Recording: How to Help Dismantle Social Injustice

Learn more about the history of inherent racism and how we can all help dismantle social injustice.

Meetup-How-to-Help-Dismantle-Social-Injustice

By Ben Weger

In order to dismantle social injustices, we must first understand them. Join Dr. Naa-Solo Tettey (Professor of Public Health and Creator of HeartSmarts), Rashad Robinson (President of Color of Change), and Stephanie L. Young (Managing Director for Culture, Communications & Media Partnerships at When We All Vote) for a conversation about the history of racism and its effect on the systems that impact our lives. Learn more about the history of inherent racism and how we can help dismantle social injustice.

Panel discussion

The world today

3:12 – Dr. Naa-Solo Tettey: Why African-American and Latino populations were affected more severely by coronavirus than other races
5:23 – Stephanie L. Young: The current state of voting
7:50 – Rashad Robinson: The gap between perception and reality when it comes to violent crimes in the media

History/How did we get here?

13:20 – Dr. Naa-Solo Tettey: How health inequality happened in the U.S.
18:18 – Stephanie L. Young: History of voting inequities
24:21 – Rashad Robinson: Color of Change and changing culture through the power of storytelling
- Narrative change and storytelling are so important. Far too often, we don’t say what we mean. When we say what we mean, we can put focus on fixing the system rather than fixing the people. We often tell stories that are unfortunate around injustice. When we talk about these things as unfortunate rather than unjust, we end up with charitable solutions to structural problems.

The future/How do we fix things?

33:18 – Dr. Naa-Solo Tetty: On the Black Lives Matter movement, protests in support, and the tools of how to best affect change
- If we’re going to address a problem we can’t just have one solution. We have to address it at various different levels. At the individual level, we have to educate ourselves. At the interpersonal level, people need to be more conscious of the racist acts around them and call them out. At the community level, we need to create communities that promote health and wellbeing. At the organizational level, we need to create more spaces and opportunities for black people to be in leadership positions where decisions are made. And the last level, the policy level, is the most important. That’s where we’re going to see lasting change.
38:21 – Stephanie L Young: How to move from protest to real change
- My hope is that people move from the streets to the ballot box. Voting is extremely important that everyone can do. Here are some resources:
  - Register to Vote: Check your status and make sure you are registered to vote. (weall.vote/meetup)
  - Organize: Squad Up, become a Voting Squad Captain, and get trained on how to organize those closest to you or in your community. (weall.vote/meetupsquad)
  - Mobilize: Take our safe voting pledge and get 5 friends to sign the pledge as well. (weall.vote/meetupsafevoting)