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Governor's FY 2022 Budget Proposal: MLRI's Preliminary Analysis of Selected Issues

MLRI
The Governor’s FY 2022 Budget Proposal: Preliminary Analysis of Selected Cash and Nutrition Assistance, Child Welfare, Health Care, Homelessness Services, Housing and Legal Services Items On January 27, 2021, Governor Baker released his budget proposal for fiscal…

The Financial Restitution Gap in Consumer Finance: Insights from Complaints Filed with the CFPB

Charlotte Haendler and Rawley Heimer
Consumers seek restitution for disputed financial services by filing complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). We find that filings from low-socioeconomic (i.e., low-income and African American) zip codes were 30% less likely to be resolved with the consumer receiving…

Denial Is the Heartbeat of America: When have Americans been willing to admit who we are?

Ibram X. Kendi
To say that the attack on the U.S. Capitol is not who we are is to say that this is not part of us, not part of our politics, not part of our history. And to say that this is not part of America, American politics, and American history is a bald-faced denial. But the denial is normal. In the…

Impact of Racial Discrimination and Trauma on Racial Health Disparities in African American Populations

Sierra E. Carter, PhD, Georgia State University
In this talk, Dr. Carter cites findings that at least 90% of Black adults and youth report experiencing at least one incident of racial discrimination in the past year. She also presents research indicating that African Americans live sicker and die younger than other racial and ethnic…

Debt Collection Lab

Princeton University, Dignity+Debt, VizE Lab and SSRC
Website that tracks debt collection court cases in real time and has begun doing so in five states. The DCL also uses the arts and storytelling to change the narrative about debt justice. Advocates may use the online debt collection tracker to examine which neighborhoods are hardest hit by debt…

How to have productive conversations about race at work

Meredith Somers MIT Management
From the introduction: The police body camera footage, social media posts, and mounting news stories all made it clear to the leadership at software company HubSpot this summer that it was time to communicate where the company stood on race and racism. But it was the unsteady cellphone…

Prohibition on photo ID/SSN requests by food pantries - Atty General guidance issued Dec 2020

MLRI
On December 10th, the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office (AGO) issued guidance directing local food pantries to suspend practices where food pantry clients are asked for photo IDs or SSNs as a condition of getting emergency food. Attached is the AGO guidance. "The advisory recognizes…

Negotiating Race And Racial Inequality In Family Court

Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., and Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong
This article examines how court officials and low-income noncustodial fathers who are African American negotiate race and racial inequality in family court. These noncustodial fathers are behind on paying child support and are at risk of incarceration for nonpayment. However, many of them face…

MA SNAP Coalition Recommendations to MA Delegation for Biden/Harris Transition Team

MLRI
93 Massachusetts anti-hunger and social justice organizations urge the Massachusetts Delegation to share our priority recommendations to decrease hunger with the Biden/Harris Transition Planning Team as soon as possible. Massachusetts is facing the highest increase in food insecurity in the…

Race Equity Tool

Columbia Legal Services
Template of issues and questions to consider.

REJI Organizational Equity Plan Worksheet

Washington Race Equity and Justice Initiative & JustLead Washington
The following provides guidance for identifying and starting to implement race equity work within your organization. This simple tool can help organize priorities after you have conducted an Organizational Equity Assessment or gathered other data and are ready to develop an Organizational Equity…

Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefits under the Federal CARES Law - Chart

Greater Boston Legal Services
Chart summarizing unemployment insurance benefits under the federal CARES Law (updated 11/18/20).

Race Equity in Legal Advocacy: Moving from Theory to Practice

Janet Chung, Advocacy Director Columbia Legal Services
As with other civil legal aid organizations, a core part of the mission of Columbia Legal Services (CLS) is to advocate for people living in poverty. In the U.S., poverty is inextricably linked with race. We cannot address issues related to poverty withut examining the racialized systems that…

Building Toward Racial Justice and Equity in Health: A Call to Action

MA Attorney General's Office
This report begins with an overview of the disproportionate harm that COVID-19 has caused in communities of color, and then outlines actionable recommendations to advance health equity.

Trumpism and its Discontents Latinx Politics and the Census in the Trump Era

G. Cristina Mora
For Latinx individuals working within civil rights organizations, the 2020 census promised to be the most complete enumeration of their community to date. The count would mark fifty years since community stakeholders, from Latinx politicians to academics to Spanish-language media, had worked…

Racial Equity Capacity Builders Directory

The Boston Foundation
A shareable database of consultants and programs that support nonprofits to address racial equity.

