:33:51.399 they're also set up to be able to um
00:33:53.919 answer questions and to be able to help
00:33:56.000 you and provide guidance and what frame
00:33:58.320 what they term as technical assistance
00:34:01.360 um again these lenders are here to serve
00:34:03.519 underserved communities um typically in
00:34:07.480 addition to providing loans typically
00:34:09.359 their loans are a little bit more laxed
00:34:10.679 than Banks um so whereas a bank may have
00:34:13.480 these very strict requirements for lend
00:34:16.040 um for you to be able to get a loan
00:34:18.639 typically with cdfi they're a little bit
00:34:20.960 more um they're a little bit more leant
00:34:23.440 as far as their terms um they also offer
00:34:25.639 grants as I mentioned technical
00:34:27.079 assistance and other
00:34:29.000 support um and uh you know just want to
00:34:33.918 uh round out the conversation by saying
00:34:36.239 that um again a lot of work needs to be
00:34:39.159 done from the financial sector
00:34:40.879 standpoint from financial institutions
00:34:42.839 to really use their power use their um
00:34:46.879 the you know their their kind of
00:34:48.599 influence in the market to really make a
00:34:51.159 change and really make this process more
00:34:53.320 Equitable um thank you thank you Sabrina
00:34:57.200 I think you something really important
00:34:58.880 which was um it's really important to
00:35:01.880 hire black
00:35:03.440 women um and when we're hiring black
00:35:07.480 women and I always say when you put
00:35:10.000 black women in any space we are thinking
00:35:12.400 about not just ourselves but our
00:35:14.000 families our communities and so um it's
00:35:17.280 really good to have you in that space
00:35:19.200 and Priscilla um as well and you being a
00:35:22.079 part of this important conversation
00:35:23.680 because we know when black women are
00:35:25.240 there we are there um not just a faith
00:35:28.040 but we bring expertise and we also are
00:35:30.040 bringing problem solving Solutions um to
00:35:32.760 our community so thank you for that um
00:35:35.800 we'll round off this first part of this
00:35:38.240 conversation um with uh
00:35:40.640 rahama uh you have been an entrepreneur
00:35:43.359 for almost 20 years and congratulations
00:35:46.240 to you for that um you are now building
00:35:49.599 a beauty maker space in Southeast DC w 7
00:35:53.920 is it w 7 yeah w s uh which is is
00:35:57.800 chronically underserved so can you just
00:36:00.599 tell us a little bit um why this Venture
00:36:04.319 why now and your advice for other black
00:36:06.599 women entrepreneurs especially uh women
00:36:09.760 who are currently earning minimum wage
00:36:12.640 and right now Mississippi uh minimum
00:36:15.280 wage is still
00:36:17.200 $725 wow so can we just talk through
00:36:20.200 that yeah well really quickly Cassandra
00:36:22.880 I just wanted to um piggy back and
00:36:25.640 respond to some of the things I've been
00:36:26.960 hearing because all of it has just been
00:36:28.520 so rich um and from a policy perspective
00:36:32.440 Julie when you were talking one of the
00:36:34.680 things that really stood out to me is
00:36:36.599 that there have been programs in other
00:36:40.839 communities that our institutions have
00:36:43.640 supported but for some reason they don't
00:36:45.760 want to support those programs in Black
00:36:48.560 communities so that's one thing that I
00:36:50.440 think is really important uh for example
00:36:53.960 Universal basic income Alaska since the
00:36:56.960 late 7 has been doing this for their
00:37:00.119 residents and for people who live in
00:37:02.160 Alaska that's a clear program that we
00:37:04.680 can look at where they essentially have
00:37:06.920 created a public trust where households
00:37:09.720 if you live in Alaska if you're a
00:37:12.000 resident of Alaska you get a check from
00:37:14.520 the government for your household
00:37:16.200 anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 we need
00:37:19.440 that in our communities reparations now
00:37:23.839 reparations now reparations now
00:37:28.160 we need to stop playing around as a
00:37:31.560 black community collectively we need to
00:37:34.720 demand
00:37:35.800 reparations period um Dr tanbu you
00:37:40.200 really gave us the historical
00:37:42.079 perspective and the truth that we all
00:37:44.599 know is that the US would not be the US
00:37:47.760 without the Free Labor of enslaved
00:37:51.640 Africans black people were not slaves we
00:37:54.480 were enslaved we need to change that
00:37:57.520 language we were never slaves we were
00:37:59.599 enslaved subjugated oppressed and that
00:38:03.280 needs to be compensated we need
00:38:06.400 reparations for that and that is not a
00:38:09.599 freebie it is not you know giving us
00:38:13.920 extra help this is what we
00:38:16.920 deserve as a demographic Block in this
00:38:21.480 Society period and that is something
00:38:23.800 that we need to collectively agree on
00:38:26.040 and fight for um so from a policy
00:38:29.000 perspective we've seen this other groups
00:38:30.839 have gotten reparations the Jewish
00:38:32.800 Community got reparations the Japanese
00:38:35.119 Community got reparations there are very
00:38:37.400 clear models that we can point to and
00:38:39.280 say well they got it why aren't we
00:38:41.200 getting it and I think that that is
00:38:42.680 something from uh policy perspective as
00:38:45.440 well as just us as a community boldly
00:38:49.520 asking boldly fighting for these things
00:38:53.400 because here's the truth no one's coming
00:38:55.960 to save us and no one's going to be
00:38:57.800 fighting for us we have to do it
00:38:59.760 ourselves and that's the reality that we
00:39:01.880 live in with that I think it's really
00:39:04.800 important that um also to Sabrina what
00:39:07.520 you were talking about everything that
00:39:10.000 we are discussing is about systems every
00:39:13.880 single thing that we are experiencing as
00:39:16.200 black people in this country and as
00:39:17.880 black people globally is because of
00:39:21.200 intentional systems that were created
00:39:24.440 implemented funded supported to ensure
00:39:28.280 that we stay back and behind and so for
00:39:31.560 me the only way we change this is by
00:39:34.200 creating new systems it's not simply
00:39:37.880 breaking down the systems that
00:39:39.400 historically have been racist but it's
00:39:41.520 about how do we create new systems how
00:39:44.760 do we challenge those systems not only
00:39:47.560 simply by using our voice and objecting
00:39:50.960 but by saying you know what we're going
00:39:52.400 to build different things and to your
00:39:55.160 point Dr tanbu it is about putting
00:39:58.000 dollars into our businesses and being
00:40:01.680 Unapologetic about supporting black
00:40:04.480 businesses period that is so critical
00:40:07.520 and important and so I've been an
00:40:09.640 entrepreneur since my early 20s I had no
00:40:12.400 business being an entrepreneur I had
00:40:14.319 never taken a business class I knew
00:40:16.240 nothing about financial models nothing
00:40:18.839 about you know marketing none of that
00:40:21.359 all I knew is I was a peace score
00:40:23.079 volunteer in a community where I saw
00:40:26.440 consistently
00:40:27.839 people who did not deserve to be living
00:40:30.160 at such levels of poverty living at
00:40:32.240 those levels of poverty and knowing very
00:40:35.400 well that their labor and their
00:40:37.280 knowledge someone else was financially
00:40:39.319 benefiting from that and that's some of
00:40:41.119 the things we need to talk about here
00:40:43.319 people are financially benefiting from
00:40:45.599 black people
00:40:47.119 daily we are contributing to our
00:40:50.359 economies locally and Global economies
00:40:53.839 and we are not being benefit we are not
00:40:57.319 benefiting from that but other people
00:41:00.079 are and I think that that's the fallacy
00:41:02.640 that we see often in traditional media
00:41:04.960 it's like black people are just chilling
00:41:06.520 in their homes not doing anything no we
00:41:09.240 are actually tremendous contributors to
00:41:11.760 the global economic system yet for some
00:41:14.880 reason when we say we should also
00:41:16.760 benefit from our labor from our
00:41:18.680 knowledge it becomes a problem and
00:41:20.640 that's what we're seeing with the
00:41:21.640 Fearless
00:41:22.960 fund and so what we need to do is call
00:41:26.200 out what these things are name him and
00:41:29.359 build new systems and so being an
00:41:31.640 entrepreneur seeing and being a
00:41:33.960 volunteer and seeing these disparities
00:41:36.560 it's what brought me to become an
00:41:38.920 entrepreneur I was I did not plan to do
00:41:40.880 this I wanted to become a Foreign
00:41:42.400 Service Officer and work at embassies
00:41:44.240 globally but after living in these
00:41:46.000 Villages and seeing the disparities I
00:41:48.119 said to myself there's got to be another
00:41:50.240 way there's got to be something that can
00:41:52.079 be done and again there was absolutely I
00:41:55.720 had no business doing this because if
00:41:57.800 you looked at what I had in terms of
00:41:59.560 resources I didn't have very much you
00:42:01.880 know I knew nothing about the beauty
00:42:03.280 industry nothing about Supply chains I
00:42:05.640 did not have any money you know I didn't
00:42:07.960 come from a wealthy family I am African
00:42:10.599 on my mom's side from Ghana and so I did
00:42:12.880 have that emotional connection to the
00:42:14.599 region and and to the community and so
00:42:17.640 over the last two decades I've been
00:42:19.880 thoughtfully building this brand in a
00:42:21.720 way that incorporates these women into
00:42:23.800 our supply chain and one of the things
00:42:25.880 that I've realized is a couple of things
00:42:29.720 one we are more than capable of Smashing
00:42:34.040 these institutions and creating our own
00:42:36.880 I did it with absolutely no resources
00:42:39.800 and to your point Julie it's the
00:42:42.119 opportunities that open the doors that
00:42:44.520 allow us to fully realize our potential
00:42:48.160 right two there is an inherent
00:42:52.400 opportunity between black people in
00:42:55.040 America and black people on the
00:42:56.839 continent
00:42:57.720 and in the Caribbean everywhere you see
00:42:59.800 black people until we figure out how to
00:43:02.720 create a stronger bond between the
00:43:05.640 diaspora we are going to continue
00:43:07.880 perpetuating these issues we need to
00:43:10.599 figure out Africa as a continent has
00:43:13.640 some of the fastest growing economies in
00:43:16.119 the world everyone is racing to the
00:43:18.720 continent to figure out what they can do
00:43:20.760 to land grab to control natural
00:43:23.200 resources because those natural
00:43:24.920 resources are powering the rest of the
00:43:27.240 World black people in America need to
00:43:29.880 show up on the continent and actively
00:43:33.119 participate in this Economic
00:43:36.319 Development the third thing is we need
00:43:39.640 to build systems in our communities here
00:43:42.280 that have been overlooked and
00:43:43.599 underserved for decades building this
00:43:46.760 facility in Washington DC our nation's
00:43:49.839 capital where we continue to see whyde
00:43:52.480 disparities and economic inequality
00:43:55.200 between black folks and white people in
00:43:57.240 this city and intentionally building
00:43:59.960 something that is addressing a very
00:44:02.000 clear paino around
00:44:04.079 manufacturing is the types of systems we
00:44:06.559 want to be building in our
00:44:08.319 communities right now in the beauty
00:44:10.599 industry McKenzie estimates that over um
00:44:14.520 the $60 billion dollar that is made in
00:44:16.920 the US beauty industry black businesses
00:44:19.960 only capture 1.5 billion of that 60
00:44:22.800 billion despite Black customers shopping
00:44:27.359 6.6 billion
00:44:30.160 annually we want that entire 6.6 billion
00:44:33.400 in our community if we're the ones
00:44:35.599 buying it it needs to be going into our
00:44:37.599 businesses but here's the reality even
00:44:40.400 though people love to say black women
00:44:42.400 are starting businesses at a higher
00:44:44.480 percent the reality is we're also
00:44:46.240 closing businesses at a higher percent
00:44:48.480 the reality is that over 96% of black
00:44:51.559 businesses in America are not employer
00:44:54.119 businesses they're sole proprietorships
00:44:56.520 the reality is according to JP Morgan
00:44:58.640 Chase if you're running if you're a
00:45:00.359 black woman running a business in
