Episode 71, 13 min listen
Over 2024, we had so many rich discussions here at the State of Inclusion Podcast. Join me as we take a few minutes to reflect on our main themes and the wisdom my guests have shared across the year.
If you'd like to help us refine our work on equity ecosystem mapping, reach out to me at amesanders@stateofinclusion.com.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
-Introduction
Speaker: Ame Sanders
This is the State of Inclusion Podcast, where we explore topics at the intersection of equity, inclusion, and community. I'm Ame Sanders. Welcome. Thank you for joining us for our Year in Review episode.
Over 2024, we had so many rich discussions here at the State of Inclusion. I want to thank you for joining me to take a few minutes to reflect on the wisdom my guests have shared over the year.
-Key Themes
Three key themes came up again and again throughout the conversations.
- The first theme was around building (or rebuilding) a place, a community, and an economy that works for everyone.
- The second big theme was around the idea of looking back in order to move forward and the importance of understanding, really understanding, our community’s history.
- The third theme was around the power and possibility that exists in coalition building, community activism, and art.
-Tawanna Black
We started our year by talking with Tawanna Black of the Minnesota Center for Economic Inclusion and we heard about how her team works to build partnerships and coalitions between business leaders and public leaders all in the service of building local and regional economies that are both growing and also work for everyone. Tawanna shared a perspective that I have come back to over and over again in my thinking.
Speaker: Tawanna Black
I don't think we moved to a place of truly reckoning. Reckoning means counting the cost. I think it is required, at my organization, we believe it is required not simply to fulfill the commitments made in 2020 or to keep them up or continue but simply to live up to our promise of truly understanding that all people do have opportunity within their veins. Do have capacity within their veins. Do have talent within their veins, that is not disparate based on race.
The investments and the opportunities we've provided are very much disparate based on race. We can't solve that without doing that reckoning and counting the cost. Because if we fail to do that, we'll create programs and strategies that barely deliver on the amount of intentionality that's required.
Speaker: Ame Sanders
It is sometimes easy for a community to believe that writing a proclamation or assembling a team and giving them a two or three-year mission is enough. Tawanna reminded us that if we don’t reckon with our history, if we don’t count the cost of that history, we’ll create programs and strategies that barely deliver on the amount of intentionality that will be required. That is such a powerful sentiment.
Our journey of discovering how we can build a community and economy that works for everyone didn’t stop with our discussion with Tawanna. We also talked with Judy Wicks about the power of Local Impact Philanthropy as we heard about her work at the Philadephia Circle of Aunts and Uncles. And, we talked with Amanda Calder, who helped us see alternatives for closing the wealth equity gap through employee ownership. Amanda shared about the great potential that exists in the coming few years as Baby Boomers retire and try to sell or transfer ownership of thousands of small businesses across the country. They often don’t realize they could help themselves and their valuable employees by helping their employees become future owners. We also heard from Sibley Simon about a new way to build Affordable Housing and how, through local impact investing and crowdfunding, we can, each of us, put our money where our lives are – and be an active part of building the communities we want to see and at, the same time, work to solve local problems.
We also heard from Shamichael Hallman about the opportunity to make our investments in civic infrastructure, like our libraries, work for everyone. Shamichael reminded us that civic infrastructure can, and should, not only serve the community but help build community, and build bridges across differences.
-Braden Cooks
I talked with Braden Cooks about community design and about his work at Designing the We and his platform Undesign the Redline. Braden also reminded us that in order to move forward, we need to look back at our history, understand what happened in the past, but also look around us at the built environment and realize elements of that past are still with us and they continue to perpetuate the inequities of the past.
Speaker: Braden Cooks
But even if you say, yeah we've stopped these harmful practices, we still haven't gone back and undone the legacy that these created. The really intergenerational, profound gulf. The racial wealth gap. Just the way neighborhoods look, the different access to opportunity. We still live in the world that redlining created, even if we've said, "Yeah, we no longer do these harmful practices anymore." The harms are still there.
That's sort of where we're stuck as a society, is in this space, where, on the one hand, you have people saying, "Hey, this is over. We don't need to worry about it anymore." And then on the other hand, the whole world that we live in is so utterly determined by these designs, so they haven't been undesigned. That's really where the title of the exhibit comes in as a way to talk about this history because it's just a history we haven't told. I mean, I wasn't taught about it in school, certainly up until much later years in grad school. As a society, it's just something that we don't really understand and we don't really fully grasp. Because of that, people have all kinds of mythologies. They say, "Well, you know, people just don't work hard enough. They're lazy. They make mistakes." Then that's why we see the poverty we do. "My family pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps." It's not to negate, you know, sure people work really hard. But lots of people working really hard, and they still fall behind. That's because of these systems.
