We’re in Washington D.C. for the @CenterOnBudget #StateImpact19 conference. The opening plenary, titled “Policy. People. Justice: Bending Toward Equity, Leaning Into Change,” is about to begin.
@CenterOnBudget Erica Williams (@EricaWilli), Senior Director of State Policy Initiatives, @CenterOnBudget: We come from policy orgs, grassroots groups, foundations, unions, from communities across every state, D.C. and Puerto Rico, joined by a shared commitment to #prosperity. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: In 2019, we saw NM raise hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from higher income residents and by closing corporate tax loopholes to make major investments in schools and working families. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: We saw CA institute a major expansion to the state earned income tax credit to reach to 1 million new households. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: We saw IL and NY expand state-based financial aid to undocumented immigrant students, and OR and NY provide drivers licences to undocumented immigrants. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: We saw these and other gains come to pass by upholding a vision of dismantling barriers, by forging strong partnerships, and by deploying an array of strategies that brought people to #policy. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: These community-informed policy solutions were able to reduce #inequality and move equitable state policies forward in spite of tough political landscapes. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: And, as organizations, we worked to advance #equity both internally and externally, by understanding and coming to terms with the racist history of the policy decisions in this country in order to forge a stronger future. #StateImpact19
.@ericawillia: We must engage the communities we aim to serve if we are to succeed in advancing an agenda of inclusive prosperity. All people are experts when it comes to their own lives, which is why #People are the inspiration for this year's theme. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: #Policy is personal. It can move food either on or off tables, or put a child in our classrooms; it dictates who has and who has not the #freedom to live the life they want. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: #Policy can be a tool for #liberation of those suffering from oppression. But only if we get behind and share power with those who would be liberated. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: We live in urgent times,; this is a critical juncture. To be the best agents for #change, we must engage in shared struggle to pave the way for future generations to make a #democracy that lives up to our ideals. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: This requires that we commit to building the relationships that can transform the political and social landscape in front of us. #StateImpact19
.@EricaWilli: And in so doing, the effort could be transformative for all of us. This is our time to name the ways #WhiteSupremacy is operating within policy and within ourselves. This is our time to use our #privilege to name injustices both past and present. #StateImpact19
Taifa Smith-Butler (@TaifaButler), Executive Director, @GaBudget: D.C. is a fitting place for this conference and this theme. Here in D.C., slave-built chambers were erected on the lands taken by indigenous peoples who were driven out of these lands to build on. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: But it's not just the physical structures. Generations of policymakers have erected economic and political structures that perpetuate colonialism and repeat #injustice. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: At the same time, we've also seen pivotal events in the struggle for #freedom take place in this city: the pursuit of #justice and #opportunity, led and inspired by Black and brown people fighting against #oppression. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: Millions have come here to fight for #policy that represents our ideals, and they have succeeded, battle by battle. That #struggle reaches a critical pitch point with the elections of 2020. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: The "Why" of why we're here is where I want to start with our panelists. Because the "Why" is so important to the work that we are all here to do. #StateImpact19
Desmond Meade (@desmondmeade), Executive Director, @FLRightsRestore: The "Why" infuriates and saddens, motivates and antagonizes me. In a nutshell, I get up every day because of each and everyone of you all. I get up because I want a better world. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: How many Black bodies have been murdered, incarcerated or brutalized since we began this work? It happens every day, and yet its business as usual. If that happened to any other people in any other country, we would accuse that country of #genocide #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: We are never going to accomplish anything as long as we hate each other. We cannot allow ourselves to be disillusioned, or to be put in boxes that limit who we can talk to. We must embrace a simple four letter word, and that word is "love." #StateImpact19
Autumn Breon Williams (@AutumnBreon), Executive Director, African School for Excellence Foundation: I think about my "Why" a lot because its an opportunity for #empathy. I think of my "six word story": Sell the shadow, support the substance. #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: That comes from Sojourner Truth, the former slave & great #abolitionist, in her speech “Ain’t I a Woman?”, which was delivered in perfect English, but rewritten and popularized by a white abolitionist into vernacular she had heard other slaves speak. #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: She sold photographs of herself to journals and other publications to fund her activism, hence the phrase, "I sell the shadow to support the substance." #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: So to me, the "Why" is about avoiding revisionist #history and ensuring #accuracy in the telling of the lived experiences of marginalized people, in my case through #art and #education. #StateImpact19 Impact
@AutumnBreon Nicole Montclair-Donaghy, Field Director, North Dakota Native Vote: (RE: the "Why") I saw the devastation of our lands during the #fracking boom in North Dakota. I saw #policy that would harm the people in those communities long after the #oil companies leave. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon, Senior Director of #Immigration Policy, National Domestic Workers Alliance: #Love is one of the motivating factors for me, as is fighting for #dignity. The #power of every day people to come together and fight for something better pushes me forward. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: #StateImpact19 has always been about economic justice, but we want to center People better through the recognition that we don’t have equitable #opportunity for folks, and so we want to think more about racial #equity and inclusion. How do you see that lens?
