CSI releases our 2013 policy opportunity document for the food system. We call upon the White House to boldly advocate that Congress pass a full and fair farm bill.  The President should:

1. Request $20 million (per year) in funding for Section 2501: Funding for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers to help small family farmers and farmers of color stay on their land and produce healthy food;
2. Restore funding to nutrition programs dedicated to increasing access to healthy foods in marginalized communities, both urban and rural;
3. Back the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act to increase access to healthy food and build a local and regional food economy;
4. Fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ensure that no family has to make a choice between paying the rent or mortgage and buying food for dinner.
5. Support the Miller-Harkin Bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for un-tipped and $7.07 for tipped workers.

Russell Simmons Hosts Reception on Race in America Featuring the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) at his New Beverly Hills Home

Evening Will Focus on Why We Need to Cultivate an Effective Conversation About Race in America

New York, NY – May 14, 2013: Business leader and philanthropist Russell Simmons will host a cocktail reception for the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) at his new Beverly Hills home. The reception will feature a critical discussion titled, Race in America: Why We Need to Talk About it and How We Can Talk About it Effectively, led by Maya Wiley, President of CSI. The event will celebrate the work of Maya and CSI on Thursday, May 16, 2013 from 6:00 P.M – 8:00 P.M.

“We need to be able to understand the nuances of race in order to tackle the issues that pose the biggest threat to communities of color,” said Russell Simmons. “I am honored to host Maya Wiley and the Center for Social Inclusion and anticipate Maya’s talk will be both informative and enlightening.”

A different conversation about race in the United States is crucial given our country’s demographic changes. While headlines are dominated by issues like affirmative action, immigration reform, voter rights and jobs, the conversations surrounding these issues are not leading us toward solutions that will help us all move forward. An effective conversation on race will help us see how we are all positioned in society and see how our race-neutral policies block opportunities for far too many communities, particularly communities of color. To lead us toward transformative policy solutions that would benefit everyone, including communities of color, we must be willing to look at race and talk about it constructively.

“Russell Simmons has a long history engaging on matters of race, from Trayvon Martin’s tragic death, to stop-and-frisk policies and many other issues of importance to progress in America,” said Maya Wiley. “I am honored that Russell has invited me to speak about why race still matters today.”

The Center for Social Inclusion works to unite public policy research and grassroots advocacy to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. Their work with community groups and national organizations focuses on developing policy ideas, fostering effective leadership and developing communication tools for a world in which we all will thrive. Their work is focused on areas such as transportation/wealth/broadband inequity, food insecurity, energy democracy, investing in communities of color and fostering a continued dialogue about race in America.

To arrange for press credentials for the event or to interview Maya Wiley, contact Eric Katzman at The TASC Group at 646-723-4344 or eric@thetascgroup.com.

About the Center for Social Inclusion
The Center for Social Inclusion works to unite public policy research and grassroots advocacy to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. We work with community groups and national organizations to develop policy ideas, foster effective leadership, and develop communications tools for an opportunity-rich world in which we all will thrive. Visit www.centerforsocialinclusion.org, http://www.facebook.com/centerforsocialinclusion or http://www.twitter.com/theCSI for more information.

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Members of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) protest Chevron.  Source.  APEN Facebook

By Anthony Giancatarino, Coordinator of Research & Advocacy

“The Faces of Climate Change” is the theme of Earth Day this year.  And it’s fitting given the impact that climate change had in 2012 for many of us.

2012 proved loud and clear that climate change knows no boundaries – it affects all of us.  And climate change does not work in isolation; it is a challenge in every aspect of our lives. It threatens the viability of our food system, as our farmers must deal with extreme droughts or floods that wipe out our fruits and vegetables.  It destroys our homes as we witnessed in the unprecedented forest fires in Colorado.  And it destroys our infrastructure – from broadband and transit lines to the power grid – as we witnessed with the raw power unleashed by Superstorm Sandy last November.

Yet, while we are all impacted, communities of color are often hardest hit. Black residents in Los Angeles, for example, are twice as likely to die from heat waves as Whites. And people of color often live nearest to the pollution sources that are root causes of climate change.  For instance, a recent NAACP report found that people of color are disproportionately located within three miles of coal plants.

So it should come as no surprise that these same communities are at the forefront of the fight against climate change.  In recognition of the many “Faces of Climate Change”, we want to celebrate some of the “Communities of Climate Change” that have been leading the charge against the biggest threat to Mother Earth.

• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), a Latino-led grassroots organization in Chicago, is tackling climate change not only by working to shut down dirty coal plants that lead to “42 premature deaths, 66 heart attacks and 720 asthma attacks each year” but also by promoting sustainable solutions that create jobs and opportunities through investing in public transportation, building local food hubs and creating community-driven clean energy.

• The Black Mesa Water Coalition, a tribal community in Arizona, has long suffered from the pollution of the Navajo Generating Power Plant, which is responsible for “16 premature deaths, 25 heart attacks, 300 asthma attacks, and 15 asthma emergency room visits each year, with total annual health costs of over $127 million.”  They are fighting to not only shut down this plant, but to replace it with a large-scale solar project owned and operated by community members, providing good jobs while decreasing emissions.

• The Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) is working with Asian and Black communities in Richmond, California, to tackle pollution from the nearby Chevron oil refineries.  But they are also working to establish  community-scale power generation that will decrease the reliance on dirty energy, create quality jobs and build the political economy of Richmond’s residents.

