Web Forum Launches
www.organizingupgrade.com 

Organizing Upgrade is an innovative new web forum launched by Harmony Goldberg, Sushma Sheth and Joseph Phelan.  Organizing Upgrade was created to provide a space where left organizers from across the country can engage in a strategic dialogue about the political terrain and share thinking on what we need to do to take our work to the next level. We hope that this project can bring the kind of inspiration and strategic clarity that we need to strengthen our political impact in our immediate fights and in our longer-term efforts to build the social justice movement and to revitalize a movement-rooted left in the United States.  

Each month, Organizing Upgrade will be publishing three new pieces by innovative left and radical leaders who are rooted in the community organizing world. We are living in amazing times.  Between the groundbreaking election of President Obama and the onset of the largest economic crisis that this country has seen in decades, the terrain of politics is rapidly shifting beneath our feet. We need to do some serious work to upgrade our vision and our organizing practices if we are going to take advantage of this historic moment.  The first issue will have a piece by Bill Fletcher Jr. on the demands facing the left and a roundtable on "Left Strategies from the Grassroots" featuring Steve Williams, Ai-jen Poo, Gihan Perera, Willie Baptist and Marisa Franco, including audio and video of their dialogue. 

Changing The Race:  Racial Politics And The Election Of Barack Obama

This 86-page volume features 20 prominent thinkers and activists on race and the 2008 election. http://www.arc.org/content/view/1379/187/

Edited by Linda Burnham of the Women of Color Resource Center, this election reader comprises a collection of thoughtful essays analyzing the complexities of how race played out in the presidential race. 

These writers identify the trends, the lessons, the facts and the lies.  The 16 essays in Changing the Race include: 

• “It’s A New Day” by Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation author Jeff Chang
• “Biracialism and the 2008 Elections” by The Ruckus Society executive director Adrienne Maree Brown
• “Swinging Virginia in Roanoke” by The Nation and Guardian (UK) columnist Gary Younge
• “The Immigrant Rights Agenda and the 2008 Elections” by National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights executive director and cofounder Catherine Tactaquin
• “Obama’s Candidacy: The Advent of Post-Racial America and the End of Black Politics?” by Women of Color Resource Center cofounder Linda Burnham    

Five Principles of Faith for Health-Care Reform
by Jim Wallis

Over the course of the health care debate, voices of faith have been raised about the moral values at stake beneath the policy discussions. As bills are finalized and moved through both chambers of Congress, now, more than ever we need to remind ourselves of the values that move us to reform. From the Bill of Rights to the abolition of slavery, from women's suffrage to the civil rights movement, those who have raised the question of values have often changed our country for the better. Change can be scary in uncertain times, but always comes when the nation chooses hope over fear.  Read article. 

Race Equity Tools

The Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD) and MP Associates (Maggie Potapchuk) would like to invite you to check out the Racial Equity Tools website is designed to support people and groups who are working for inclusion, racial equity and social justice. The site includes ideas, strategies and tips, as well as a clearinghouse of resources and links from many sources.   http://www.racialequitytools.org/

10 Chairs:  How Policy Distributes Wealth in the U.S.

The Right to the City network has developed an online training tool called 10 Chairs:  How Policy Distributes Wealth in the U.S.  Part 1 looks at robber barons, the great depression, and demand-side economic policy.  Part 2 looks at Reaganomics, supply side policy, and the global pool of money.  You can download the program or use it online for training your members about public policy decisions and how they impact your community.

Closing the Initiative

Today, while the median income for a family of color is about 70% of the income of a white family, the average family of color owns only 16 cents of the wealth compared to the average white family's dollar. Wealth, what you own minus what you owe, or assets, allows people to start a business, buy a home, send children to college, and ensure an economically secure retirement. Wealth is what allows families to weather the inevitable economic ups and downs of life and move up the social and economic ladder. Without wealth, people of color will remain economic insecure.

The Insight Center's Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative is a national effort to close this racial wealth gap for the next generation, and to promote the asset-building experts of color in its network.  For 2009 Fact Sheets and Policy Briefs, click here.

Race and Recession:  How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules
This video tells the stories of people of color who are disproportionately affected by the recession. It uncovers root causes of long-term racial inequities that fed into the economic crisis. It proposes structural solutions to change a system that threatens future generations.

Watch the Video.  Read the Report.  Take action. 

Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good

This Catholic Charities 2008 report and congregational discussion guide is still one of the best and concise faith resources out there.