00:45:01.800 America you're generating less than
00:45:03.599 $25,000 a
00:45:05.640 year that those are the things that
00:45:07.760 we're navigating through so what does
00:45:09.880 that mean it means that we need to have
00:45:12.720 resources that are financing us so this
00:45:15.680 is why the attack on The Fearless fund
00:45:17.640 is absolutely
00:45:19.680 Insanity it means that we need to have
00:45:22.839 the mentorship and the new relationships
00:45:25.520 that can open doors and unlock
00:45:28.160 opportunities with
00:45:30.319 retailers with government contracts with
00:45:34.599 funding and then of course the technical
00:45:37.839 support to understand how to build a
00:45:40.240 business I've literally failed my way to
00:45:42.720 the success I've had it was then that
00:45:45.480 part of the reason it's taken so long is
00:45:47.760 because of the all of these systemic
00:45:49.640 things that I'm talking
00:45:51.680 about and so I want to get back to why
00:45:54.640 we're building this space if you are in
00:45:57.839 the beauty and wellness industry or you
00:46:00.720 are selling a product you can't sell
00:46:03.400 what you can't make back in the 60s and
00:46:06.000 70s black people in the beauty industry
00:46:08.760 owned manufacturing they were making
00:46:11.280 their own products when we think about
00:46:14.800 um madam CJ Walker and what she did she
00:46:18.440 was making her own product she was
00:46:20.200 building factories and then what happens
00:46:22.880 in the 80s and 90s is a lot of the
00:46:25.960 factories and the main manufacturing
00:46:27.640 that was blackowned black Le started
00:46:29.480 getting bought up by large conglomerates
00:46:32.559 right and up until now we do not have as
00:46:36.240 much um ownership in the manufacturing
00:46:39.720 industry not just in Beauty but in every
00:46:43.640 vertical that we see in every sector
00:46:45.559 that we see so for me I want to be able
00:46:48.800 to for our community to own sourcing to
00:46:52.720 own manufacturing and
00:46:55.200 distribution it's not simp simply just
00:46:57.480 one part of the supply chain we want to
00:47:00.160 own all of it and we can and we should
00:47:03.880 because we are participating in all of
00:47:05.960 it so building this facility five 10
00:47:10.280 years down from from now what we want to
00:47:12.680 be able to show is that we have small
00:47:15.920 businesses Indie businesses in the
00:47:17.839 beauty and personal care sector run by
00:47:20.880 black people run by people of color who
00:47:23.880 are owning Manufacturing who are owning
00:47:28.040 as much of the process as possible and
00:47:31.040 we've been able to do that because we've
00:47:32.880 tapped into
00:47:35.000 resources like local government grants
00:47:37.839 Sabrina we've worked with a local cdfi
00:47:40.480 the Washington AA Community investment
00:47:42.280 fund we've tapped into corporate
00:47:44.200 philanthropy to dat we've raised over a
00:47:46.440 million dollars to build this facility
00:47:48.880 and we're almost at the finish line and
00:47:51.559 I'll just leave here because I know
00:47:52.760 we're going into Q&A ownership ownership
00:47:56.079 is so important and none of this is a
00:47:59.839 handout this is what we deserve this is
00:48:02.520 what we boldly come together and ask for
00:48:05.800 because as you said Dr tinu you don't
00:48:08.000 want your grandchildren growing up
00:48:09.800 dealing with the same issues that we
00:48:11.520 have dealt with and the only way we can
00:48:14.359 do that is by building our own
00:48:19.040 systems amen
00:48:22.839 amen amen if I was in church and had my
00:48:25.800 napkin I'll just
00:48:27.920 like that but I'm just do the paper and
00:48:31.280 uh he
00:48:33.040 man that is so right um we're talking
00:48:36.760 about a system and I think you ended
00:48:39.520 where Dr tanu uh began which is this was
00:48:44.680 a deliberate system that was
00:48:47.079 created and so you know to keep black
00:48:51.119 folks black women black families um
00:48:54.599 oppressed and now it's going also take
00:48:58.559 black women to build these solutions to
00:49:02.160 rebuild the system and impact the system
00:49:04.359 so do the systems change work and we're
00:49:06.400 all in that um and so wow thank you this
00:49:11.079 this was so incredible we will go into
00:49:14.040 Q&A so I'm just going to ask folks if
00:49:16.280 you have questions go ahead and populate
00:49:18.760 them um into the chat and we're going to
00:49:21.799 get an opportunity to um to respond to
00:49:25.920 that so you all can can talk back um and
00:49:28.960 you will be able to come off mute and
00:49:31.200 ask those questions I believe that is
00:49:33.839 correct and my tech people can tell me
00:49:36.280 if if that makes sense um as you all are
00:49:39.319 doing that I just have one other
00:49:41.400 question that I want to ask um our
00:49:45.040 panelists I think some of you all have
00:49:46.680 already talked about this uh which are
00:49:50.079 which is you know what Solutions again
00:49:53.520 you know what can people do um is there
00:49:56.960 way they can get
00:49:59.160 involved um so I think some of you all
00:50:02.400 kind of hit on this but if you have um
00:50:05.200 opportunity anyone can speak um what can
00:50:08.559 people do and how can they um get
00:50:11.040 involved and we know there are um
00:50:14.160 diverse people that's on this call but
00:50:16.920 we want the folks on the call or on the
00:50:19.079 webinar to be able to take this back to
00:50:21.079 community and we will be sharing this
00:50:22.720 recording as well so what can people do
00:50:26.000 um and how can they get involved Dr uh U
00:50:29.599 you got off mute right away and then I'm
00:50:31.720 get to
00:50:32.520 you so one of the things is that we can
00:50:36.119 do is this blacks account in Georgia
00:50:39.280 let's look at its state of Georgia black
00:50:41.200 account for 33% of the
00:50:43.880 population generate only 2% of the
00:50:46.960 revenues in the state of Georgia 33% of
00:50:50.680 the population 2% of the revenues and 5%
00:50:55.000 of business ownership we need need to
00:50:57.000 change that that's the first thing we
00:50:58.880 got to work towards and we've got to set
00:51:00.920 some goals for 2030 over the next six
00:51:05.040 years and by
00:51:08.799 2040 we need to be in parody with our
00:51:12.160 pop with the population and we can put
00:51:14.280 in place systems as sister raah hmer
00:51:18.280 said that we can make that happen right
00:51:22.160 whites population is
00:51:24.599 52% they gener they account for 88% of
00:51:28.040 the revenues the business re revenues so
00:51:31.079 you see where our revenues are going we
00:51:34.040 we need to get we need to get busy 70
00:51:37.559 and they account for 79% of all business
00:51:40.200 ownership we account for
00:51:43.359 5% they account for 55% of the
00:51:46.240 population 79% of business own ownership
00:51:49.520 and 88% of business revenues there was a
00:51:52.119 study done by McKenzie and company that
00:51:54.040 says that there's over and and by the
00:51:55.920 way blacks in the state of
00:51:58.880 Georgia generate 128 billion in consumer
00:52:04.839 spending so we have the dollars already
00:52:08.079 circulating within our community that
00:52:10.839 can be spent with blackowned businesses
00:52:13.799 McKenzie and com company did a a survey
00:52:16.520 that says right now blacks are
00:52:19.359 underserved there's about $300 billion
00:52:21.960 dollars nationally that could go to
00:52:25.119 blackowned businesses or any kind of
00:52:27.119 business and and like the sister said it
00:52:29.200 needs to come to us because we are being
00:52:31.400 underserved in five areas in food in
00:52:34.839 housing in health care in broadband and
00:52:38.440 in banking my sister Sabrina those five
00:52:41.880 areas there's no reason why we can't
00:52:45.520 begin to generate businesses to meet
00:52:48.319 that undeserved demand it's about 300
00:52:50.880 billion in
00:52:52.440 business that they indicated and they've
00:52:55.440 even said that blacks are even willing
00:52:56.960 to spend a little bit more money for
00:52:59.079 those Services if they're the right kind
00:53:00.599 of services and who know better what the
00:53:02.960 right kind of services black folks need
00:53:05.280 than black
00:53:09.480 women I'm gonna stop for right now
00:53:11.720 because I want to give my others this is
00:53:12.920 the opportunity to say something I thank
00:53:15.000 you thank you
00:53:17.640 Julie yes um one of the things that I
00:53:20.640 think we can do is really educate inform
00:53:23.240 and engage and all of these programs and
00:53:26.839 opportunities we talk about I think it's
00:53:28.720 on us before social media and all this
00:53:31.400 now we have a bigger platform we knew
00:53:33.400 about everything that was going on in
00:53:35.079 the C we had a drum beat we had a a
00:53:37.920 underground communication Network and we
00:53:40.200 got to get that back going think about
00:53:42.599 this I talked about public Contracting a
00:53:44.440 trillion dollars of the economy is that
00:53:47.520 and we participate at a rate at black
00:53:49.839 women
00:53:51.880 0.2% of public contracts and it's it's
00:53:55.119 it's sad and I I think we need to change
00:53:57.280 that how can we be locked out of 20% of
00:53:59.520 the
00:54:00.400 economy think what that would mean with
00:54:02.440 home ownership and everything else
00:54:04.680 that's important to us and so I think
00:54:06.960 that we need to make sure that we inform
00:54:09.200 let folks know that these programs are
00:54:11.119 out there get um certified if you need
00:54:14.000 to um take whatever free opportunity um
00:54:18.440 technical assistant classes because
00:54:20.000 there's a lot almost every agency has
00:54:21.920 something I talked about the port author
00:54:23.640 they do things to really put us in place
00:54:25.720 to engage and be a part of it and that's
00:54:28.119 on us to really move and motivate our
00:54:30.559 folks and pull everybody along to do
00:54:34.400 that thank you great comments uh I don't
00:54:37.400 know if Sabrina of rahama if you all
00:54:39.040 want to share anything and then um
00:54:41.240 Cameron I'm just gonna ask if anyone
00:54:43.079 have their hands up we can't see that
00:54:45.280 part um we can take them off you but
00:54:47.799 I'll take it over to uh rahama and then
00:54:50.960 Sabrina yes no of course um supporting
00:54:54.640 companies like mine Shay Yen Beauty I
00:54:58.400 will drop some links in the chat and I
00:55:00.440 know that the organizers will also share
00:55:02.680 our contact
00:55:03.960 information but
00:55:06.079 um write your local politicians I think
00:55:09.480 being politically involved is very
00:55:12.000 important even though sometimes it feels
00:55:14.400 like we're just not making the progress
00:55:17.559 and when we do make progress we get
00:55:19.359 rolled back so it can be an exhausting
00:55:21.400 process but I think that there it's
00:55:23.720 really important for us to be actively
00:55:25.960 involved in the political process um
00:55:28.520 writing our Representatives you know the
00:55:30.920 Fearless fund is one great example that
00:55:33.039 we can rally around um but show up at
00:55:36.680 the City Council meetings show up at the
00:55:38.720 PTA meetings you know run for office and
00:55:42.440 there are programs like vote run lead
00:55:44.599 that help black people get into
00:55:46.920 political office and I think that it's
00:55:49.400 not just one thing that is going to
00:55:51.599 address a lot of these systemic issues
00:55:53.640 it takes all sorts of people all s of
00:55:56.720 sectors you know the private sector the
00:56:00.559 public small business owners teachers it
00:56:04.119 takes all of us but I also think too
00:56:06.559 this is such such an important thing is
00:56:09.520 there is a mindset right that the things
00:56:12.400 that we're experiencing as black people
00:56:15.200 I think that quote that you were talking
00:56:16.599 about earlier Dr Tino where it's like
00:56:19.119 this is how we are just naturally we're
00:56:22.280 just naturally supposed to be oppressed
00:56:24.359 is a fallacy but I do think think that
00:56:27.079 that is a mindset that has been
00:56:29.400 perpetuated for hundreds of years and
00:56:32.359 unfortunately we need to be healed from
00:56:34.799 that mindset and we need to we we as a
00:56:38.599 community Need To Boldly and
00:56:41.760 aggressively stand up for ourselves and
00:56:44.839 this honestly is a time where we need to
00:56:47.480 all be ten toes down this is a ten toes
