What is the Leveling the Playing Field (finally!) newsletter?

(If you subscribe, you will receive the Foreword, Preface, and Intro to my new book, It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field.)

I used to wonder when I moved around east coast cities in the 70s, 80s, and 90s—Hartford, Boston, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC—why are they all so racially segregated? And why are so many of the predominantly Black neighborhoods in these cities so run down?

For too long, I dismissed these realities with a pessimistic shrug: “I guess that’s just the way it is.”

Ours is a history in which too many people, White people largely, shrug their shoulders on racial issues like this. Or, our attitude (I haven’t said it yet, but I’m White) might be, well, African Americans just need to take education more seriously; or, if the ghettos are so bad, they should just move out; or, our nation has already given them so much, they need to learn to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

These are not beliefs I hold any longer, but in my earlier days, I might have at least partially agreed with them. We cling so tightly to the belief, the myth, that America is the land of equal opportunity that we are near-blind to our protracted racial and racist history and how it plays out in our complex racial present.

Does any of this ring familiar to you?

These are the issues I plan to uncover in my new weekly newsletter, Leveling the Racial Playing Field.

Yet, I don’t want just to explore how systemic racism endures in the highways, streets, alleyways, and dead ends in American politics, policy, and culture.

I also want to bring forward and advance some of the most compelling and transformative ideas that can shake us from our apathetic slumber and move us to new places where the racial playing field finally begins to level out, where longstanding disparities qualitatively diminish, and where equity and racial justice are no longer ideas to flee but the pillars around which our nation indeed grows more equal.

It is time our nation, especially White people, wrestle genuinely with these issues and realize the debt we still owe to African Americans for the multiple and multi-generational harms we’ve inflicted – and continue to inflict - upon them.

I hope you will join me so we can explore together.

What Kind of Space this Newsletter Will Create

I hope this newsletter creates a space for us to honestly explore our racial history and see how that history still plays out today.

I hope it also generates reflection about why we’re in the circumstance, racially, that we are today as a nation.

You may not agree with everything I write. That’s fine. But if you disagree, please do so respectfully and share your opinions, facts, and research that back up your perspective. I don’t have all the answers to these issues, nor does anyone.

Ultimately, though, I’m hoping that we can explore what needs to change to undo the systems that still bind our nation to unfair conditions and inequitable outcomes for African Americans.

What far-reaching proposals would you support to repair harm and bridge unseemly racial gaps in everything from police stops and rates of imprisonment to inequitable funding gaps in our public schools to continued discrimination in wages and hiring of Whites and Blacks?

I hope this is a space to provide a reality check on the myths we like to tell ourselves about race and racism… and a space of possibility where we can dream big about how we can get to a point decades from now where race doesn’t matter when it comes to opportunities made available and outcomes that can be achieved.  

What can you expect from this newsletter?

Every week (sometimes more often) this newsletter will arrive in your email box (if it doesn’t, check your spam or junk folders).

In the first couple of months - starting in late July - this newsletter will share snippets of my journey as they connect to race and the legacy of racism—from childhood to the present day. Now that my book has officially launched (July 29, 2024), I plan to focus each month of the fall and winter on one of the eight racial myths I concentrate on in the book and then focus subsequent months on strategies and policies for transforming the playing field.

Yet, that’s subject to change based on the initial feedback I receive and as events and issues emerge during the fall presidential campaign. My focus will not waver, however, in its focus on systemic racism and the unlevel field.

Just a quick note: I focus my writing and research on racism involving Whites and Blacks. I realize fully that systemic racism possesses tentacles that affect racial and ethnic groups far beyond just Black and White. Still, as this has been my personal focus and dedication these past 30 years, it is the territory I know best and feel most passionate about.

When you are so moved, please let me know your thoughts on the newsletter. I will reply as timely as possible, but please know that I also keep a full schedule as a community engagement consultant, with multiple, time-consuming projects throughout the month.

Also, let me know what issues you wrestle with, what gives you hope or optimism, or what sets you back on these issues.