Thursday, August 7, 2014
Systemic Racism Hurting Girls and Women Of Color, Not Just Males
If foundations want to fully address the problems of systemic racism in the U.S, they need to step up their support for girls and women of color, write Pamela Shifman, executive director of the NoVo Foundation, and Nakisha M. Lewis, an advisor on philanthropic strategy, in an op-ed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The two point out that grantmaking to support girls and women of color has remained "below 7.5 percent of all foundation giving for more than 15 years." But they also note that the My Brothers Keeper initiative, a newly launched effort to respond to "the racism that is devastating the lives of so many men and boys of color," has received $300 million in commitments from private and public sources.
They say that by remedying what they call a "philanthropic exclusion" of girls and women of color, the lives of both boys and girls of color can be improved. They add: "This is not an argument about who suffers more. In the words of poet and activist Audre Lorde, 'There is no hierarchy of oppression.'"...