Haeyoung Yoon, NDWA: Domestic Workers are largely women of color, and many are undocumented immigrants. So our starting point lies with who our members are. To us, its not a distinction between racial or economic justice. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon: We are always leaning into the intersection of #race, #class and #gender. We think of liberation and justice at that intersection. We want to understand the fullness of what our members are experiencing. #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: Centering #equity is about making sure this is treated as a #movement and not a moment. Equity is not a feel good initiative. Its about accuracy. The people that make decisions that affect entire populations should reflect those populations. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: The difference between contribution and commitment involves understanding that it is the people who are closest to the pain that are most invested in ending it. Recognize the role you play and where you stand. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: For too long we, as a movement, have been engaged in what I call "social malpractice." What we've been doing is "prescribing" solutions for communities without first having conversations with those communities. #StateImpact19
Montclair-Donaghy (NDNV): The idea of racial #equity and of #justice has always been the center for native people because we have no choice but to fight the institutional racism and oppression that has been placed on all people of color since the European invasion. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon: #Power may not be on the name of this plenary, but to bend toward #justice and to ground #policy in people, we have to build and exercise power. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon: We think of power in different ways. We ground our work in organizing to try and build #power in the marketplace. But we also believe in the power of narrative change and cultural change: What cultural shifts are needed to bring #dignity to people? #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: When we talk about #empathy, we have to consider what it means to empathize with yourself. Empathy is an important building blcok for considering power and reconstructing the edifices where power is distributed the way it should be. #StateImpact19
Montclair-Donaghy: Meeting people where they are at is what works. Relying on the people in these communities that are dealing with these policies of extraction: they are the experts and they know what needs to be done. #StateImpact19
Montclair-Donaghy: Re #Equity, #Power: In the context of communities of color or marginalized communities, there's that phrase: "...give a man a fish, but teach a man to fish..." But sometimes marginalized communities are not able to reach the lake to fish at all. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: #Power is the ability to make someone say "yes," even when its against their self interest. Amendment 4 enfranchised 1.4 million Floridians. Just 100,000 of them could create a bloc powerful enough to make C.J. reform a permanent campaign issue. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: But that kind of power comes with a responsibility. It must be accompanied by an equally strong commitment to love. Otherwise you become who you despised. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: What does it mean to be a "co-conspirator," as opposed to an "ally?" #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: Being a co-conspirator means recognizing that you're never going to experience the same hunger pains someone else is experiencing, and that you need to ask them what will satisfy their need instead of trying to decide for them. #StateImpact19
.@TaifaButler: What are some of your biggest obstacles? #StateImpact19
.@AutumnBreon: We're trying to catalyze a paradigm shift. That means asking people to act on ideas they’ve never seen before. Persuading people to jump on an idea that they’ve never considered is hard. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon: Organizing marginalized people is always a challenge. Domestic Work, like Farm Work, was excluded from legal protections (e.g. in the Fair Labor Standards Act). That's based on a legacy of slavery. #StateImpact19
Haeyoung Yoon: Yet Domestic Work is the fastest growing sector of the #economy. So much of our society sees care work as an individual burden; it's invisible. The barrier that were trying to overcome is how to demonstrate that this is a collective responsibility. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: My biggest struggle with Amendment 4 came from progressives - people that were supposed to be allies - because if we had lost, that would have been used as justification for not letting POC lead movements. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: As though POC do not have the capacity to be strategic enough to win such a controversial issue in a controversial time in a controversial state. For years, we didn’t get any funding for that exact reason. #StateImpact19
.@desmondmeade: We spend too much time looking at the opposition, but the opposition can't stop our movement if we are united. #StateImpact19