00:56:50.200 down situation and we all need to say
00:56:53.359 you know what we're sick and tired of
00:56:55.400 being sick and tired you can't do this
00:56:57.119 to us anymore no and it requires us to
00:57:00.640 be um in what is the word like I I don't
00:57:05.599 know if you all remember when Issa Ray
00:57:07.599 at the global Golden Globes I think she
00:57:10.000 was like I'm supporting everyone black
00:57:12.720 right she said that and then t-shirt
00:57:14.319 started coming out support everyone we
00:57:16.680 just need to say this is where we are we
00:57:19.200 are supporting our institutions we are
00:57:21.480 supporting each other we are supporting
00:57:23.760 our businesses and we're not going to
00:57:26.240 apologize about that because again if we
00:57:28.720 want to change this for the Next
00:57:30.400 Generation we can't we we have to be
00:57:32.920 bold and aggressive and demand it and I
00:57:36.200 think we see other people doing it and
00:57:38.119 it seems to work for them right I'm not
00:57:41.280 gonna you know this is being recorded I
00:57:43.799 don't want to it to come back and but we
00:57:46.920 need to be
00:57:49.240 as you know as aggressive as some other
00:57:52.559 groups are when it comes to demanding
00:57:54.280 the things they feel they deserve
00:57:56.599 absolutely
00:57:58.079 Sabrina I will be quick because I know
00:58:00.160 we're at time um I will say like
00:58:02.880 everyone should understand the power of
00:58:05.240 their dollar the power of their voice
00:58:07.280 when it comes to financial systems um
00:58:09.960 you know think about you know with
00:58:11.520 everything that you do whether it's you
00:58:13.000 know your bank or uh you know where you
00:58:15.720 shop at for hair products where you shop
00:58:17.480 at for anything you know what are those
00:58:21.480 companies what are those people doing to
00:58:23.160 support black people and can you divert
00:58:25.000 those dollars to black business
00:58:26.079 businesses I think everyone needs to do
00:58:27.799 that hard assessment we say this day in
00:58:29.440 and day out but when I hear uh
00:58:31.680 statistics like the one rahama mentioned
00:58:33.920 around only one billion out of6 billion
00:58:36.680 dollars is being diverted to Black
00:58:38.200 businesses we really need to be doing a
00:58:40.839 very uh critical self assessment with
00:58:42.960 where our money is going um so I'll
00:58:44.920 leave everyone with that it is very
00:58:46.640 important to do that and then also one
00:58:48.280 other thing is if you don't want to run
00:58:49.440 for office if you don't you know feel
00:58:51.559 like you can't make time to show up to
00:58:54.160 meetings Etc then support the
00:58:57.359 organizations and people who are doing
00:58:59.480 this work because they need your support
00:59:02.039 so remember we support with time and we
00:59:04.280 or we and or we support with money um so
00:59:07.359 please please um do that and if all else
00:59:09.680 fails let's create a new
00:59:12.520 system you know I wanted to add one
00:59:15.760 thing that I think we needed you talked
00:59:17.680 about the Fearless fund one thing that's
00:59:20.000 important to note is that those folks
00:59:22.400 used a n 1860 law that was made for us
00:59:27.160 coming out of slavery against us this
00:59:29.680 anti- dni which now I saiding it stands
00:59:31.960 for discrimination exclusion and
00:59:34.680 Injustice um they are taking everything
00:59:38.039 that was put in place to redress Jim
00:59:40.000 Crow and turning it against us so we're
00:59:42.280 at a major inflection time and and Miss
00:59:45.160 Wright I can't agree with you even more
00:59:46.799 everything you said everything that
00:59:48.480 everyone said is inspiring but I think
00:59:50.160 that's important to understand the
00:59:51.559 context of where we're going with all of
00:59:53.440 our conversation
00:59:56.680 yes oh Dr tanu and then we do have a
00:59:59.680 question in here okay do you want to
01:00:01.720 address that question first and I I'll
01:00:03.680 save my comment um okay let me get to
01:00:06.559 the question um so Charlene
01:00:10.640 Tarvin um says that she lives and work
01:00:13.240 in Syracuse New York which has the
01:00:15.079 highest concentration of black and brown
01:00:17.640 child poverty in the nation uh we host
01:00:21.039 an an expo incubator and are developing
01:00:24.119 an affordable housing Pro however it's
01:00:26.720 been very difficult to secure corporate
01:00:28.760 and philanthropic funding because we are
01:00:30.920 not in the major Metropolitan Market
01:00:34.079 despite the need for entrepreneurial
01:00:35.880 lead economic development companies like
01:00:38.559 Chase Amazon Walmart Coca-Cola
01:00:42.680 Starbucks um they don't invest in black
01:00:45.839 women here are there any suggestions for
01:00:50.799 her um I'll I'll jump in and I'm happy
01:00:53.960 to talk with Charlene one one um if we
01:00:57.520 can exchange contact information I'm not
01:00:59.119 sure um I you know I can definitely
01:01:01.079 provide some suggestions I think you
01:01:03.440 know there are defin there are alliances
01:01:05.480 that you can check with um just know I
01:01:09.000 mean one thing that and I hate to answer
01:01:10.400 it like this is that there's a lot of
01:01:11.760 people looking for corporate right
01:01:13.200 funding and a lot of people with uh
01:01:15.200 initiative specifically focused on
01:01:16.799 reducing the racial wealth Gap and and
01:01:18.640 investing in black women and the I think
01:01:20.760 part of uh some of the issues you may be
01:01:22.640 finding is that um you know there's only
01:01:24.920 so many dollars out there there uh but
01:01:27.440 I'm happy to provide some direct
01:01:30.000 guidance um if that makes sense and
01:01:32.400 again you know would love for to be able
01:01:34.400 to share my contact information maybe
01:01:36.160 I'll just put it in the chat for
01:01:37.400 everyone any person that wants to follow
01:01:39.160 up with
01:01:40.599 me I'd like to briefly respond to that
01:01:44.119 you know there has to be something
01:01:45.720 called
01:01:47.599 reciprocity um the dollars that we pour
01:01:50.000 into cocacola and Walmart and Amazon and
01:01:54.039 Starbucks the billions of dollars that
01:01:56.400 we pour in and the little bit of money
01:01:58.520 that they give
01:02:00.880 back it's not reciprocal we have to
01:02:03.880 demand some level of re reciprocity and
01:02:07.279 we have got to put the data out front
01:02:09.240 and say this is what we put it pour into
01:02:11.520 you and this is what you get back we're
01:02:13.440 not doing this
01:02:15.240 anymore so we've got a demand as sister
01:02:20.559 rahama said that we've got to demand and
01:02:23.720 not be fearful love it we've got to be
01:02:28.079 Fearless as The Fearless One is name
01:02:30.680 Fearless when it comes to this that's
01:02:33.760 right so um that's my response but I
01:02:35.880 wanted to make one one more comment
01:02:37.640 whenever you want to take comments
01:02:39.279 sister Cassandra okay go ahead yeah so
01:02:43.599 so what so mik I don't know if you have
01:02:45.240 a question about what we do next but one
01:02:46.680 of the things that we can do we know
01:02:49.359 that we have power we have consumer
01:02:51.559 power we have consumer power as members
01:02:54.240 of the African diaspora as as the sister
01:02:56.440 said uh my I'm married to a Nigerian my
01:02:59.359 children are half Nigerian and half
01:03:01.240 American and my grandchildren are a
01:03:03.319 fourth or whatever maybe more than that
01:03:05.200 because I don't know my Heritage because
01:03:06.839 I was born in South
01:03:09.000 Carolina but what we can do is what they
01:03:11.559 did in 1774 when they did the Articles
01:03:14.920 of Association that they created to
01:03:17.920 bring themselves together as not just
01:03:20.200 desparate colonies but as a country what
01:03:23.799 we can create our own article
01:03:26.279 of Association and particularly black
01:03:28.480 women can do that within the the
01:03:31.079 diaspora to say exactly what we've said
01:03:33.440 here today we're gonna support black
01:03:36.480 we're gonna all through the supply
01:03:39.680 chains for various goods and services
01:03:42.400 that we spend monies on and and that's a
01:03:45.960 tremendous impact we've got the
01:03:48.440 resources natural resources much of it
01:03:52.119 on on the African continent that we can
01:03:54.039 Source from whether it's you know fche
01:03:56.799 butter or whatever it is cocoa whatever
01:03:59.960 we can do any and everything there we've
01:04:02.000 got relationships in terms of potential
01:04:05.160 relationships with our land grant
01:04:07.799 colleges and universities when it comes
01:04:09.960 to entrepreneurship and engineering and
01:04:12.559 agricultural stuff there's no reason why
01:04:14.760 we shouldn't and I think that the
01:04:16.440 project that I'm working on at Tuskegee
01:04:18.680 state of African-Americans and the black
01:04:20.559 belt we Define the black belt as the 15
01:04:23.839 former slave states
01:04:26.559 that's where the slaves were the most
01:04:28.359 numerous and it's within that framework
01:04:31.640 that we can begin to really connect and
01:04:34.559 do what we need to do and we can use
01:04:36.279 Georgia as the example of what we can do
01:04:38.760 here but I just I I'm excited about the
01:04:41.720 possibility I am pissed off and and I
01:04:44.920 think the worst thing you can do is
01:04:46.160 pissed off piss off a black woman that's
01:04:48.200 the worst thing that you can do and
01:04:50.640 they've done it and we about to to show
01:04:54.799 we we're about to step into who we are
01:04:57.119 step into our greatness that's right
01:05:00.160 that's right thank you I am getting
01:05:02.760 ready to turn this over to um sfia and
01:05:06.480 before she um says her closing remarks I
01:05:10.279 just want to say thank you ladies um for
01:05:14.599 bringing your expertise um bringing your
01:05:17.960 commitment to black people um to on this
01:05:21.000 forum today and I want to say to
01:05:23.640 everyone else who is watching elections
01:05:26.599 are coming up and we can't have this
01:05:28.440 conversation without talking about the
01:05:30.240 vote the power of the sister vote Dr
01:05:33.160 tanu this is how we show up we show up
01:05:36.400 at that poll we know that black women
01:05:39.119 turn out always have turn out at the
01:05:43.440 poll this is the time that we are
01:05:45.599 educating our communities and getting
01:05:47.799 them ready to turn out at the poe for
01:05:50.319 this upcoming election is going to be
01:05:52.200 key and critical um and so I just want
01:05:55.039 to thank you you all so much um for what
01:05:57.680 you do in your communities um and what
01:06:00.400 we all bring together collectively to
01:06:02.839 make sure and what I say shifting power
01:06:05.520 at the voting booth at the policy table
01:06:08.160 for black women and girls so thank you
01:06:10.240 all so much and I turn it back over to
01:06:11.880 you
01:06:13.839 Sophia wow my heart is so incredibly
01:06:18.279 full I I cannot thank you Cassandra all
01:06:21.799 of you pan all of the panelists for
01:06:23.520 agreeing to participate in this convers
01:06:26.119 ation I hope you saw the reaction
01:06:28.960 because we were with you the entire way
01:06:32.160 we appreciate your leadership we
01:06:33.960 appreciate your passion and your
01:06:36.119 Devotion to us as a people so thank you
01:06:38.640 so much for your words thank you to the
01:06:40.720 audience for joining us we did go a
01:06:42.680 little bit over but thank you so much
01:06:44.720 for sticking with us um we are having as
01:06:47.960 Cassandra said we're GNA have one more
01:06:50.520 webinar in the series the next topic is
01:06:54.039 on the vote democ rcy on the ballot we
01:06:57.599 do have an election coming up and we do
01:06:59.440 want to inform all of you on what those
01:07:01.920 election issues are particularly for the
01:07:04.119 black community and and low-wage workers
01:07:06.520 cassandre will be back she'll be a a
01:07:08.599 panelist this time um and that's going
01:07:10.640 to happen on Monday July 22nd hope you
01:07:13.279 all can join us and um thank you so much
01:07:16.279 for your participation look out for a
01:07:18.400 thank you email from us with additional
01:07:20.520 resources please stay involved and
01:07:22.880 please continue the fight
This webinar brings researchers, entrepreneurs, and economic development and financial experts together to discuss how we can create an equitable, inclusive, and dynamic economy to benefit all Americans.