So, our hope in bringing that exhibit--we brought it to, I don't know, more than two dozen cities--is really to create a public conversation around this history and invite everyone at the table to say, "Well, how can I participate in charting a different direction?" It's not about blaming or shaming people. It's really about inviting people to the table to say, yeah, we can change this. If this was done intentionally. If this was designed intentionally, it can be undone. So, let's do it.
-Darryl Heller
Speaker: Ame Sanders
This idea of looking back to move forward came up yet again in my discussion with Darryl Heller. Darryl gave me what felt like, for the first time, a holistic way to understand reparations by considering reparations within a restorative justice framework.
Speaker: Darryl Heller
Restorative justice isn't just looking at compensation for harm that's been done or for an injustice that's been done to someone.
Restorative justice is really looking at how do we repair harm and how do we heal from it? And that's not just healing for the person who has been harmed, but healing for the person who did the harm or the perpetrator. Even more importantly, for the larger community. Because harm doesn't happen just between individuals, it really affects a much broader swath of people, including those related to those who are harmed or who perpetrated and to the community around both of those parties.
So, reparation is but one step, in my perspective of a restorative process
Speaker: Ame Sanders
We also heard from Lori Weitzner about the power of something as simple as color in designing an environment suited for purpose and individual needs.
And we also heard from Joo Hee Pomplun and Ash MacNamara about the power and possibility that exists in community activism, coalition building, and art. And, we heard about how we can (and should) disrupt the status quo, shift the narrative, and come together to advocate for what we, as a community, need.
-Beyond the Interviews
Beyond the interviews, throughout the year, I also continued my reflection, writing, speaking, and facilitation around what has come to be known as our Six Practices for Building a More Inclusive Community.
My colleagues and I developed a working document to share our learnings around the practice of GroundWork, bringing our research and thinking together with some of the best wisdom that has been shared over the years of the podcast. We also developed tools and techniques around the Practice of Self Work that we feel could be useful for both individuals as well as teams.
This year, one component of my own Self Work included very intentional learning and reflection around our Indigenous communities and their way of seeing the world, relating to nature, and living out a less individualistic and more collective sense of community. While this included actions I took all across the year, there is still so much more for me to learn from Indigenous wisdom and to open myself to different ways of thinking and being in community and finding ways to step up and take action.
2024 was also a year that my team explored more deeply the concept of what it means to recognize and nurture an equity ecosystem across our community. The beauty of the Ecosystem Practice is that we are challenged to see our personal work in the context of a larger ecosystem of actors and organizations that are all contributing to building a more just, equitable, and inclusive community. In this time when the work of equity and inclusion can feel under attack, it is even more important for us to remind ourselves that we are stronger by working together and that we are not alone. That joining hands with others in our community who are working in the same spirit can be both nourishing and impactful.
At State of Inclusion, we firmly believe that seeing is believing and that we are stronger by working together. So, this year, we have also developed an approach to help communities visualize, describe, and map their equity ecosystem. We’re currently testing and refining the approach, so if any of you are interested in trying this out with us, please reach out. I’ll put an email in the show notes.
As we move into 2025, join us as we explore ways each of us can work to build a more equitable and inclusive community wherever we find ourselves and despite whatever difficulties we may face in this work. I have the honor and pleasure to see that despite divisive rhetoric and challenges, many across our nation’s communities remain steadfast in this work of equity and inclusion. Hosting and sharing conversations about their work encourages my heart every day. And I remain hopeful.
While I’m not a religious person, Through an interview hosted by the Aspen Institute, I was recently reminded of a Biblical scripture that honestly spoke to me as I consider the meaning of hope. It felt especially relevant at this moment in the face of a period of backlash, retrenchment, and challenges experienced by those of us committed to equity and inclusion across our communities.
The scripture is from Romans 5:3-5 –New Century Version (NCV).
3We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. 4And patience produces character, and character produces hope. 5And this hope will never disappoint us…
It reminds me that hope isn’t just a word for us to throw out. It doesn’t come to us spontaneously or easily, and it is not a synonym for wishful thinking. Real hope, lasting hope, is born out of our difficulties and the patience and character that are built from those difficulties.
I wish you a joyful and hopeful 2025 as together, we look forward to more conversations, more learning, more doing, and, yes, even more challenges in this work of building more inclusive and equitable communities.
This has been the State of Inclusion podcast. As always, thanks so much for listening, and join us again next time.
CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ame Sanders
Social Media and Marketing Coordinator: Kayla Nelson
Podcast Coordinator: Emma Winiski
Sound: Uros Nikolic