Why Is it So Hard to Talk About Race?

In Spring 2022, I was a student in Dr. Darrick Hamilton and Chris Hughes' "Visions of a Post-Neoliberal Future" class at The New School, exploring the racist political and economic foundations of today's inequitable socioeconomic landscape particularly in the United States context. This course explored literature from a wide breadth of economic policy activists, researchers, and thinkers who have studied and worked on federal and state-level approaches for closing the racial wealth gap that underlies national challenges for building a healthier economic system. We discussed ideas like investments in a care economy discussed by Co-Founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance Ai-jen Poo, correcting biases in the federal tax system highlighted by Dr. Dorothy Brown, and baby bonds supported by Dr. Hamilton's research.

The final assignment was to give a Ted Talk style presentation on any related policy subject. You can watch my presentation below. While my stage presence is far from "Ted Talk style," I was grateful for this opportunity to articulate from personal experiences as a young person with white cultural inheritance, familial context, and societal positionality, a proposal that economically and socially just policy needs to grapple intentionally with the identity crisis that many white people experience (and fight against) when faced with the implications of justice. The idea isn't that white people need more public resources for this issue, but that alternative approaches are needed to help people adjust and reorient to a dramatic shift in political and economic conditions they no longer relate to. I am not specific about what those approaches are, but in highlighting this political reality, I'm calling for greater attention and care to this topic. I think we need to systemically align white populations with racial justice policy in ways that acknowledge and account for their perspectives and experience of real economic and psycho-social impacts.

My doctoral research on ecological democracy considers what infrastructures enable an informed and engaged public to participate in responsible governance of social-ecological systems. Looking back at this presentation, and the semester-long conservation led by Dr. Hamilton and Mr. Hughes, I am reminded that race is always at the heart of our political and economic challenges. The foundations of our ecological troubles are also the foundations of our neoliberal systems of power: a class system premised on bordered, gendered, racial hierarchies. In short, a small group of people get to extract the life out of everything and everyone because they're systemically empowered to do so. As a normative concept, ecological democracy strategically combines the ideals of governing in an ecologically sustainable way and those of equity in the distribution of power, and therefore is not possible without explicit correction of the existing landscape of racial inequity.

As I move forward with my research, currently around organic waste management and community composting networks, I notice and will intentionally investigate how racial stratification impacts access and participation in governance. Using ecological democracy as a framework, I will articulate a race-forward analysis of where we are and what we need to do to move toward this racially equitable ideal. In communicating my research, I will also aim to highlight the benefits of race-forward approaches for designing healthier, more ecologically-sound systems of governance for everyone, taking a note from my presentation and attempting to shape narratives that acknowledge and include white people's experiences and needs in a world that is transforming for the better.

https://vimeo.com/968874724

//April 26, 2022. Original writing/speech content copyrights belong to Audrey Jenkins.

(blog post written June 2024)

Sources:

"Visions of a Post-Neoliberal Future" Henry Cohen Lecture series 2022 (https://event.newschool.edu/visionsofapostneoliberalfuture)