Is the racial justice movement “all set"? | Rahsaan Hall | TEDxBoston

Transcriber: Leticia Silva Reviewer: Jiwoo Park I looked across the courtroom and there he was. He looked a little bit like I looked when I was 18 years old. Emboldened by the hubris of youth and a bravado that was masking his insecurities and the uncertainty that he was facing. Two years to two years, and one day to be served in the Suffolk County House of correction. You can go with the court officer. You’re all set. All set, that uniquely ubiquitous New England firm that simplifies satisfacti

on. I'm all set with this meal. I'm all set with another round of drinks. All set. A firm that erects an empathy proof barrier. I'm all set with your solicitations for money or your inquiries as to whether I know Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior. All set? It precedes the end of an interaction. I'm all set because I can't help you anymore. You're all set because I don't think you deserve help. You're all set. That's what the clerk said to this young man as she shuffled her papers, preparing f

or the next case to come before the court. Shock and frustration overtook his face, and he glared at me with this look of betrayal, as if to say, you don't know anything about me or my circumstances. And in that moment I realized he wasn't all set. I had been a prosecutor for about two years. By the time I had prosecuted this young man for selling crack in a school zone, an offense that did not warrant the two year mandatory minimum sentence that he had just received. And although I stayed in th

e DA's office for many more years and prosecuted more and more crimes for more and more serious offenses, most of the people who I was prosecuting were not all set. And even after I moved on from the DA's office and went into civil rights law, most of the people who I had represented, almost all of whom were people of color, were not all set, despite the representations of the individuals from the various institutions and agencies who had either mistreated or ignored my clients. Generations of d

isinvestment and disenfranchisement and discrimination have created circumstances in communities of color that deny access to opportunities to effectively and comprehensively change the trajectory of our lives and the communities outcomes. Even now, as the newly appointed president of a 105 year old black led civil rights organization. We are still fighting against the intolerable conditions that Doctor King so eloquently said provoke riots, the language of the unheard. The problem we're trying

to address is how do we build power and wealth, meaning equitable financial well-being in communities of color, and do it in a way that it can impact and change the trajectory of lives so that we can address those intolerable conditions and those circumstances, the circumstances that would lead to an 18 year old selling drugs in his community, or living in a community that was over, surveilled by the police. The circumstances that lead to the glaring disparities in wealth that were reported on i

n 2015, in the Federal Reserve Bank. The Color of Wealth in Boston, which reported that the median wealth of a white family is roughly $247,000 , compared to $8 of a black family. The circumstances that lead to the gross disparities in maternal mortality rates and other health disparities that were laid bare during the Covid 19 pandemic. And to put a finer point on it, how do we do it in a way that is not paternalistic? We've got to avoid perpetuating the pathologies of the nonprofit industrial

complex. We've got to move away from those deficit based narratives that describe the deficiencies in our community, and move towards an asset based approach that has a critical examination of the relationship between race and class. You see, when the Urban League was founded in 1910, black people were fleeing racial violence in the South in droves. They were headed to northern cities looking for what sociologist Terry Reid describes as not arms, but opportunities. But despite their desires, whe

n they arrived in the north, they were met with similar levels of racial capitalism and discrimination. That was actually part of the motivation for the discrimination and segregation in the South. They were given neither opportunities nor arms. All across America. In northern cities, people began to establish Urban League affiliates to welcome and train the recent migrants from the South, but also to advocate against discriminatory hiring practices and to advocate to make sure that there was qu

ality housing available and quality educational opportunities. And since 1919, the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts has been doing the same thing for the residents of Greater Boston. It's 2024 now. A lot of things have changed. But black led organizations that have the ability to provide programming and advocacy and not only shift the narrative, but build power and wealth in communities to address those intolerable conditions. And those circumstances are few and far between. And this is all

at a time where there have been the gains, rather, to affirmative action and race. Conscious efforts to address those generations of discrimination are under attack. So the question is, how do we intentionally build equitable financial well-being and power in communities of color? Well, at the Urban League. We do it by investing in the assets in our community. We're working with entrepreneurs of color through our next stage, mWBE or Minority Business Enterprise Accelerator, which has been shown

to increase business revenues for participants by 36% on average. We do it through our symbol Coding Academy, which is training adults for the jobs of today and tomorrow by teaching them coding, cybersecurity, and eventually artificial intelligence. Prompt engineering. Or through our Yoda program, which stands for Youth Opportunities Developing Achievers. It's an initiative that works with young people to provide Stem education supplements for middle and high school students in our community, t

hrough drones and cybersecurity and virtual reality and AI tools. Or new initiatives that we are bringing online, like Red tails, a workforce development initiative that will train and license formerly incarcerated individuals and system involved individuals so that they can take opportunities of the burgeoning employment opportunities to that require licensed drone pilots. Or a black male mental health initiative that has a twofold purpose to provide culturally proficient mental health services

to black men, but it also creates a pipeline to increase the number of service providers who can serve our community. We're also engaged in policy advocacy. And this is important because in order to build equitable financial well-being in communities of color, we have to advocate for policies that will remove the barriers. And it's important because many of the challenges that corporations and philanthropies are facing may end up limiting all of the promises that they made back during the so-ca

lled racial awakening of 2020. You see, long standing, black led organizations don't need to have a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative that's going to trigger the scrutiny of the very people who are seeking to eliminate those programs. We are diversity, we are inclusive, and we have been doing the work to make the conditions in our community more equitable. We're providing programming and services that will lead to policy change. We'll take the stories and anecdotes and data and transla

te those into the policy advocacy that will lead to transformational change. Transformational change, like closing the racial wealth gap, which has been shown to increase the US GDP by 4 to 6% . And that can happen by investing in businesses of color who are more likely to hire people from their own community, thereby reducing the unemployment rates in those communities, or investing in mental health service providers of the same or similar racial or ethnic background, which have been shown to h

ave positive outcomes on mental health outcomes and perceptions of care. And you can see the correlation between quality education opportunities and the reduction of the incarceration rates. 2020 brought a lot of proclamations and promises from corporations and philanthropies about how black lives matter. But there are a lot of promises that are unfulfilled. And there are a lot of wavering commitments moving forward. When the programs that have been created to address the generations of discrimi

nation and disenfranchisement are under attack, we must double down on investing in the organizations that have been doing the work all along and are closest to the pain. And as we embrace new and emerging ideas, we cannot lose sight of how these organizations have long served these very communities. Our longevity and stability should be seen as a catalyst for transformational change. So, you know, I don't know whatever happened to that young man that I prosecuted all those years ago, and I don'

t know that I ever will. But I do know that the work that I have been involved in since then, and the work of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts has been committed to to address those circumstances by empowering communities and changing lives. And this is so important because, in the words of the great Fannie Lou Hamer, nobody's free until everybody's free. Or to put a New England spin on it, nobody's all set until everybody's all set. Thank you.