Show video transcript
hello everyone uh thank you for joining today's webinar um we're going to givefolks a few moments to get logged in and while we wait I invite you to answer ouropening question which is where are you calling from um I am calling from DetroitMichigane forfor the folks that recently joined us um my name is Janelle and um we are justgiving folks a couple more minutes to join um if you would like to uh please share in the chat where you're callingin from um I'm calling in from DetroitMichigan eawesome um please continue to share in the chat um we invite you to use this feature throughout our time togethertoday um and we're about to get started uh we are made aware that there was somechallenges with the chat so I believe it's been uh fixed but um welcome to today's webinarcommunities that care Justice for black moms my name is Janelle Munger and I will be your host for today'sconversation I am the owner of GPM Consulting and a program consultant with Kia Harrison Associates race healing andjoy initiative our conversation today is called convened by oxfam's a new era forblack women and Kesha Harrison Associates race healing and joy initiative this is the first entry inour black Futures webinar series a four-part conversation that uplifts the expertise and vision of black womenshaping the future through reproductive and Care Justice economic Mobilityenvironmental justice and democracy Kesha Harrison Associates is ablack woman-owned social impact consulting firm khaa operates the racehealing and joy initiative which works to Center the voices of black leaders and the reproductive Justice movementand cultivate deeper unrestricted investments in reproductive Justice organizations and theirleaders Ox bam is a global nonprofit committed to fighting sorry fightingthen inequality of poverty and Ox Bam's New Era for black women initiativelaunched in 2023 takes a comprehensive approach to uplifting and empowering black women theinitiative highlights the structural barriers and economic disparities that have created generational limitationsintersecting all aspects of quality of life for black women for moreinformation about each of these initiatives opt into our mailing list when you complete the survey today'sconversation communities that care Justice for black moms centers the needs to lift up the care for birthparents throughout pregnancy labor and delivery and postpartum using a carelens we hope to show that reproductive Justice is always a care issue care is asocietal need but often viewed as a individual responsibility in the in theUS today's conversation will highlight how and why that is wrong but Al butways they are actively challenging that in their work our panelists will walk us througha conversation that Daylights present realities and disparities for black birthing parents uplifts interventionsand practices for better care centers the role of collaboration and partnership in creating change andunderscores the importance of investing in infrastructure for Reproductive care and Justice to facilitate ourconversation we are joined by Danielle Adams the senior advocacy advisor foroxam America and in her work Danielle sits on the organizing and influencingteam in the campaigns Department working with grass toop leaders now pleasewelcome Danielle and ourpanelist oh Danielle you're still muted I thought I did the work to dothat good morning everyone thank you for that introduction and um thank you toour panelists I'm so pleased to be here with you today moderating this panel of Powerhouse black women in theirrespective Fields our panelists who you will meet in the moment are nikra bur umdror a PhD in public health and maternal health expert Dr Veronica GES Bell anOBGYN and medical director of the Louisiana perinatal quality collaborative and pregnancy Associatedmortality review for the Louisiana Department of Health um Tamara Masondirector of maternal and Child Health Collective impact at March of Dimes inthe certified labor Doula and Tenisha Duncan founder and CEO of orchid CapitalCollective Dr nikra bur um I would love to start with you I'd like for you tohelp us ground in the issue postpartum care for black birthing parents and whythis is an important conversation for all of us and my question is what are the current realities andchallenges faced by black birthing parents in accessing quality postpartum care and how do these conditions reflectbroader systemic inequality yeah well good morning um wasgood morning in Mississippi everywhere else and maybe good afternoon uh first thank you all for having us um I'mexcited to join this panel and um thinking about grounding in this thethought of what the issues are and what black women face um I think the bigpicture is of course access to care and so we are now moving into this phase andI know um Dr Gillespie Bell may talk about that postpartum period being what the fourth trimester but many um of usare just moving into that piece of recognizing the postpartum period as anarea that really needs to be looked at studied and a lot of attention attentionum given to and I think that's just because of how it has been framed youknow you have this baby you go home and everything is good um but that's notnecessarily the case for every woman specifically black women so access topostpartum care what does that look like that looks like having access to health insurance um health insurance covers onepiece of that um but then if if you are living in an area I'm in Mississippi ummany we're a rural State and so many of our areas are hard to access um whetherthat's if you live in the Mississippi Delta where you don't have a lot of providers then you may have to drive twohours an hour and a half to get to any type of quality services and even inthat case when we look atst that postpartum period if something likepostpartum preclampsia happens where you need to get to a facility if you're in an area like the Mississippi Delta youmay not make it to where you need to go because hospitals have closed um andyour place may be two hours away and that's that is a critical thing thatwe're seeing not expanding Medicaid in Mississippi has been very detrimentalnot just to the health of black mothers but also to the type of care that womencan receive we we've had Nick units closed um so manythings and we've even had cases that have made the news of women trying to get to care um but they they had todrive so far did not have a hospital in their area um and then another thing isaccess to or really bringing in this model of comprehensive care and whatthat looks like so we of course we have douas Miss Mason I know you'll probably talk about Doula rolebut douas midwives and having access to just this range of types of care thatyou would like to have has we don't have that black women just don't always havethat privilege to say Okay I want a doula I want a lactation professional I want to have a birth and a birthingcenter there are a lot of things that we just may not have access to because ofour position in society right now just being honest um and so I think having acomprehensive care team or a model that supports doulas being able to come into the hospital and um or just having arange of midwives that folks can select from is important and then also I'm notI'm not a health care provider but we do know that chronic illness is a part of all this and when we say chronic illnessbeing a part of it these comorbidities I still I take the I take the onus off ofblack women and I put it on the system and so my last piece to this is um racism being the core of all of this umnot just those one toone interactions where they didn't feel good and we didn't have an opportunity to changeproviders which is a huge piece of it but how this system was created developed and how we have to navigate itI always say we have amazing Health Care Providers I know Dr Gillespie Bill I've heard of your work um and so many otherproviders that we have in Mississippi but you can only do so much in the system system that was not designed umto honor black bodies and so I think that is the core of what we're up against and that trickles down into theway we seek and receive Health Care specifically in that postpartum periodand that that Superwoman C you know we going to take care of that baby we're g to take care of those babies but if ourhead is swimming it may be harder for us to go try to seek um the care that we need and one advantage that I think wehave as I close out this is I think we have a great advantage ofwe we do have the communal system of support uh black women we we are I I wasraised in all kind of woman's family so everybody kind of takes care of you now that may not look the same way but Ithink that is a piece that we can kind of build from building on that communal system of care and how what that lookslike for each woman and we don't always have um all of those pieces that Imentioned pulled together for black women and then we see these um very Grimoutcomes that we're all working to change thank you so much for that answerum I one of those folks who did have postpartum preclampsia but I did havethe privilege of a care team and the privilege to advocate for myself and to have folks advocate for me which we meto you Dr glesby Bell um I'd like for you to give us more information tounderstand how the system presently Works um at its best and worst I knowthe state of Louisiana can be challenging um to a place to provide comprehensive care for black birthingpeople so um my question is what does it look like to provide robust care againstthe backdrop of these challenges and what steps can be taken to ensure carefor black parents after birth um is accessible and integrated into maternalcare practices so thank you so much uh Danielle for that question thank you for uh allowingme to be here thank you oxam and and the Kesha Harris Association for even hosting hosting this um just importantthings that we need to talk about um just to piggy back on um some things that nikra said we have to understandthat a system will produce exactly what a system is supposed to produce and right now I'm about dismantling systemsbecause this system is not working it's not working for any woman in America and it really is not working for black womenwe know that we have the highest maternal mortality in the United States compared to any other High inome Countrywe know that three black women die at a rate of every one white woman we know even when we adjust for socioeconomicfactors three uh that a black woman is twice as likely as a white a black woman with a college degree is twice as likelyas a white woman with an eighth grade education to experience a pregnancy related death so this is a system thatis not working we're not getting good maternal outcomes and so when we think about what is not working in the systemum and we can talk about what is what is working but when we think about what is not working specifically for black womenand specifically in the postpartum period which I think is as MRA said is so important for us to talk aboutbecause when we look at our maternal deaths the majority of deaths are not happening in the hospital they're happening after discharge up to one yearpostpartum with the with the majority of those happening in the first six weeks and as nikra said if we think about thesystem the system is designed for us to deliver our babies and then we go home and we come back in one in six weeks forthis arbitrary postpartum appointment when clearly there's a lot of things that are happening in that six week timeperiod so really when we think about Solutions we think about we need to think about how do we make sure ourpatients are connected to care in that six week time period um and so thatagain is dismantling the system because that's not how the system is designed some things that we um have done inLouisiana some things that are being done nationally and some things that we need to think about um one is postpartumhome visits we again are the only High income country that does not guaranteeat least one postpartum home visit um we have to think about how do we providethat here in Louisiana we do have the nurse Family Partnership program which is a national program um which is partpart it works well for the patients that qualify for the nurse Family Partnership program we also have a program thatwe're piloting um specifically in New Orleans at two hospitals called family connects where a nurse from the hospitalwill come and see patients during that postpartum period but overall we arepiecing things together in every state to try to create what should be auniversal home visiting program um I think uh one of the other things that wehave seen uh specifically in my role at Ashner to help with that postpartum period is to do tella health so with ourprogram is called connected mom we give patients a blood pressure cuff a bluetooth enabled blood pressure cuff atthe beginning of pregnancy we offer it to any patient that wants to be in the program they don't have to pay anythingfor it we're able to check blood pressures throughout the pregnancy but more importantly we're able to checkblood pressures in the postpartum period so it gives a patients aut omy becausewhen they check their blood pressure if it's elevated the patient gets a message that says hey your blood pressure is elevated take it again if it's stillelevated you need to call your doctor go to the emergency room I on the physician in I also get a message telling me thatpatient's blood pressure is elevated the other part is that of that is that we're able to do virtual visits through thisprogram much like I'm coming to you today doing this panel presentation and so when we do that I'm able to do bloodpressure checks for my patients 3 days after discharge from the hospital they had severe hypertension I'm able to do ablood pressure check one week if they had a hypertensive disorder or pregnancy but didn't have severe hypertension andduring that one week or two week uh time period I'm able to do a postpartum mood check um in which we uh don't talk aboutenough especially in the black community uh we don't talk about it but actually when we look at our leading cause acrossuh 38 maternal mortality review committees mental health conditions is actually our leading cause of pregnancyrelated deaths in the US um and so we're able to check those blood pressures able to check those moodchecks while the patient is able to stay in the in the comfort of her own home umI think the other part of the system that we need to address and uh Nik started was talking about it as well isum postpartum uh visits from doulas as well as mid as midwives um when we thinkagain about the system our data shows us that by 2030 in that's in six years wewill be short 5,000 OBGYN in the United States5,000 I think that number is actually underestimated because we're seeing even fewer medical students choose to go intoOBGYN so I think that those numbers are probably going to be much larger and so we have to think how we have anintegrated model of care where we can have our midwives that are able to take care of our low-risk patients I as aOBGYN can take care of my high-risk patients and then we have a doula that is helping our patients to navigate thehealth care system during pregnancy and after pregnancy so that you have thatperson that's able to say hey that that blood pressure is not okay or that that headache that you're having you need togo to the hospital to be evaluated or you're not acting like yourself something's not right you need to go tothe hospital and I think doulas and midwives because they are able to spend so much more time with their patientscompared to what we are able to do as as OBGYNs they have such better relationships to understand thoseintricacies of when something is not quite right um and so again just thinking about how we keep our patientsconnected to care now some things that we are doing in Louisiana to help with that I mentioned the home visitingprogram I mentioned the connected health program um we also have passed legislation to create a doula registryum this was is completely run by douas um they have come up with the criteria to be in the registry the applicationprocess once duers are in the registry there other legislation that we passed that then requires um insurancecompanies to reimburse for dual coverage um again we know the data shows thatwhen dla's midwives are involved in our pregnancies and delivery um care duringthe prenatal and postpartum period we have better outcomes but everybody is not able to access a doula one just thenumber of douas but also when it comes to how they how they are able to pay for them um some of the patients that needthe duel need duelist the most are not able to access them and so we're hoping that this will create some more um moreuh Equitable access uh to duelist um I talked about telea health and the benefit there but it really it doesn'tbenefit you if you're in an area that has no broadband access um and so there has been a lot of work in Louisiana umunder our previous governor to expand our Broadband access we're not where we need to be but we're better than wherewe where we were um I actually was at the FCC speaking last week um they theyhave the FCC has a Broadband uh map that I encourage all of you to go look at youcan see by County what your access is to broadband and you can see how thatrelates to maternal mortality to maternal morbidity to diabetes to all ofthose things um and so the FCC has said and I definitely agree with this and promote that um Broadband access isanother social determinant of health so the solutions that we're coming up with we don't think about it through a lensof equity it's not going to be a solution for everyone and so um and so I'm glad to see again that the FCC isshowing that so that other states can really invest in the Broadband uh access as we have in in Louisiana um to be ableto make sure that our patients have access there um and then I guess the final thing I would say in terms of whatwe're doing in Louisiana we know that this is a conversation we were having actually Danielle you and I were having beforethe panel started um the data shows that when you have concordance of race between the patient and the provider youhave better outcomes um we've seen that from the work that Rachel Hardman um has done in um California that show I'mExcuse me in Florida that showed when the neologist and the infant and their family were the same race that we hadlower infant mortality we've seen that in Primary Care work and with primary care physicians when the when you have ablack primary care physician you have a longer life expectancy as a black patient but only 5% of Physiciansidentify as black 5.7% to be specific 6% identify as Hispanic and then when welook at our residency programs the distribution as far as R race and ethnicity is not any different so we arenot creating a better pipeline to have diversity amongst Physicians we aretrying to solve that um at Ashner Ashner and Xavier have partnered together to create the Xavier Ashner College ofMedicine um we're current L doing all the processes that we need to do to be accredited um but we are doing this andmaking this collaboration so that we can have more black and brown Physicians umcoming through and trying to increase that pipeline so that we can have better representation uh amongst the physicianpopulation and I can go on and on and on but I don't want to monopolize the time so I think I answer the question nothank you so much you dropped so many words and so much information I didn't even know and hopefully it resonatedwith all the folks