Discrimination of any kind, hurts all kinds

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Robert Espinoza, Director of Research and Communications for Funders for LGBTQ Issues, at a conference a few weeks ago. I always enjoy meeting people that are passionate about their work and that are committed to making the field of philanthropy better and Robert is one of those people. Funders for LGBTQ Issues recently released a toolkits for funders and below is a post from Robert explaining why the toolkit is so needed in our field. From Robert:

At Funders for LGBTQ Issues, a national philanthropic group that studies US foundation giving to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities, a flash bulb in our annual research shed light on a lingering disparity.

In 2007, our research tracked 71 foundations in the US that gave roughly $3.6 million to organizations explicitly serving LGBTQ people of color. Considering that the broader philanthropic portrait contains more than 72,000 foundations giving nearly $43 billion, support for LGBTQ people of color revealed itself as a blip, an almost invisible pixel.

Sociology teaches us that societal barriers play out through our economy, public and institutional policies, mass media and everyday interactions. They rear their heads as bigotry, stereotypes and unfair representations. They persist from generation to generation, seemingly intractable and often coded in values of individualism. “If the lone, talented public figure can make it,”—goes the myth of meritocracy—“why can’t everyone?”

And yet for decades, studies have emphasized how deeply embedded discrimination, produced across generations, has critically impacted the quality of life and self-advancement of communities of color—despite the same level of individual effort. For LGBTQ people of color, these conditions are exacerbated by attitudes and structures that treat people differently based on their sexualities and their gender identities and expressions.

As evidence, a growing body of research continues to demonstrate this "heightened vulnerability" among LGBTQ people of color—to health risks, verbal and physical violence, and institutional discrimination, among other areas. LGBTQ people of color also face the disregard of institutions; they are relatively unexplored as research topics and rarely considered as constituencies affected by public policies or in need of culturally and linguistically sensitive services.

So what happens when organizations that were set up to reverse these conditions receive little support from philanthropic sources? What becomes of a healthy civil society when its most vulnerable populations remain impoverished? Is this how philanthropy upholds its purpose?

Read the rest here.

A Prayer for Our Children

The holiday season has me thinking of family, related and otherwise. Marian Wright Edelman's Prayer for Our Children from her book Measure of Our Success is one of my favorites.

By MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

We pray for children Who sneak popsicles before supper, Who erase holes in math workbooks, Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, Who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, Who never "counted potatoes," Who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead, Who never go to the circus, Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. And we pray for those Who never get dessert, Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, Who watch their parents watch them die, Who can't find any bread to steal, Who don't have any rooms to clean up, Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, Whose monsters are real.

We pray for children Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, Who like ghost stories, Who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub, Who get visits from the tooth fairy, Who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool, Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone, Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those Whose nightmares come in the daytime, Who will eat anything, Who have never seen a dentist, Who aren't spoiled by anybody, Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, For those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother ... and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Please offer your hands to them so that no child is left behind because we did not act.

When segregation is good

This will become one of those posts that gets me in trouble but it won't be the first or the last post that has done that, so here we go... When I decided to go to a historically Black college, there were a variety of factors behind that decision but the biggest factor was that I was sick of always trying to explain that racism really existed and I felt like I was spending too much time in high school being the "Black representative" on every topic. I developed a strong personal and educational footing at Howard because I wasn't spending all of my time dealing with the issues of race, class, and privilege, when I should have been studying for a stats test.

So what does this have to do with philanthropy? There are also times in your professional development that you have the choice of spending time with people that are like you in some way. Through affinity groups and your own professional networks, you decide what types of people you spend time with. I have had amazing experiences with the Association of Black Foundation Executives, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, and the Funding Exchange. I've been trying to figure out why I feel so connected to those networks and why some of my best thinking about my organization and my own professional development often happens after I have been spending concerted periods of time with peers from those groups. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Diversity is important but it is also hard work. Getting people to understand where you are coming from can take most of the conversation and then you might never get to talk about the action.

2) You can do the deep, intensive work when you are with like-minded or like-experienced people that you don't have to tell that backstory to.

3) Being with people with similar backgrounds and experiences can be a time of regeneration. You can take down some of your barriers and think about who you are and what to bring to this work.

There is a time and place for spending time with people from backgrounds different than yours. Those experiences stretch your perspective and help you see new solutions to old problems. My point is be purposeful and find times where you can spend some reflection time with people that have similar backgrounds.

How are you supporting your personal and professional growth by spending time in both segregated and diverse environments?