Author: To read Iris Crawford's article, please click here.
The Biden Administration is using a “whole-of government” approach to ensure that all federal agencies center environmental and climate justice in domestic and foreign policy. However, to achieve true environmental and climate justice, racial equity must be centered in order to fully tackle the degree to which white supremacy and systemic racism are entrenched in federal policy. The Biden administration has begun taking on this complex issue by organizing within. As most federal policies were built on white supremacy and systemic racism, structural change must begin with race because it is the starting point in understanding the intersectional ways that marginalization occurs.
In January of last year, President Biden signedExecutive Order 13985, officially titled Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities. Biden’s first executive order, the policy demands the federal government “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing racial equity for all” and establishes guidelines for how the federal government can revise policies that have historically advanced racial inequities. As a direct response to this executive order, Race Forward launched FIRE (the Federal Initiative on Race and Equity) in September of last year to provide tools, strategies, support, and learning opportunities to engage in ongoing dialogue and spark change on a federal level.
FIRE, which has been working closely with the Biden administration, is a complement to the longstanding work of GARE (Government Alliance for Race and Equity), a project of Race Forward, and UC Berkeley’s Institute for Othering and Belonging. GARE is a national network made up of regional hubs and organizations working to advance racial equity in state and local governments. The alliance has created a pathway to help state and local governments reshape how they organize for racial equity internally. Over the years, it has developed resources around four key ways to advance this work. These key resources focus on:
- Creating racial equity core teams. The core team’s primary responsibility is to set the vision for racially equitable outcomes across offices.
- Developing a racial equity lens. This lens helps to identify sources of inequity and acts as a guide to undo those harms.
- Writing and executing action plans. Actions plans turn theory into action. They also quantify and make tangible the time, expertise, and resources needed to advance racial justice.
- Using a racial equity tool: A racial equity tool is critical for explicitly considering racial justice in every decision. It helps to:
- Engage the community in the decision-making process
- Identify who will benefit from or be burdened by a particular decision
- Examine the unintended consequences of particular decisions while outlining strategies to mitigate potential negative outcomes
- Develop mechanisms for successful implementation and impact evaluation
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