• Groups in Detroit, Michigan, are confronting the threats of climate change in multiple ways.  The Detroit Black Food Security Network and the Detroit Food Policy Council are creating local food hubs to grow and distribute local, healthy foods, which will reduce reliance on long distance transportation and the use of fertilizer – two critical contributors to climate change.  The Greendoor Initiative, Sierra Club EJ, and Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) have led efforts to make Detroit a Zero Waste community.  They have been fighting waste incineration, which creates one-third more CO2 emissions than coal and twice as much as oil, and promoting alternative solutions like community-owned recycling, weatherization and renewable energy projects.

While the solutions and actions may look different, they all have one thing in common, what we at the Center for Social Inclusion call community-scale solutions. These are not “one-size-fits all” models. Instead they respond to community needs and build on community assets.

What makes these models so critical are the impacts on the community:

• Local, sustainable, quality jobs for residents;
• Entrepreneurship and asset creation;
• Health improvements;
• Stronger political economy of marginalized communities, particularly communities of color, by building their power, value and agency in the economy and in public policy.

So today on Earth Day, let us honor the work of these “Communities of Climate Change.”  And let’s join them in advocating for policies at the federal, state and local level that ensure inclusive planning and provide public dollars to advance and replicate the positive change happening in communities all around us.

Maya Wiley, Founder and President of CSI, appeared on a panel convened by City Limits and the Institute for Children, Povery and Homelessness (ICPH) on January 30th at El Museo Del Barrio.

The panel also featured Dona Anderson, Director of ICPH , Melissa Boteach, Director of the Half in Ten and Poverty & Prosperity Programs at Center for American Progress and Christopher M. Brown, Director for Legislative Affairs at PolicyLink.

(At the 5:10 min mark) “In order to build a country that is structured in a way that works for all of us, we are looking for solutions that work for everyone. We have to know better to do better. And what that means is We have to understand the way that race plays out in how society is structured and how that actually explains some of why so many of us no matter our race have so much need.”

(At the 16:30 min mark). “One of the big lies that we’ve been told is that poverty is intractable. That it’s always been with us and always will be with us…Our own history shows that this is not true.”

(this post was originally published on MAG-Net for the #NotLovinIt Week of Action)

By Simran Noor, Coordinator of Advocacy

From eighth grader, Joshua Edwards in Citronelle, Alabama to Daryl Bingham in Oak Brook, Illinois, people in communities without Internet access rely on third parties, in these cases a local McDonald’s, to access the Internet and leverage its many social, economic, educational and health benefits. No American should be forced to access Internet through a fast food restaurant. But for many, like Joshua and Daryl, this is their only option.

The FCC’s Eighth Broadband Progress Report found that 19 million Americans still lack access to broadband. Rural and tribal communities are more acutely affected, with 25% and 33% lacking access respectively.   And within rural and low-income communities, communities of color are hardest hit by the lack of access which is particularly troubling since these groups are the nation’s fastest-growing populations, upon which our future prosperity depends.

Last week the FCC hosted the “Broadband Summit 2013” – to “identify and discuss best practices learned from broadband adoption programs – particularly [as they relate to] low-income households, racial and ethnic minorities, seniors, rural residents, residents of Tribal lands and people with disabilities”.

The room was filled with mostly well-meaning colleagues from the FCC, national policy organizations, federal broadband grant recipients and others who unfortunately, were not surfacing  the challenges and the potential solutions communities of color have lifted up since the implementation of the National Broadband Plan. While discussing “broadband adoption” is important, without the critical infrastructure, whether through wireless spectrum networks or hard-wired broadband to access the Internet, the most disconnected cannot even begin to think about adoption in their homes and are left with places like McDonald’s as their only option.

So what’s the solution? After extensively working on broadband in places like Mississippi, the Center for Social Inclusion, working closely with local community groups and national thought leaders, has surfaced community-scale innovations as a viable solution that underserved communities have been trying to develop

What is community-scale? Community-scale infrastructures can be publicly owned municipal networks, non-profit community owned entities, network infrastructures and services operated by local entrepreneurs or privately owned companies but must consider community benefits (i.e. hold a stake in the community and are responsive to its residents). CSI’s report, The Promise and Challenge of Community Broadband Models, surfaces the major principles of community-scale.

What about wireless/mobile access? Many organizations and policy think tanks are touting wireless and mobile phone access as the solution to connect the so-called “left-behind.” While CSI believes these entry points are important – mobile phones do not have the functionality of desktop or laptop and wireless services are still not delivered at an affordable cost in all communities – both still leaving a sizeable gap. That being said, an opportunity does exist as spectrum auctions take place at the FCC later in the year. As the FCC prepares, they must assess how companies will utilize acquired airwave space to the benefit of local communities and require companies to develop community benefit metrics. Additionally, at least 50% of unlicensed spectrum should be dedicated to innovators and entrepreneurs working on community- scale in the wireless space.

The FCC, the Obama Administration and other federal agencies making grants to increase broadband should support community scale by prioritizing investments for the development of community-scale infrastructure in communities still lacking access. No person should have to rely on fast food restaurants as a sole source for connecting to the Internet and with investment in the types of policy solutions that would begin to address infrastructure needs of communities lacking access, no person will have to.