Tacoma Urban League announcement.
We are excited to announce an important opportunity to inform the future of Black well-being. The Black Future Co-op Fund is working on a report titled, “Black Well-being: Moving Toward Solutions Together,” in partnership with Byrd Barr Place, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, and the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs. The report is intended to:
- Support collective organizing among Black communities across the state.
- Direct resources to invest strategically in Black prosperity, health, and well-being.
- Inform policy change to fix structural injustices and advance equitable opportunities for Black Washingtonians.
From now until November 24, we are asking all Black Washingtonians to include their perspectives and shape the report. The survey (click here to participate) is translated in Amharic, Arabic, Dari, French, Garifuna, Haitian Creole, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Tigrinya.
As a thank you for sharing your time and perspective, you can opt into a raffle drawing. Each winner will receive a $100 gift card towards a Black-owned business of their choice in Washington!
Thank you for participating in shaping our collective future by taking and promoting this survey. Your perspectives are critical in our work to advance Black wealth, health, and well-being for generations.
. I find it interesting and a bit alarming that the questionnaire primarily addresses issues external to the Black and ostensibly other minority communities as though those external issues are what need to be changed by forces outside the community through political action. It’s all about someone else doing for the Black community what it can’t seem to do for itself. That sounds a bit paternalistic and perhaps racist.
For instance the issue of the criminal justice systems’ integrity is raised yet nothing is said about the individual and community responsibility for addressing criminality which plagues it. Accountability by society and government are raised yet nothing is said about the lack of individual and community accountability regarding things such as marriage, illegitimate births and fatherless homes. It addresses economic development yet ignores the economic impact of the drug epidemic and flight of businesses due to property crime. It addresses education but says nothing of a culture that often denigrates academic excellence as “white privilege” or worse and successful Blacks as “traitors to their race” or worse.
So it goes through a host of issues. Unfortunately, forces external to the Black community and political action alone will never be able to alter the future of that community if indeed that community does not come to grips with the issues that are organic to that community. Perhaps a different sort of survey is required to address what is actually going on in the Black community rather than one postulating on what has to happen outside that community to fix its problems.
I see no malice or fault with your words John.
It takes courage to speak frankly these days.
The law of the land respects the rights of the individual, and
with that comes responsibility.
No group or movement should ever be allowed to push that aside for any reason.
My dad left me with 4 things that I apply in daily life: “The world doesn’t owe you a living”, “Can’t never did a thing”, “You’ve got to have endurance”, and “Figure it out, I did”.
Though it was hard to listen to that as a young man, I know now that there was no malice in his words either.