Hey readers,
It’s been a hard week for those in Turkey and Syria. Thousands are dead, and the numbers are only expected to rise.
It’s natural to want to help those who are experiencing what is likely the worst time of their lives. The tricky part is figuring out how to help in the most effective way.
I’ve written about how long-term aid response is where we should turn our attention t in the charged aftermath of such catastrophes. But should you want to donate for emergency relief, here’s a great resource. Don't be afraid to shoot us an email at futureperfect@vox.com to tell us your thoughts and what you'd like to see more of.
—Kelsey Piper, senior writer
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Q&A: "Racial healing is at the heart of racial equity” |
Courtesy of La June Montgomery Tabron. |
Like many major corporations in the last decade, nonprofits, too, are reconsidering how to underscore equity and diversity work within their organizations. For the W.K. Kellogg Foundation — which funds grants around child welfare — uncomfortable and vulnerable conversations are key to what they hope to achieve: true racial healing. Most recently, the foundation highlighted racial healing conversations by funding Town Halls on Telemundo and MSNBC on the National Day of Racial Healing last month. “Everyone has been harmed by racism,” says W.K. Kellogg Foundation president and CEO La June Montgomery Tabron. “We know that all of us here have been harmed, and healing is a process that is intended for everyone. It isn’t just intended to speak to the choir. We absolutely do need to reach everyone in this work.”
Founded by William Keith Kellogg (yes, the cereal Kellogg) in 1930, the foundation is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the US. It’s also one that has seen change happen. As the first person of color hired full time by the Kellogg Foundation in 1987 and now the first woman and African American president of the organization as of 2014, Montgomery Tabron has championed many projects. Racial Equity 2030 is awarding $90 million to transformative justice projects around the world, and Expanding Equity is a curriculum for companies looking to bolster their racial equity, diversity, and inclusion approaches.
“The racial healing work that we've done has been critical, which is why we can stand up and say racial healing is at the heart of racial equity,” says Montgomery Tabron. “We say that because it makes sense theoretically, but we also say it because we've done it and we've lived it, and we know it's critical to sustainability in this work.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. —Julieta Cardenas The foundation decided to be a dedicated antiracist organization in 2007. What, in your view, does that mean? What notes would you give to other groups looking to do the same?
It was important for us to proclaim ourselves as an antiracist organization because it really did create an authorizing environment within the organization for us to actually live the proclamation. What I mean by an authorizing environment is it was work that had been happening in the foundation, throughout every level of the organization, from our board to our executive team to all of the members of our staff.
As a result, the environment was set for staff to pursue the work, knowing that there was total support throughout the organization and that there was an intentionality. We will look at every system, every structure, and really embed racial equity in everything that we do. It is truly part of our DNA. Even though the conversations may be difficult, people understand that there's going to be support, and it’s not going to be a marginalized operation or one that is there for a season. It is truly embedded in everything we do.
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"Starting with stories is something that we believe everyone can be a part of." |
In your op-ed for MSNBC, you mention that increased attention to racial inequality has varying levels of importance by race and by political party, according to research from the Pew Center. How can those who are most opposed be engaged with?
What we're trying to do through our healing work is to encourage everyone to engage. You can start in your own family with conversations around the dinner table. You can also start with those people who you feel are your closest allies, but having conversations about our journey, our history, our truth. Starting with stories is something that we believe everyone can be a part of. Can you describe the key features of a “healing circle,” and is there a way to make healing circles the default and not the exception? What transformation do you think that would bring? The healing circle is the practice; it is how we connect with one another. It’s how we engage in conversation. So it always starts with people telling their own stories. Sharing their stories, their background, their truth about how racial inequities have impacted them, how those structures may have harmed them, their family, and everyone bringing forward that truth in that dialogue. But the most important thing about the healing process is there's no blaming or shaming. Hopefully, we get to see where our own humanity is affirmed and reinforced as we bring our community together and build bridges across the divide that may exist. I believe that we're socially separated — housing policies and certain policies create different communities, and sometimes they don't interact. But it's as simple as meeting someone and starting the conversation. What's your story? Where are you from? |
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We know where the next big earthquakes will happen — but not when |
Ercin Erturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images |
Predicting earthquakes is a touchy issue for scientists, in part because it has long been a game of con artists and pseudoscientists who claim to be able to forecast earthquakes. Scientists do have a good sense of where earthquakes could happen, though. Turkey, for instance, is no stranger to earthquakes. Two major fault lines cross the country and trigger shocks on a regular basis. Correspondent Umair Ifran explains the latest in earthquake science.
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Deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria will add to the region’s humanitarian struggles |
Zana Halil/dia images via Getty Images |
The death toll has exceeded 20,000 in the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria this week, making it one of the most destructive disasters in decades and adding to the devastation in a region already roiling from years of conflict and economic and humanitarian crises. It is likely to exacerbate those that already exist — displacement, food, economic, and health — while creating new, unpredictable ones, writes Jen Kirby, senior foreign policy reporter.
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This week, Bloomberg published what I'd argue is an irresponsible story on cellular meat. I hesitate to share it, but I think this is going to be a staple in the culture war over cultivated meat. There are legitimate reasons to be skeptical that cell meat will work. But the allegation explored in the story — that the process used to make cellular meat could be carcinogenic — is unfounded and makes no sense, and the author acknowledges as much. So why report on a baseless claim that no one is even making? I can’t help but read the story as concern-trolling: Rather than reporting on an unsubstantiated PR concern, it’s manufacturing one. —Marina Bolotnikova
We haven’t begun to grasp the tectonic shifts in how we produce and consume music, text, video, and more, argues the musician Ted Goia in a trenchant Substack post he framed as a culture State of the Union. On one hand, we’re producing more of it than ever before — 100,000 songs every day, 2,500 YouTube videos every minute — but most goes unheard and unwatched, while a handful of dominant platforms shape what content we consume and how we produce it. If more energy and money isn’t dedicated to building an audience that can actually appreciate quality content culture, its future looks very grim. (Unless you’re YouTuber Mr. Beast. Ask your kids.) —Bryan Walsh
The American economist Henry George first proposed a land value tax back in 1879 as the “single tax” that could resolve the tension between progress and poverty by taxing away the unearned profits from private ownership of land and circulating them back into the communities that produced them. Every now and then, someone new pops up to make the case again. The most recent is the Financial Times’s Martin Wolf. Usually, these arguments receive an uncommon chorus of agreement from across the political spectrum, a brief flare of consensus on how to build a stronger economy. Then nothing happens, and the idea goes dormant once more. Maybe this time will be different. —Oshan Jarow
American cars are getting too damn big — to the point where they don’t fit in most parking spaces, reports Aaron Gordon at Vice. Seems bad! No, but seriously, considering the sprawl of suburbs, how we design things as simple as parking lots matters. The “chunkification” of cars poses more problems than not finding a space at the mall; pedestrians are more likely to die from their injuries if they were hit by a heavier vehicle. —Izzie Ramirez
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