who were joining us to listen in and I think um it connectsbeautifully um to our next guest um Tamara Mason uh we have heard a b andfirst I want to give all of you your flowers thank you for being a black OBG in thank you for being in all of you inthe health care profession and taking care of women and I will say a black Midwife and a black doua saved my lifeso I'm excited um for this um whole panel and this ation uh Miss Mason we'veheard a bit about the realities and importance of this care um we also knowthat for the changes we seek to happen it's going to take co-conspiratorsacross sectors um and from this lens of your work with Collective impact andapproach to Bringing diverse organizations together to work on systems change I'd like you for you tospeak more about what this collaboration looks like and how it happens um specifically how can different sectorssuch as healthc Care Community organizations and activists policy Advocates funders collaborate moreeffectively to improve care for black birthing parents thank you Danielle thank you somuch for having me and thank you to Oxfam and kha Associates first of allwho wants to speak after Dr gesi Bell right I'm like I'm just going to go ahead and sit down she said everythingthat needs to be said um but as Danielle said in my introduction I work at the marchad dimes as a director of maternaland Child Health Collective impact specifically in Atlanta Georgia so at the marchad we're leading the fight forthe health of all moms and babies and we are working to end preventable maternal debts and infant debts and moreimportantly which I appreciate this about marchad dim' mission in recent years we're working to close the HealthEquity Gap so definitely appreciate Dr bur's comments and Dr gesell's commentspreviously in Ms of access to care and framing the issue and our system rightour Health Care system that honestly has been designed to not really care for black bodies black birthing families andI did want to mention in terms of access to care the marchan we've recently released a maternity care desert reportwhere we show that unfortunately accessing Health Care is an issue for everyone in this country um butparticularly for our communities of color and in particular in terms of maternity care deserts which that meansthat there are no OBGYN centers or birthing centers 35% of the counties inour country are considered maternity care deserts and about 60% of those counties are rural so just in general aswe've already heard in the conversation just getting that General access to care is a huge issue in our country so frompreconception Health right before you're even thinking about a baby or starting to think about having a baby all the wayto postpartum care so just National that's a conversation that we need to engage in more and figure out within ourcommunities how can we address the actual getting the access to the care that you need um secondly I reallyappreciated Dr bur's comments about the system and how the system is is not designed to care for us and so at Marchand ISS when we're talking about closing the Health Equity Gap and addressing a large scale issue like maternal deathinfant deaths pre-term birth we realize and understand no one organization incl us can do this work alone and so that'swhy we are utilizing the collective impact approach in Atlanta and throughout other cities in the countryto really address this large scale issue we also know pregnant women don't live in a vacuum right so if a woman is foodinsecure if she's housing insecure if she's poor which here in Atlanta if youare born into poverty you only have a 4% chance of escaping poverty and there area large number of women of reproductive age who are in poverty right all of that is going to impact your birthing Journeyso in addition to working with our maternal and child health providers we also have to work with our folks acrossthose other systems and all the other partners that you mentioned Danielle in your you know your initial question andso here in Atlanta we're really proud that for the past three years we've been leading this Collective impactinitiative working with as you said funders Community Based organizations one of our main Partners is the centerfor black Women's Wellness love love them I shout them out every chance that I can get they are in the Mechanicsvillecommunity of Atlanta doing great work serving black moms and families for the past 30 years um and just really comingtogether as a collective to First understand the problems for black Worthing people here in Atlanta but notjust stopping there and talking about the challenges the problems and the issues what are solutions and so withCollective impact we really feel because we are at the end of the day about system change we have to addressdifferent levers and pull different levers of the system so that includes research that includes advocacy thatincludes direct service programs and so when we are talking about the different levers that we need to pull to close theHealth Equity Gap also looking at who needs to be at the table to be involved in those conversations including thecommunity because in my opinion the solutions are already in the community and we have to stop talking at thecommunity and the community needs to be at the table from the GetGo I'll stop there but definitely Ely can go on butwant to leave time for other folks as well thank you so much for that thankyou thank you thank you um our final question to our panelist before we go toour question and answer um is to miss Tanisha dunan um you offer a uniqueperspective on this topic with your work to seed investment in reproductive careinfrastructure ensuring capital is available for um ecosystem changes andneeds and you play a key role in Shoring up resources for this work um I'mwondering what strategies can be employed to strengthen the ecosystem of care for birthing parents ensuringadequate resources are available um sturdy infrastructure is in place which we've heard is like a critical need umand the community served um and that communities are served um drivingforward this change yeah good afternoon thank you so much for having me today um this is agreat question and it's often one that I start with a few frames before jumpinginto the strategy pieces and so a lot of people have talked about these other elements here and at Orchid we are anonprofit impact investing firm our work is about redirecting the flow of capitaluh to realize reproductive and economic Justice and so when we start withreproductive Justice as a framework and a strategy it encompasses our rights to decide how our families are created andnurtured how we make decisions about our reproduction and how our communities are actually structured to live in and raisefamilies um this right to raise a family in a safe and healthy environment and so for this to exist we have to ask whatmakes a community health a community safe and healthy how would we actuallyinvest in that how do you design the infrastructure of a community what would we Implement and who leads designs andbenefits from it the next frame would be about racial capitalism which which asks us to question where divestment andextraction has taken place um we can note this in the history of how we removed Midwifery care from the HealthCare System what assets do we have that are actually not being resourced and why and what are the barriers to moving thisforward and who is sitting or not sitting in a place of power um the next is that this placewhere we I think need to talk a lot more about the interplay of the economic system with our Care Systems there are alot of moving parts to this and a lot often these conversations come down to money and so we have to really look atthis business of Health Care the business of birth and who gets to have what outcomes and at what cost um thenthere's this place around Collective care that asks us to consider everyone's wellness and if we're doing this webuild from a place of how we want to see people enter and leave this world um andwhat they experience in the meantime so how do we shift to actually create a genuine culture of care balancing thereality of trauma to build a new and different future and then complex adaptive systems ask us to consider howdo we know when a system has fallen apart or is falling apart and like someone mentioned earlier it's whenpeople are being irreparably harmed because of the system so this currentsystem in a lot of ways it's on its way out we're dismantling so much here it's a question of when will this happenhappen and I think we're actually nearing that moment so we all are collectively having to Doula thistransition into something more restorative so the question what are the strategies that can be implemented atOrchid we talk a lot about this ecosystem of care we Define it or call it a community care infrastructure whichis the assets the providers the care models uh that ensure access toculturally and racially congruent care safety rights education and economic power um so this actually just startswith even acknowledging the value of an ecosystem one approach is not going towork right it's not about seeing one model or one organization do everything and scale everywhere but actuallyenabling the resourcing that ensures caregivers and Care organizations can excel in their place in an ecosystem andthen really mindfully integrate with other parts of the ecosystem in order to serve families most effectively um the next is the nextstrategy or approach is actually about exploring all of our Collective relationships with money with financialand non-financial resources and how that allows us or doesn't allow us to Centereconomic mobility and wellness in the work change takes time love and morethan just money that's something we are learning a lot about at Orchid and so it's inviting people to see money as atool along with support resources and strategic Partnerships and care toensure that these shifts take take place um um and so with that we explore and wethink we can explore different approaches to Grant making to lending to investing and especially how we usephilanthropic and public dollars to support care ecosystems away from a relationship of dependency and towardself-determination um building on that economic Mobility encourages us to understand anduh consider the ownership of the structures being built so the infrastructure that we can build canstabilize families create local jobs improve Healthcare outcomes and there is a way for this to be owned and led bythe communities that it serves and actually that is the strategy that's the imperative is that any funding strategyany investment strategy and I say investment a little bit Loosely because I think that can happen at the citystate federal public private level um any investment system has to include uhCommunity ownership and that allows it to actually mindfully integrate with the system around it and hold its powerwhile it connects in and works with the system that we have um this is an investment in owners in accountabilityin building longevity and in community wealth uh we look at that through three lenses of Community Care Centers wherewe think land and real estate is a is a reproductive justice issue um Community Care ecosystems sogrowing nurturing and maintaining the workforce of perin care providers and then Tech and services like Dr GIS VBell mentioned we need to activate and invest in the the tech the range ofservices these things that enable care access as well the fourth strategy is that is taking a multi- generationalapproach so from wherever you sit in the ecosystem as a funer we see these Investments as seeding a new future onewe may not get to see ourselves and so when we operate from that lens of a long-term reparative regenerativeapproach it means that we make different decisions we iterate early and often and mistakes are actually part of the designit changes this Narrative of how we must be perfect in every Pro program or project that we do but actually thiscould allow communities to continually design based on the inevitable political economic and cultural shifts so it's apath to a delicate balance between patience and urgency and understanding that the work ahead is both vital andtime sensitive um so I think the gaps are clear the data is clear you know howwe support families um how we invest in this work as many RJ leaders have saidfund us like you want us to win and that's the approach that we take atOrchid um we've seen that people are midwives duelas perinatal care providersthis community work is it's working um the proof is there we're delivdelivering better outcomes people are asking for this care and experience so really the main strategy is to takeaction and I think these four points are just a starting point to also push us tothink about how we do the work as being just as vital as what we do thank you so much I love that fund uslike you want us to whenn and I love the concept of like ownership Community ownership of our care infrastructure andour needs um I am so grateful to all of you for being disruptors and dismantlingthe systems that we know do not work for us and thank you for sharing um all of your knowledge and information with usum I want to open it up to our um guests or attendees who if there are anyquestions um from the folks um who are in the audience um if you have aquestion for our panelist please write it in the chat um use the Qor use the hand raise button and you will be unmuted when you are acknowledged to ask your question to thepanel and I'm seeing there were some questions that were alreadyanswered in the in the Q&A are there any questions from any ofthe folks in the audience and if I am missing any I hopefully someone willping me so I can make sure that I don't uh leave anyoneMara uh if uh you are unmuted so you can ask your question thank you very muchfor for caring for the vulnerable and marginalizedwomen um I have one question regardingthe funding organizations as as you see there's there is evidence pointingtoward um the less care provided to women uh from the minority group and thequestion is if we have all the evidence and all the um research studies thatsupporting that do we have an organization or programs um to support a communityum like maybe um businesses like say if if if a grouplike like your group right now decided that they want to start start a womanHealth Center for just caring for the for theuh underserved Community there is any program or funding programs in the in thegovernment that we can maybe write a business plan and submit our plan andthen work start from there that's all thank you I'll jump ina little bit there I'm sure others can add um I think we're starting to see more and more funding opportunities hereI know in The Proposal around the Omnibus there is proposal and allocation of resources um in order to fund HealthCenters birth centers um and Community Care Centers that's part of the work butit's not widespread quite yet and that momni buus legislation has not gonethrough at a federal level however we are seeing that this is some legislationis being passed in particular States so Massachusetts uh the birth center therethat's developing just got helped to push through legislation for um allocation for money for birth centersin the state and other states are following suit so I think it's happening more at a local level and notnecessarily at the federal level quite yet and then on the philanthropic side there are some funders funding this workthere are groups like birth center equity which is a national network of about 40 black indigenous and people ofcolorled birth centers um that is both a network and they're providing seed funding for organizations like that wework with them very closely and then they're individual funders and um impactinvestors and others who are moving resources in that way but no there's not just one Collective organization andthen there's also the Venture Capital side of things where folks are receiving resources to build there but that's notnecessarily targeting um lower income people and families in communitiesthat's uh more of a commercial or you know larger scale approach yeahso and just to piggy back on what Tenisha said um you may want to partneror to to check with your um State Health Department I know we just received the maternal Health Initiative Grant umwhich it it was required that State Health departments apply for it but but as part of that Grant we have to have amaternal Health task force that's designed by Comm that is organized andled by Community um birth Advocates and Community those individuals in thecommunity community based organizations um and so we're we were thankful to get that reward and we'recurrently um developing who the team of of the maternal Health task force because then that's going to lead torecommendations and implementation of of of other uh strategies and other programs also CMS has a teema grant um Iforgot what that stands for transort transformation and maternal health I think is what it stands for umapplications just had to be submitted they're going to uh award 15 states umin this grant under that uh or under that Grant the states do have to um do anumber of of things including addressing um the the Midwifery Gap and and how toincorporate midwives into practice how to promote birth centers um as well andremove barriers around that um and so there are some things out there oh I'm sorry and the CDC also had a grant umwhere uh it could be tech companies Community Based organizations had to partner with paranal qualitycollaboratives so I know myself uh Tennessee and Illinois all worked withuh the the Earth app um to create an initiative um as well through thatfunding so there is there is some federal funding out there um but from what I have seen a lot of the federalfunding has to go through the state department because Medicaid or the state department has to be the one that'sactually applying for the grant thank you very much I and I'll addone thing you know what we're seeing with folks is that there there's benefitand it's a necessity to actually get resources from a lot of multiple sourceshaving one place and a dependency actually create creates doesn't createsustainability for the organization so people are you know depending on revenuefrom care whether that's you know private or public Insurance um thenthey're getting resources from maybe more traditional or local community banking in order to purchase a buildingor do those sorts of things so the money has to come from multiple sources andthat's part of the work that we do with Partners is to make sure that they're looking at all of the options in orderfor um this work to continue especially because they're prioritizing familieswho are eligible for Medicaid to accessCare thank you very much I appreciate it thank you for your question um we dohave uh time for maybe one more question from the audience um but while we waitfor you all to formulate the question I wanted to ask our panelists um we know that we're coming up um an importanttime and a lot is at stake um as we moveforward and I think there's opportunities for us to talk about as you all talked about the comprehensivecare but things like paid leave um long-term in home care I know many of usare in that sandwich generation where we're caring for Littles planning our families and also caring for the oldergeneration and a lot of that care burden um and stress Falls um heavilyespecially on black women and I'm wondering um if you could talk to us about like the totality of what's atstake and what we should be prepared for um moving forward in the next few monthsand