For several years now a set of relationships and understandings has been growing in Austin including:
Austin Disproportionality and Disparity Advisory Committee has been working in since 2006, to address discrimination in Child Protective Services. There are 15 similar groups across Texas. These groups organized and pushed for the State to fund and support this ongoing work. They continue to host Town Hall meetings and other conversations today From this was born:
The Center for the Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities
The Center was created in 2010 to address systemic factors that lead to disparate outcomes for children, their families, and other vulnerable persons within the Texas Health and Human Services System. Their work , is showing that you can not only turn around discrimination against African Americans, but when you do, everybody else’s boat rises to! The Center leads Courageous Conversations and trainings with the People’s Institute for the leaders, staff and communities relating to Child Protective Services, Education, Health Care, Criminal Justice and Juvenile Justice. There ongoing work is transforming how these government agencies are working toward Racial Equit
The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond focuses on understanding what racism is, where it comes from, how it functions, why it persists and how it can be undone. Their workshops use a systemic approach that emphasizes learning from history, developing leadership, maintaining accountability to communities, creating networks, undoing internalized racial oppression and understanding the role of organizational gate keeping
FROM PISB: How Can We Undo Racism? The fabric of racism is inextricably woven and constructed into the founding principles of the United States. Racism was done and it can be undone through effective anti-racist organizing with, and in accountability to the communities most impacted by racism. The People’s Institute believes that effective community and institutional change happens when those who serve as agents of transformation understand the foundations of race and racism and how they continually function as a barrier to community self-determination and self-sufficiency.
This nation has always reflected rich diversity from the innumerable multitude of indigenous cultures that inhabited and sustained this land prior to arrival of European explorers to our present composition. Yet, unequivocally, whites continue to fair significantly better than all people of color. In our workshops, we analyze power and how it is used to maintain this racial divide, in hopes of achieving equity and equality across all cultures and races.
Our Principles
“People are not poor because they lack programs and services; people are poor because they lack power”
The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond believes that an effective, broad-based movement for social transformation must be rooted in the following Anti-Racist Principles:
Undoing Racism
Learning from History
Sharing Culture
Developing Leadership
Maintaining Accountability
Networking
Analyzing Power
Gatekeeping
Undoing Internalized Racial Oppression
Identifying and Analyzing Manifestations of Racism