“It is too early to determine whether the waves of protests of recent years as part of the Black Lives Matter movement will actually constitute a ‘racial reckoning’ (as the media dubbed it) or not, but awareness of the role of systemic inequality and structural racism appears to be at or near its historical peak, especially among White Americans. This means that the aperture for meaningful policy change has opened,” writes Stephen Menedian in an essay on the Othering & Belonging Institute blog. Menedian’s essay provides an overview of the new open-source, searchable repository of policy-based recommendations for addressing structural and systemic racism or advancing racial equity drawn from a vast array of published material.
The Othering & Belonging Institute scoured a vast array of materials, including books, reports, civic organizational platforms, and other sources, to compile roughly 1,000 policy recommendations in many areas where structural racism is most prevalent, including policing, criminal justice, housing, transportation, voting rights, education, and many others. “We hope this project will be useful to advocacy groups, researchers, foundations, and local, state, and federal officials who are seeking ways to address systemic racism in their communities,” the team shared in the official announcement this week.