yearsahead I guess I can start um and try not to get emotional in themeantime I mean everything is at stake every everything is at stake there arethings that you that may not be on your radar um that will impact how you areable to be cared for what decisions you're able to make about your care umwhat access you have what resources you have so I think it's really importantthat when you are going behind that curtain to to to vote that you considerall of those things move past the rhetoric move past pass what's been saidin campaign ads and all these other things but really understand thedecisions that are the that the individuals that are running for office the decisions that they have made in thepast what they say they're going to those decisions they're that they're going to make in the future because it really does impacteverything everything and I feel almost as a black community I hope I don't gettoo much trouble saying this I feel almost as a black community we have beenlulled to sleep so many things have changed so small and so incrementally that we're going to wakeup in five years and we're not going to have the right to vote we're not going to have the right to choose choose whoour providers or any of those things because our rights are slowly being taken away from um not just thinkingabout the national election but even our state and local government when thereare things again that decisions that are made they impact Us in such a way umeven around Reproductive Rights when it doesn't matter where you stand on theabortion issue if you're for abortion you're against abort whatever that isyou have to understand the ramification of the do's decision and what that has meant Downstream those unintendedconsequences I mentioned one earlier that when we look at um since the do'sdecision when we look at uh Physicians and and medical stud students choosingwhere they're going to go into residency the states that have the strictest abortion bands have had a decreasednumber of medical students applying for residency in those States well the otherfa part of that is that lots of Physicians that are practicing in an area choose that area because that'swhere they trained I'm not from New Orleans I'm actually NRA I'm from Mississippi I'm from Meridian Mississippi but I trained in New Orleansand so I chose to stay in in in in New Orleans so if you don't have medical students that are coming to train and doresidency Pro residency in your state you will have an overall decrease of of Physicians and so that's just one smallexample but just understand the that that small decision that may seem sosmall has such a greater um impact even if that consequence isunintended okay can I come in Quium yes that's that's like Workforce things what every time I hear theconversation around um you know the do's decision Robeing overturned this is one policy that weimmediately see the impacts of and typically like those of us that live inthis nonprofit world we understand that um Administration es and flows so youknow when we're have a democratic Administration most of the work that we're doing there's funding out there umand then when it's a little more conservative on the Republican side and this I'm I'm speaking for myself so Idon't have I don't have any you know body pulling my coattail um so then weknow that some of those fun that funding dries up we saw it in HIV we we see itover and over um in these four year cycles and so those of us that kind oflive in this space are able to kind of prepare you know depending on whatwe expect for administration to potentially look like the preparationnow um is not as subtle as we have typically looked at it is is it is notjust the financial impact to our organizations but it's the direct impactto the people that we serve and what it looks like when we go behind that boothand put someone in office that has that continues to double down on the thingsthat we talk about these pieces of racism when we are talking about we maywe talk about these one toone instances but this is much bigger it's the systemsthat Dr Gillespie Bell talked about dismantling them being able to dismantlethem is lifelong work and it will be even harder um that's what's at stakeyesterday y'all know that Facebook is a no Never Never Land of of politicalpundit um and someone said to me abortion is not on the ballot I don't even do this I don't even talk to peopleon Facebook about politics but someone said abortion is not on the ballot that's a big talking point for peoplebut it's reproductive Health rights and Justice it's all of our health care inthis big umbrella that's actually on the ballot and if we go down a rabbit holeof abortion care which is actually a part of reproductive health care then that gets people off their rocker all ofour health is at stake everyone's health and so I think it is so important thatwe continue to I mean we only have a couple of weeks left but our communities have to understand and it's ourresponsibility those that we're sitting on here talking amongst the choir butwhat's really important is those people that we serve on a day-to-day basis yes everyone has the opportunity to choosewhat they want to do when they go behind that voting booth but it's our opportunity to tell what we know andwhat we see from this perspective rant over sorryno thank you for that I I think you're you're right we may be speaking to the choir but I heard uh someone say oncewhat we need the choir to sing so um I think as we come to close Iwould like to give you all an opportunity to share one last thought or Vision um or moment of action for ouraudience that we can take forward with us um on this important topic I knowwhere my one action is but I would love to hear from all of you um starting with toNisha yeah I mean it I'll Echo what other people have said that this whatwe're up against and what's coming is really to me zooms all the way up to just being an issue around bodilyautonomy and sovereignty which is everyone's issue and when they come for one of us they come for all of us whichI think requires Us My Moment of action or my ask of people is where figure outwhere you sit in the ecosystem and let's please all be reaching out to each otheracross the ecosystem because our work is deeply interconnected and we don't existwithout the rest of the people on this screen um and that we don't exist without the people who are here joiningus um in in this webinar as well so um build relationships grow your ecosystemsand invest in that from where you are and from where you can thank youTamara I had a feeling you were going to call on me and my comments Dil with Tanisha so always going to Echo we knowthat we have a very important election coming up voting but not just in the national elections are local electionsright because at the end of the day we're in our local community and underground that that impacts us manytimes much more so what's coming down you know from the federal pipeline so just want to put that out there likeeveryone else is already done but also piggybacking on tanisha's comments I think for me recently just reallyunderstanding the importance of advocacy and advocacy can take many forms rightor or several forms um and for me the two that have really jumped out recently our personal advocacy but reallyprobably more Central to this conversation is community advocacy but all of us can be an advocate and so forme using the personal advocat example that's actually how I became a d based on my lived experience of my twopregnancies I was like there's something else that needs to be done to help black women during the birthing Journeys Ithink I would like to become a doula um so that's been my personal advocacy for the past four years but Communityadvocacy is so impactful again where you live locally part of advocacy you knowis this type of conversation that we're having so let's take it off the screen have it in your communities where youare and what are the solutions where you are we don't have to wait on on systemsfunders yes we do need money and all those things but we can start to you know have the conversations right in ourcommunity and it can grow scale out we apply together for funding X Y and Z so I just encourage all of us to figure outwhat community advocacy means for you in your local community to address whether it is expanding you know postpartum careaccess to care or whatever the issue is that is Central to you and lastly because I am a member of a nonprofit I'malways going to plug that people donate to nonprofits that are doing the work that you feel passionateabout thank you nikra Dr bur yes so my vision um for nowand the future it's it's always that black women have the birth that wedeserve and desire and postpartum and so whatever it takes for all of us to worktogether doing that whether that's funding whether that's Primary Care DirectServices um and even voting I think we all have the responsibility from where we sit in this ecosystem to do our partto get um realize that Vision thank you and to close this out Dr B yes I um have a quote uh that Ithink really it encompasses what everybody else has said but it's a quote that I commonly end with when I dolectures on Health Equity and I think is applicable to now it's from Dr Martin Luther King Jr and it says that theultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at timesof Challenge and controversy and I would say that at least for me in medicinethis is the most challenging and controversial time I have ever practicedin I never thought I would be practicing and fearful of going to jail for practicing medicine um and I think allof us have different ch challenges um to um as Tanisha was saying to ourReproductive Rights um to bodily autonomy it's a very challenging time and it's a controversial time and wehave the option to sit and say nothing but if you sit and say nothing you're still saying something it says you'reokay with the status quo so everybody that is listening everybody that you talk you touch you can touch everybodyhas something to do and to say to improve our maternal outcomes and toimprove the systems that are not designed for us to to not only not only survive but tothrive thank you all so so much thank you for the audience and thank you to our panelists over to youJanelle once again thank you for joining us for today's discussion I hope we haveleft you with some important insights on how we can all contribute to a more robust ecosystem of care and the role ofthe reproductive Justice movement is playing and getting us to the vision umwe hope you will join us for our next conversation on economic Mobility on November 19th uh please take a moment tocomplete our brief survey after the webinar ends here you can opt in for more uh information about futurewebinars I hope you all have a beautiful day and keep onfighting thank youEnglish (auto-generated)AllFrom Oxfam AmericaPresentationsWatchedLearning
In the Green and Just Transitions webinar, the second of a four-part series of A New Era for Black Women series, we heard from Southern women with deep ties and experience in this field about what a green and just transition means and needs to look like.
Show video transcript
welcome everyone we're going to give just a couple more more minutes for people to come on to the space thank youokay thank you I see people coming in to the space welcome to this webinar greenand just transitions good morning good afternoon good evening my name is Sophialonton and I work at oxfam's us domestic programs thank you so much for joiningus for this urgent And Timely conversation on green and just transitions this conversation is thesecond in a four-part series of our new error for black women initiative whichcovers issues that are impacting low-wage workers and communities sponsored by Oxfam in the Mississippiblack women's Round Table our planet and communities standat a critical juncture in the fight against the climate crisis to avert thecat the catastrophic impacts of climate change including devastating floodfloods heat waves droughts fires we must act quickly anddramatically to reduce global warming emissions this fight is aboutsafeguarding our health protecting our environment and ensuring a sustainablefuture for current and future Generations as weknow those with the fewest resources and who've done the least to cause thisproblem particularly black brown and Indigenous communities are hardest hitand suffer the worst consequences of climate disasters all the while rich countriesand corporations continue to pollute and emit to maintain their wealth andpower rather than stepping up to meet the moment the US is on Pace to expandfossil fuel production in the next decade prolonging fossil fuel companiesstrangle hold on our economy on politics and theenvironment but the women you're going to hear from today are taking action andimplementing Solutions towards a clean and Just EnergyFuture to help Stuart our leaders in this conversation about this issue I am so honored tointroduce our illustrious moderator Colette Pon battle co-founder and visionand initiatives partner of tap rot Earth Colette is an awardwinning lawyer andclimate Justice organizer she's a trusted voice in theclimate Justice and Black Liberation movements and her work Focus is oncreating space for Frontline communities to gather andstrategize as a generational native of Bayou Liberty Louisiana she's a 2019Obama fellow and is the recipient of many prestigious Awards including the2023 H's award for the environment the 2022 Catalyst award from Rachel'sNetwork work and the 2022 William O Douglas award kette is a formercorporate lawyer internationally she has gained recognition for her heroutstanding use of the legal and judicial process to achieveenvironmental goals after 17 years of work leading thegolf co- Center for Law and policies development of programming focus onEquitable climate resilience in the Gulf South in 2022 she expanded her visioninto tap rot Earth inspired by her learnings with GCgcp um and movement Partners across the South when she's not working to save theworld you can find Colette and Rule Louisiana spending her free time amongthe land Waters and people who have poured into her love andnourishment since birth Colette I'll now turn it over to you thank you so muchSophia what a beautiful welcome and thank you for welcoming us to this second in the four-part series of thisconversation very critical conversation I would like to say thank you to all ofthe work that's going on behind the scenes and to the many women um and black women in particular who areworking um on behalf of their communities and I'd like to start this this conversation by briefly introducingeach panelist and inviting her to join in the discussion by answering thisquestion green and just transitions is a phrase that is thrown around a lot inthe environmental circles but the public the communities may not be familiar with it what does it mean and what does itlook like in practice it's my honor to introduce Dr Crystal Martin founder ofGreater Greener gluster Crystal how would yourespond hello first let me say thank you so much for thisopportunity to amplify the voices of some of the people in mycommunity and thank you to Oxfam the black women's round table and thisphenomenal uh platform of black womentoday I want to give a special shout out right fast to my mom and to the amazingresidents in gler who trust me to leadthem and who continue to tell their stories regarding the health issues andthe environmental Injustice that we Face daily again I am Crystal Nicole Martin Iam an educator turned Environmental activist and I lead the work for thegreater Green gler community uh we arefighting to hold draxx accountable for the multiple Clean Air Actviolations we intend to seek Justice for the people and the damages associatedwith the air pollution problems and we want to ensure environmental publichealth and quality of life improvements for the residents in the in thecommunity so as a leader I bring my community along withme in this fight and together we are on the front lines advocating for a greenand just transition because we want to protect the public health of ourchildren their children and all the residents in the community so forus um this green and just transition is aboutmeeting with state and federal government to advocate for clean air andfor laws to hold these industries accountable for their pollution in May2023 we collaborated with EPA Region 4 to host a CommunityWide meeting to talkabout our concerns regarding air pollution we were able to bringapproximately 20% % of our community to attend that meeting so we can share ourconcerns and for us so we can learn about um this green and just transitionthat we need to get to uh we shared our concerns with officials from EPA mdeq USDA forestryand other federal and state agencies so for us in order to get to a justtransition we have to work and we have to meet and we have to Advocate withthose who are at the um tables to make decisions to those who are in positionto help us make the change because we recognize as a small rural community wecannot do this fight we cannot do it alone so the EPA was instrumental inhelping us to draft what I call our initial document of uh advancing to ajust trans the EPA sat down and listened to the voices of the people of the in thecommunity and we were able to put together a document that talks about ourdesire to see a greater Greener gluster as a result of that document now or as aresult of that meeting we have been able to connect with people like Dr EricaWalker and her community noise Lab at Brown University they're helping us to have a betterunderstanding and helping us to advocate for a green and dress a green and justtransition that benefits our community right based on what our desires and whatour needs are uh at the time so I when I thought about what we're doing inpractice we are having those meetings we are having those conversations but in addition to the conversations we arecalling on action we need to see action behind the conversations so we arepartnering with our state federal um government and then we are also workingwith other community-based organizations such as nrdc Echo Oxfam um DogwoodAlliance Deep South Center for environmental justice all of these organizations along with so many othersare working with us to advocate for cleaner air Greener jobs more economicinvestment we are asking for energy efficient um homes and we need laws thatthat going to hold these industries accountable and laws that actuallyprotect the public health of the people not just say this is our mission but actually help us to to um protect thepublic health of the people in our community so that's what we are doing on the front lines in practice to helptransition to a Greener to a just in green the um gler I I I hear the actionI hear the accountability I hear um being at the table really getting in there accountability was huge and thankyou for that introduction let's get a little more into that as we go um in the meantime let's just introduce our secondpanelist aulo oo Esquire who is the co-founder and CEO of inner wealthSolutions aulo what does the green and just transition look like in your neckof the woods in your sector what's that looking like foryou and I think we have a julo thank you and I'm gonna apologizein advance that my internet is a little unstable I shouldhave yeah good to go aulo I think we got you back now oops or not all right wellwe're going to keep going um we'll get a julo back and we'll um get a note from the tech once we come back in but we cankeep going it's not just one it's not just two it's a whole crew of