RACIAL EQUITY CAPACITY BUILDERS DIRECTORY

The Boston Foundation
As part of its continued work to support nonprofits as it centers and advances racial equity within its organizations, the Boston Foundation partnered with us to develop a directory of racial equity capacity builders currently serving Greater Boston nonprofit organizations. The goals of the project…

#OneCLS Community Engagement Model FAQ’s

Columbia Legal Services

An Indigenous Abolitionist Study Guide

Toronto Abolitionist Convergence
From the GUide: "In settler states such as Canada, the justice system is an integral component of settler colonial warfare against Indigenous peoples. As the sources in this reading guide make clear, the criminalization, segregation and containment of Indigenous peoples is a deep-seated,…

Unemployment Insurance Information Related to COVID-19 as Massachusetts "re-opens"

Employment Rights Coalition
Massachusetts employers whose businesses were closed because of COVID-19 are now being allowed to reopen under an order by Governor Baker. This fact sheet provides information about how the re-opening may affect the ongoing UI eligibility of recipients who lost their jobs for COVID-19 related…

Governor's Revised FY 2021 Budget Proposal: MLRI's Preliminary Analysis of Selected Issues

MLRI
The Governor’s Revised FY 2021 Budget Proposal: Preliminary Analysis of Key Issues Affecting Low-Income Massachusetts Residents. Last week Governor Baker released a revised House 2, his budget proposal for fiscal year 2021 (FY 21), which was originally released in January before the…

FAQ: SNAP Benefits and Job Loss during COVID-19

MLRI
Attached is a two page flier, in English and Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, and Chinese about SNAP benefits for workers who lost work due to COVID-19. This flier is up to date as of 2020 - specific information may no longer be relevant.  See MassLegalServices.org/DTA-COVID-19…

Building Legal-Community Partnerships

JustLead Washington
Building accountability with the clients and communities we serve is critical to ensure the work of civil legal aid organizations is responsive, dynamic, and aligned with the interests of those who are most affected by poverty, racism, and other forms of structural oppression. This guide aims to lay…

Black lawyers explain the problem with microaggressions in the legal space

Raad Ahmed
We’ve extensively covered the legal industry’s shortcomings in creating and sustaining a diverse workforce for the last several months. On a recent Law.com panel, several Black attorneys described another issue: microaggressions, which the attorneys described as daily comments…

Safe and Brave Spaces Don’t Work (and What You Can Do Instead)

Elise Ahenkorah
When engaging individuals from racialized or equity-deserving communities, organizations will often share promises of “safe and brave” spaces to encourage inclusive discussion, and for allies to learn from experiences different from their own. We can probably stop making those promises…

Bridging the Opportunity Gap for Black Lawyers

Roy Maurer
Data show that Black attorneys account for less than 5 percent of associates and less than 2 percent of partners at law firms. Those stats have stayed about the same over the last decade. This article talks about ways to narrow the opportunity gap.

“Racism as a public health issue” APS racism series: at the intersection of equity, science, and social justice

Joseph L. Wright, James N. Jarvis, Lee M. Pachter & Leslie R. Walker-Harding
The social unrest of the past several months highlights the importance of ensuring that science and fact-based objectivity align with the public discourse. A deepening body of literature makes clear the historical association of bias, discrimination, and injustice on Black, indigenous, and people of…

The Other Side of the Water: Immigration and the Promise of Racial Justice (podcast)

RES Media
From the introduction to the series: The Other Side of the Water: Immigration and the Promise of Racial Justice is a six-episode series discussing the intersection of immigration and racial justice. The series centers the 1985 US Supreme Court case Jean v. Nelson, a case about the racial…

The Digital Divide Hits U.S. Immigrant Households Disproportionately during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Alexis Cherewka, Migration Policy Institute

The Problem with Implicit Bias Training

Tiffany L. Green, Nao Hagiwara, Scientific American
Opinion article about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of implicit bias to change behaviour meaningfully.

Why Disaggregating Data by Race is Important for Racial Equity

The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Blog post on disaggregating data and presenting it in a meaningful way can help bring attention and commitment to the solving of social and racial equity problems.