us and so um I next want to bring in our thirdpanelist uh Dana Davey Esquire senior policy advisor of the US Southeastregion at Oxfam Danielle what do green and just transitions mean and look likein practice can you come on in and en join that conversation thank you so much and Ijust want to pick up the thread of where Dr Martin left off uh you you elevatedaccountability I think a huge opportunity that we have in having a green and just transition is that blackwomen have been on the front lines of this work for the entirety of the movement I mean if you go all the wayback to the Federation of southern cooperatives land assistance funds new communities right here in Albany Georgiauh the community in Western in eastern rather North Carolina that were callingout Industries for abusing black rural communities there's been a long Legacyof black women's leadership and so I think a first step towards putting it into practice is financially investingand politically investing in black women's leadership and that black women's best framework uh that has beenapplied by many women that have come before me if we look at legislation from the perspective of the most oppressedthe most burdened the most harmed by political inaction and economicdivestment we find the black woman and so the solutions politically and economically must be investments inblack women's leadership and insight in this space I also think that Community ownership and Leadership of theindustries the renewable Industries and especially making sure that as as a J'swork is doing making sure that Rural and black communities are growing their wealth in the new types of Technologythe new types of grids all of the ways in which our Southeastern and Global Southern communities have been divestedfrom in the ways that put us on the front lines of climate change those are the very ways in which we can grow thewealth of the black community and I also think that the appropriations of federallegislation the justice 40 program um of the the white house that has set aside40% of the financial investments in federal infrastructure and other piecesof federal legislation those can't just stay uh as talking points of the administration they have to really maketheir way into Community leadership Community possession and the decisions need to be made at that locallevel thank you so much um I think this is you know to keep hearing this locallevel to keep hearing the um participation at the community level um and even to keep hearing the role of theblack woman in This Global um what sounds like new but sounds like it might have been going for a long time struggleum for justice and Equity um and access sounds like we're moving things along Ithought we had a julo back but I think she's still trying to connect so we'll keep the conversation going but I dowant to just acknowledge um that we want to hear a definition but we also want to hear a little bit more as was brought upabout this um bring bringing in renewable energy making sure that these rural communities are uh brought intothe conversation but while we're oh and we have a julo back right on time umaulo we were just talking a little bit about what the Justin Green transition means but I think it would be a greattime to also ask you a little bit about your work in North Carolina um specifically how you came to the to thefield um and why is this crucial for black communities in addition to whatthis this green transition look like can you jump in for us and then we'll keep the sure sure sure my apologies for thetechnical difficulties everyone and I want to add my word of thanks alongside Dr Martin toOxfam and um the black women's Roundtable in Mississippi for the timetoday um as I look at the question of equity um there are sort of three areasthat are most important to me or that I pay particular attentionto and um the first is around procedural equity which is making sure that we havea voice at the table that um we understand who's participating in decision making and who wasnot the second area is around um restorative equity which is um how do weuse this moment to repair the damage that has been donehistorically from fossil fuel production and then the third areathat's of interest to me in particular around my work in the Solar industry is around distributive equity which iswho's actually benefiting from this transition now and in thefuture and while my work is really focused on this narrow slice of the trans transition I am uh super focusedon solar and how solar energy can be used um to benefit families andcommunities more than simply in terms of a uh Bill savings but also in terms ofownership and um ownership of this vitalsort of um human need electricity umall of those Equity considerations are at play even in this narrow slice of the transition but compoundthat those Equity considerations as Dr Martin said when you're thinking about Energy Efficiency other forms ofGeneration Um electric vehicle access it's not simply about the technology butit's about applying these various procedural regenerativerestorative distributive Equity aspects alongside that this is a momentin history where it's once in a lifetime it's generational but in manyways for our country it's actually the firsttime where communities of color arepositioned and policy is somewhat aligned to allow there to be a historictransformation in our economy for the benefit of people ofcolor every other industrial transformation has kind of missed us andnone of them has had this focus on uh policy directed in the way that this currentAdministration and the current policies are directed towards redressing sayinghistorical injustices as well as creating greater benefit and EconomicOpportunity going forward so it is a moment and I'm I'm grateful to be inpartnership with all of you all as we move towards um the vision that we seek well let's let's keep talking aboutthis aspect of public policy I mean we're in a moment where we're seeing um you know particular types of leadershiptake hold um we're seeing particular types of legislation uh come through through uh Dana you specifically broughtin um some of the opportunities that we're seeing now let me pivot to you fora policy view on this um specifically around the inflation reduction act um it was passed it was arguably the mostsignificant climate legislation in US history at least 515 billion in publicinvestment from the IRA alone and more than 170,000 green jobs also have beencreated in the wake of the IRA a majority of them in red States somewhich have the largest and fastest growing black black populations in the country what does what does it get rightuh what concessions were made what issues does it not address I know this has been a real concern in the Southright all of the things that aulo said is right right some of this stuff is historic this is a moment also umsacrifices were made concessions were made what is this mean what what your read on this one so I'm extremelyexcited about this piece of legislation if it's not obvious from my enthusiasmbut one of the things that it really gets right is that in the EPA report climate change and social vulnerabilityin the United States they found that blacks were 40% more likely than non-blacks to live on the front linesand that's because of redlining that's because of a long history of the ways in which African-American land loss hasbeen devised of by Our Own federal government and the interest of of offinancial institutions um and corporations and so um by looking atdata and having datadriven legislation as someone who's worked um in this fieldof rural uh communities working with black farmers and black co-ops for over 15 years it's not frequently that we seelegislation that really talks about the the numbers and the ways that the numbers directly impact ourdisenfranchisement our dispossession and the ways in which we are risk and so Ithink that 40% and that number doesn't only pertain to African-Americans theright around 40% are the ways in which both Asian-American uh indigenous um anduh Latin communities are impacted by the disproportionate impact of climatechange and so by setting justice 40 as a whole government framework we're reallylooking at the ways in which our entire federal government really needs to take a look at the ways in which theseparticular communities on the front lines really need to be invested in and that's what Equity is I think a lot oftimes folks confuse equity and equality and what we really need is when folkshave been re you know resource have been have been removed from a community a series of communities for Generations wehave to make particular investments into those communities to help them get caught up and so using data um and andputting those in investments into the most uh vulnerable communities that's what it gets right now one of theproblems that is occurring is that the time frame that we're facing the realityis that we've gone so many decades we've gone over 40 decades knowing the climate change was scientifically factual anddisregarding that evidence that now the damage is really urgent and so all ofthe asthma all of the lung diseases all of the health diseases all of the infrastructure degradation the housingstock degradation all of those things are now multiplied by what's happeningin our environment and so trying to get everything caught up and those Investments made in a timely urgent waywhile slowing that process down enough to make sure that the fastest way to Resto resolve it would be to give all the really bad polluters all the money and tell them to clean up their act rightand so that's one of the things that we saw when the USDA was trying to get the climate smart Commodities program up andgoing huge corporations got big amounts of money and those communities on the front line just didn't have enough timeto get their documents in order to get access to those resources but now we have until November of this year for theclimate change grants and I really think that communities need to get as much information and as much conversationsgoing amongst local leadership to make sure that those resources make their wayfrom a federal construct into a local reality that's locallyLED yeah thank you from that Federal construct into locally LED action andand we're back to action again Dr Martin you're on the front lines organizing and educating your community and decisionmakers about air quality issues in Gloucester um as can you tell us a little bit more about your um communityin Gloucester Mississippi and as you know we really need to fully and hastily stop emitting greenhouse gases can we doit while centering communities is that even possible can you talk to us a little aboutthat yes well we'll go back to gler gler of course is a really small rural Townwe're located in Southwest Mississippi approximately two hours south of JacksonMississippi I tell people if you've ever traveled 55 South um from Jackson to NewOrleans then you pass a town called mome Mississippi we are are about 30 mileswest of mome so I always tell my friends if you drive at Gloucester and you drive too fast because we don't have too manyuh markers landmarks well if you drive too fast you will drive right past GLbut we are approximately 900 people U living in Gloucester 80% of that population is black and 40%live in poverty unfortunately we are a community that um has been described asan environmental justice Community again we're small we're rural we're umdisproportionately affected by air and noise pollution we are majority black umHigh rate of poverty uh many of us are related we are related by blood bymarriage I tell people we even related by your baby mama family your baby daddyfamily uh but we are all some kind of way related right people in the umGloucester Community are dealing with a lot of breathing and respiratory issues as a result of this air pollutionwhether they know it or not um but we know it stems from the pollution a lotof parents are reporting High rates of asthma and allergies in their children we have many adults who are reportingHigh rates of asthma chronic breathing issues COPD lung cancer I got a callrecently that quite a few people have kidney cancer people are dealing with skin and eyeirritation dizziness um just to name a few of the issues that we are dealingwith in our community a lot of people um have died from lung cancer heart issuesand other forms of cancer in my community so here we are the greatergreen of gler project we are just a small rural grassroot Outreach educationinitiative um that was established by my n nonprofit K Martin group and severalresidents from the community this initiative began in response to the $2.5 million fine thatwas imposed against drax's biomass facility we wanted to know why thiscompany dra you know why they had to pay this fine which led us to finding out thatthe fine was the result of um our air being pollutedwith hazardous air pollutants I had to I'm I'm having to learn a lot of this so I can help educate my community theykept talking about haps I kept asking what in the world are haps only todiscover that it's not just air pollution that's in gler um the federal government said we have haps and theseare hazardous air pollutes so after we collaborated with um othercommunity-based organizations and I just want to take a minute to shout out Rachel ma fromSouthern Echo because I share with people often times we haven't given herenough credit for being there with us on the front line she's a black female outof Jackson who showed up for us during a really critical time and that reallyhelped us to amplify our voices it helped us to come together as a community so I just wanted to um shoutout Rachel ma because her work in Gloucester and her labor has not goneunnoticed I see so with her help and the help of so many other amazing blackwomen we started the greater green of gler project to help bring about thisawareness and to help educate our people our community on these issues that theywere dealing with and to talk about this facility and the air pollution you knowthe fine we need to talk about that with the people in our community so today weare fighting um as the greater green of gler project because we want to holddrax's account we intend to seek Justice for the damages that have beenassociated with the air pollution and we want to ensure um that we are not leftbehind right we're talking about this just transition this justice 40 we atthis point we will not be left behind share with people years ago we lost ourschool a long time ago right after I graduated high school I think it was 19the year I graduated 1988 we lost around 1989 our voices were not at the tablethen so we intend to not be left behind this time and that's why I tell people Ihad to return back to my community so I can help us in this fight to ensure thatthis time we won't be left behind so fighting to ensure the public health anda better quality of life for the residents in Gloucester I I hear thatand thank you Dr Martin I I think to ensure that future right to ensure a better quality of life to keep thatfight and also really you know how do we stop this pollution um you know holdaccountable for what has been done but how do we stop the pollution ajulo this this there's a there's a DOT that rarelygets connected that black folks deal with all the time one is this impact that Dr Martin is talking about thesepolicies that Dan has really like showed us what the opportunities are but then how are we talking about the newopportunities what is that um how is the word getting out to Black communities about um blackowned solar and windcompanies or how to even enter uh that industry we we we know we're beingpoisoned we're being polluted these things are happening we know that there's even a federal construct tostart to address this but how do we connect the dots to this blackowned solar and wind talk to us a little bitabout that sure you know when I I listened one of the reflections I hadColette was way back in 2005 2006 when you and I worked together in response toHurricane Katrina at Oxfam and um one of thestrategies was really around what are the economic development opportunities for peoples whose livelihoods are tiedor contributing to their ownvulnerabilities and there wasn't always a good answer forthat one of the other Reflections is that often in the work of ruraldevelopment communities have a vision and ideas about uh projects that they want toimplement in their Community but then they have to go outside their Communityto actually get the Technical Resources to put the shovel in the ground to do the engineering studies putthe capital together and if you think about this historic investment if we're notactually implementing the projects then that $1 trillion will leak right out ofour communities and be Consolidated back into the handsof um large multinational corporations that have zero accountability to ourcommunities or interest in sort of recycling that money withincommunity so one of the just one of manyuh strategies is to try to bring folks together people who are already in business um people who are aspiringentrepreneurs people in Roofing and other other contractors to say this is a trilliondoll opportunity what is going to take to build your capacity to standshoulder-to-shoulder with our community based organizations to help them Implement theirvision and so one of the outcomes of that for me was the creation of bosswhich is black owners of solar Services it's an organization that brings together businessowners um to think about and you know one of the hurdles that I personally had toovercome was the relationship with capital andcapitalism recognizing that capitalism was a primary driverofvulnerability particularly for for black womenyeah yeah but yet itis the at the same time potentially a tool on the pathum to our freedom oh girl we gonna have to talkabout that one I hear it I mean I think it's I think it's the challenge I think I think this is definitely theconversation um the role of capitalism not just in vulnerability um but in these systems that we're saying we needto change right um and then there's a reality let's talk a little bit about umthe reality and we're going to open it up to the audience in just a few moments um but for the last questions before weopen it up to the audience I'll invite any of the P panelists to answer you know the climate crisis andenvironmental degradation show us that the most that we must end fossil fuel production it's got to stop we talkabout ajust trans I but what isn't said often enough is that the same companiesextracting resources and polluting are also employers if we were to end fossil fuelproduction today our communities prepared to transition to renewable sustainable energy sources and what dothey need to do to ensure there are green jobs in their community that can be trained or transition to I mean Ithink there are a lot of presumptions in this question right that we all have the same definition of green job that we all have the same value of jobs um thatcertain jobs aren't you know a lot of lowp paying jobs that blow you up are not necessarily the same as moderatepaying jobs that can give you you know a good life so there's some nuances here with these questions and ways we Definethese things but there's a broader question here which is are we ready are we ready for the transition are we readyto win are we ready to ensure that this change um in this change people are going to have what they need um I'mcurious who wants to pop in on this and then we'll take um some questions from the audience can I just quickly jump in I'llbe super quick because like you said Colette there's a difference between cost and value and there's a differencebetween neoliberal version of success and the scarcity mindset that it drivesand the ways in which even black women leaders have been put in positions uh of leading nonprofit organizations that areput in competitive modes against each other when what we really need to do isgoes back to what we've always done as a people and that goes back to um one ofmy sources of inspiration is Reverend the late Reverend Charles sherad um uhwas a leader in the Snick movement and one of the founders of the Federation of southern cooperatives land assistancefund and he asked when he was uh working with the Albany movement what do we haveand at that time you know that led to the first ever land trust it was the largest largest and first land trust inAmerica America in Albany Georgia new communities and that was a blackowned land trust and so I do think that wehave everything that we need we have the expertise we have the passion we have the connection to the ancestors and wehave the connection to the land and and I think that one thing that gets mold in the history of our enslavement is thatwe were actually agricultural engineers and we really uh our ancestry is reallyin building Futures and building Legacy and so one of the challenges is that theway in which the tax credit structure uh for justice 40 is set up is that thosepeople who own multif family businesses and own um multif Family Properties andhomes uh and can purchase electronic Vehicles those folks are highly incentivized to get in on the front endof the green transition and those of us in our community that are renters and tenants um and may be living in homesthat just don't have access to a lot of the techn technology even don't have access in some of our rural communitiesto internet right and and that's a way that all of this information that's being disseminated is coming through theinternet and so a huge challenge is making sure that this process that isquickly uh advancing and it seems like it's getting faster and faster as time goes by it still needs to be slow enoughto be at the pace of what our community can respond to our community you've heard these experts on this panel um ourcommunity has the expertise we have the land we have the Cooperative Ventures weknow how to form co-ops I think a huge opportunity for us is to have more tenant cooperatives to have moreblackowned cooperatives in the same way that the rural electric companies um forthe most part don't have black representation on their boards why don't we have a a black solar Cooperativemovement where we own the grid there is a Native American wind grid that's being being developed right now I think thatwe can be positioned to be on the front lines we have the engineers that can develop the microchips all we need isthe capital uh and and that is really the opportunity that I think justice 40gives us and that's why I'm so excited that if we really come together and have these conversations um in ways that areaccessible to our people to our elders in particular we'll get all of the wisdom and the knowledge we need to takeadvantage of this opportunity thank you so much for that let me umpull in the audience here um and and and put one more question on the table but I just want to say thank you um to thepanelist really for laying out some of the most poignant considerations of a green and just transition audience nowis your opportunity to participate in the Q&A portion of the webinar please use the raised hand function so that Ican invite you to ask your question please remain on mute until I call your name if you are unable to use the raisedhand function or simply prefer to write your question you can use the Q&A box orthe chat we'll attempt to answer as many questions as we can for the remainder ofthe webinar so let me see I can't see raised hands but I think someone's goingto help me with that um but I can see a couple of questions um I Dan I just wantto say out loud someone is looking for more resources on how to access this Federal um these Federalum and so um hopefully hopefully we can get them um you know you said until November I heard a deadline Novemberlet's get that stuff to the communities um and also a couple of folks um have mentioned um just you know what arethese products what are these things that are being produced we're clearly not just talking about energy something's coming out of this um and soif we any of us want to address that that would be great but we do have a hand rais from Jacqueline Quinn heyJacqueline you want to ask your question please yes can you hear me yes ma'am loud and clear okay justexcuse me I'm I'm at work and but but I wanted to make sure that I joined in andI appreciate you ladies for um having this panel um and discussion Dr Martinis my first cousin and she invited me but I own a ranch here in Houston Texasand I had an episode where fracking was involved and in that process I have awater well system and because I have a water well system the fracking took place by a pipeline company that decidedthey were going to drill which the pipeline goes under my home and so when the fracking took place I was veryconcerned because there was this ground peanut butter residue that came all overmy property and I very concerned about how it affects my health going forwardhave having a water well system and having to contact the EnvironmentalServices have them come out and test they're saying oh everything's okay but to me it doesn't seem like everything'sokay because there's different type calcium buildup in my pipeline from mywater well system that's causing me to have to now spend more money on getting a uhwater water I'm sorry it's okay a water treatment center uhsister so I wanted to know is there a and I know I did ask the question in theQ&A um is there a local will you have a local um chapters Statewide where we canhave someone from every state or have a place where we can go to have thisconversation when we can't meet online but there's someone you can sit down and talk to who may also be able touh for my situation come out to my land and test it not like they tested it notlike the company who did it tested it but the way it would give all the details whether or not they have harmedmy property in which I live and own understood understood thank you Miss Jacqueline and I think Daniel um juloI'm I'm curious what I'm hearing a few things you know environmental Injustice um blackowned land um but also hearinguh Daniel you made a reference to you know nonprofits being able to do their own research or do their own um I thinkjulo mentioned you know we don't have the space to do our own engineering and then the financing and it feels like abroader question about what's out there what are the resources that are out there that folks can use um and if thoseresources out aren't out there what's the opportunity with this federal dollars to create the things that we don't have can either of you speak tothatI'll start Dania I think um I do want to Echo dania's Point earlier which is thatwe do actually have the experience and the resources and um this Cooperative modelis definitely one of them um the main thing that I think about when I thinkabout energy generation is ownership there is the tech techologicalability for us to own energy generation and to benefit directly fromit and so um I think that part of this is helpingpeople helping us all to understand that um the way that energy wasproduced is actually changing and it was changing before theinflation reduction act but now that public money has beenput towards that shift those public dollars are intendedto help the most vulnerable they are intended to help lowincome householdsthey are intended to be a subsidy for communities that wouldotherwise not transition with themarket so these dollars are for usand I think the more that we get that socialized within ourcommunity the the more we will find the resource you know Colette part of thiswe know is when you ask for that ask that question where are the resourceshow do I get connected there will be ananswer yeah yeah and and there are more questions about resources in the chatShar Shara um asked um how can we get connected with this group so so they canbring information to the rural community leadership um and there's a really good question by Maya in here Maya is keepingit real I hope I'm saying your name right um and it says thank you so much for this conversation my question is inresponse to the comments on the practicalities of a just transition inaddition to the dependency on some of these top emitters and transgressors foremployment talk about it there is also often somewhat of a dependency foreveryday living EG on Amazon or similar corporations for householdnecessities what are some ways to challenge or address these dependenciesin this transition how can we prepare ourselves and communities to adjust tosuch a transition what a great question that's one of those keeping it real questions thank you for that I'm curiousU Dr Dr Martin do you have a thought on this um you know we we we're talking about the pollution we're talking aboutthe health of our community we're talking about the future of it and we are part of a consumer culture that isboth polluting our communities and bringing an imbalance to the planet howdo we how do we start to wrestle with this um how do you talk about this youknow I was thinking about the industry in my community and umjust thinking for us we have industry butthey don't hire the people in our community again we are a very small rural community so we really don't havethe workforce capacity we don't have industry we don'thave um we're not really close to um colleges or places where our umresidents can go and get Workforce training no nobody's investing in our community nobody is investing in ourpeople to ensure that they have what they need to work at Big Industry so forus it's like we are being um pimped prostituted or whatever in myindustry that's in my community um nobody's there taking care of us rightyeah I would I had the opportunity to go to London where I had the opportunity to meet with the CEO of the company um andand I got a chance to speak in their shareholders meeting and they looked at me and saidthat uh I asked the question how many people actually work in your facility like I want to hear from you and theytold me 72 they said but 49 come fromgler you cannot imagine what went through my mind 49 people out of glouMississippi you're telling me work in that facility so we've been askingaround we have asked so many people we have yet to get past maybefive that we can count and they said that these people live within a Fourmile radius so for us the industry is not investing in our people not makingsure that we have a work force that's ready to for those jobs so even with wewe talking about a just transitionifry people first right we need people to be trained we need people to beskilled so they can get the jobs and right now that's just not happening weneed for us we need leadership it's unfortunate we a small rural communitybut we lack leadership we need leadership who are compassionate about people we need leadership who areconcerned about making sure that we can transition to a more green and just umindustry or Community nobody in my opinion we have no local leadershipthat's concerned so our fight is a little different because we just don't have that on the ground but we but we dohave but we do have you and I see you on the ground it might not I'm on theground doing it all tough yeah I let's let's acknowledge the number of womenfighting for their communities fighting against multinational corporations traveling and speaking truth to powerand bringing things and bringing people together but but we also have to acknowledge that um I think what you'resaying is is real people have to be able to work in these industries and theeducation system in my state of Louisiana your state of Mississippi across the red States is not built to todevelop critical thinking independent creativity it's built to serve a systemthat was meant to enslave us let's be clear about what we're training people to do um and how do we do thisdifferently how can this um how can we think about our financial systems aboutour Energy Systems about the systems of resources that we need um in a way thatdoes not uphold the oppression that is required to get this kind of profit and lossmargin to get these kind of wealth Ides to get this kind of opportunity um for the Haves and Have Nots so let's talkabout this let's let's um I just want to um I see you coming in Daniel let me just say to the audience if anyone elsewould like to raise your hand we're reading out of the Q&A um so you can feel free to post there Post in the chator raise your hand and we'll come to you Daniel over to you look like you wanted to get in on that one I did because I Iwanted to just amplify a concern that a black Forester my good friend Freddy Davis from the Federation of SouthernCooper has expressed to me and and what the they do is they go out and they help black folks manage their Forest at nocost and a lot of times I'm a black lawyer several of us are are black professionals a lot of times ourcommunity shies away from employing us and supporting black businesses or they they want to support us in ways thatdon't allow us to afford our livelihoods and our lives and so I think that onething that we do need to look at is coming out of the pandemic black women are essential in so many roles and somany opportunities that the community has we have those experts we have thosefolks um you know there's Cooperative Extension is one community resource thatI think that folks are not aware of someone mentioned testing and finding out about other government resources theland grant University in your local community the the EPA has technicalassistance providers I put the link in the chat that are in their different regions that you can go to withquestions not just about the the change Grant uh process but also environmentaljustice concerns there's a national environmental justice uh Council that meets monthly there's a call for that uhthere are so many resources and I think that a challenge is we're so um there wehave to put out all the fires at all the times and there's just so much urgency going on around us um and and so onething that I've tried to do is to develop a newsletter through usdp that domestic programs of Oxfam to send outjust kind of a concentrated list of what those information sources and resourcesare for our community um because there are uh folks that are poised to provideWorkforce training I know that there's several oxan partners that do Workforce training one of those is the Deep SouthCenter for environmental justice and they've been doing Workforce training since Katrina and so I just wanted toamplify that we when I say that we have everything we need one thing that we need to realize is there's no group thathas an advantage in a just transition since the Industrial Revolution Humanityhas relied on fossil fuels and so as black folks who have a particularizedunderstanding of underinvestment and making something out of nothing I'm originally from Jamaica I was thinkingabout it this morning how we re we've been recyclin since before it was like a thing I think that's just like a part ofbeing black in this world and so we have so many Innovations we just never hadthe resources we just never had the financing to make sure that those businesses could be in our communitiesand we know what happened with black wall streets so I just want to amplify and assert again that these resourcesthat we finally have a chance to access can make the difference between our ideas and implementing those solutionsfor our communities and and let's talk about the solutions I want to bring in Dove Dove's comments uh they live in anapartment building what resources are available to us and I I want to say what I hear from that which is if we'retalking about solar and wind right you got so not everybody has a farm or a ranch you know um shout out to the tothe to the ones who held on to it and the ones who do but a significant number of black folks live in apartments livein these Urban settings what do they have available to them a julo specifically when it comes to solar windhow do we think about this um in in that regard can you speak to that in our last couple of minutesI sure sure I can so just you know briefly in response to thatquestion um despite the fact that we have a significant amount of resources we arealso constrained by our regulatory environments and so for instance if youare in the Southeast we're unfortunately are not able to take advantage of things likeCommunity solar so we have to think about ways to be more creative in the way that we umdesign our projects so that people can um directly benefit from them and aCooperative ownership model is one way to do that um the other piece I wanted to bring in and related to Dan's commentis that as black womenwe adaptand there will be a significant amount of change not just in the um naturalenvironment as a result of climate change but also from a policyperspective with the rollbacks and the um um outward oppression of people ofcolor that is increasing the idea that we can have umprogram programs or initiatives that are specifically designed for black andbrown people is under legal attack it is it not only is it getting rolled backbut it's becoming illegal so it's it it behooves us asblack women to think about how we adapt yeah in this new environment and that isone of our you know I hate our superpowers we do this yeah I like thathash weo this hash weo this Sophia I hate to I hate to end it here um but Ido want to thank the panelists and Sophia call you back in to say we didn't finish we got more to talk about I hopey'all doing another round I hope this ain't it um we hope there's um we're number two and four we hope that there'smore good conversation but I'll turn it over to you with my deep thanks um and respect to all of the panelists today umand for having this conversation and for starting raising and ENT ing Mississippiif we don't have Mississippi we do not win a over to youSophia wow thank you all so much for this really rich and dynamicconversation um thank you so much for joining us today spending an hour with us I want to thank our moderator Coletteour amazing panelists Dana Dr Martin and ajulo you all have my deepest gratitudeyou're doing the work and you're doing it beautifully um just thank you for thank you everyonefor joining us we all have the power as has as we've talked about not only toadapt but to create a a just and Equitable future for everyone um a cleanenergy future a future that we deserve that prioritizes the care of our communities over the pocket books ofbillionaires and millionaires um and these fossil fuel companies the wayforward is clear we need a decisive break from the fossil fuelinfrastructure and we just need to embrace clean energy Alternatives that are at ourdisposal please scan the QR code on the screen if you can sign the petition tostop dangerous gas emissions uh we are going to be coming back for our thirdround of webinars um on June 13th but before that we are going to have a veryspecial web inar that our campaigns team is running on um methane gas on June 3rplease join us for that join that call to action it's going to be on June 3rd at 800m we will be following up with allof you with additional resources and a thank you email um by tomorrow thank youso much for joining us and spending time withus for
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