About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It

LUIS NOE-BUSTAMANTE, LAUREN MORA AND MARK HUGO LOPEZ
The Pew Research Center report. The emergence of Latinx coincides with a global movement to introduce gender-neutral nouns and pronouns into many languages whose grammar has traditionally used male or female constructions. In the United States, the first uses of Latinx appeared more…

Tapping into the Power of Metaphors

The FrameWorks Institute
And because metaphors give us a new mental framework for thinking and talking about a topic, they can open up dead-end conversations and repetitive debates. Using metaphor can help us advance ideas and avoid wasting energy by rebutting talking points that halt progressive change. Metaphors are…

Race Equity Culture Continuum for Organizations

Race Equity Justice Institute - Just Lead Washington & Washington Race Equity & Justice Initiative
Tool to understand where an organization’s starting point might be and illustrates the developmental stages towards committing to, demonstrating and delivering on the promise of Race Equity and Justice

Organizational Assessment

JustLead Washington - Race Equity Justice Initiative
The REJI Organizational Assessment is designed for any organization interested in gathering information, regardless of how far along it might be on the journey to becoming a more racially equitable organization. 

Organizational Race Equity Toolkit

Just Lead Washington
Recognizing how the law and justice system is complicit in perpetuating white supremacy necessitates taking steps to dismantle that complicity. As REJI continues to evolve, it has become a resource for REJI Partners and advocates to build alignment between racial justice values and internal policies…

‘Black Women Need to Unlearn the Pattern of Martyrdom’

Christina M. Trapper for ZORA
Activist Adrienne Maree Brown discusses how to make revolution irresistible and what Black liberation looks like for Black women. "I think Black women need to unlearn the pattern of martyrdom. The pattern that says we must always overwork ourselves to consider ourselves even showing up…

Frequently Asked Questions on PUA for Students

GBLS
Please see the attached FAQ 

You’ve Been Called Out for a Microaggression. What Do You Do?

Rebecca Knight, Harvard Business Review
From the summary to the article: As a person who wants to be an ally to members of marginalized groups, how should you respond after a colleague calls you out for committing a microaggression? First, make sure the other person feels heard. Replace your instinctive defensiveness with curiosity and…

Health Connector Updates- MA Health Care Training Forum Materials

Health Connector
Attached is a powerpoint presentation that the Health Connector presented at the July 2020 MA Health Care Training Forum (MTF) meeting regarding Health Connector updates. It describes the most recent COVID-19 related changes, the Health Connector's transition to a new customer…

July 23 MTF Announcement: 1. MassHealth Buy In & 2. Telephonic authorizations

MassHealth
This is an MTF announcement dated July 23, 2020 about two policy updates: 1. Correcting a system error affecting the Jan 1, 2020 expansion of the Medicare Savings Program (Senior Buy-In/Buy-In Programs). and 2. a June 29, 2020 change in policy authorizing applicants and members to complete a…

Nice White Parents

NY Times
A new five-part series about building a better school system, and what gets in the way. Looks at the 60-year relationship between White parents and the public school down the block.

What Is Abolition, And Why Do We Need It?

Reina Sultan and Micah Herskind
In the midst of nationwide uprisings against ongoing police murders of Black people, a new set of demands has been thrust into public consciousness: Defund and abolish the police, and invest in new models of safety and communal well-being. Rather than ask for better…

The State Of Race

GBH and The Boston Globe
The State Of Race is a series of virtual forums examining race and inequality in Massachusetts, presented by GBH and The Boston Globe. Hosted by award-winning journalist Dan Lothian, this ongoing series is produced in partnership with the NAACP Boston Branch and WORLD Channel. Stay tuned for future…

Changing Our Narrative about Narrative: The Infrastructure Required for Building Narrative Power

Rashad Robinson
Narrative is now a big buzzword in the field of social change. That is more a testament to people wanting to understand narrative, however, than it is a testament to people actually understanding it. Evaluating our overall approach to narrative, as well as the specific narrative changes we have…

IMCO Comments Opposing Asylum Regulations July 2020

MLRI
The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) respectfully submits this comment on behalf of the Immigration Coalition (IMCO) of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, which consists of the 14 regional legal aid programs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including Greater Boston Legal Services,…

A Psychiatrist’s Perspective on Racism: 2020

Rahn K. Bailey, MD
What makes an individual racist? Carl Bell, MD,3 described these individuals having a psychopathological defect/narcissistic personality disorder which allows for dehumanization of others. Other psychiatrists have opined that racism may meet the criteria for a full psychotic…

Qualified Renters Need Not Apply: Race and Voucher Discrimination in the Metro Boston Rental Housing Market

The Boston Foundation, Suffolk University, Analysis Group
Part of the Understanding Boston series, this field study offers further evidence of the entrenchment of discrimination and the unequal application of rights, with its close examination of Boston’s rental housing practices.

Structural Racism in American Psychiatry and APA: Part 1

Jeffrey Geller, M.D., M.P.H.
The history of American psychiatry and the history of Black Americans is the history of slavery and segregation in America for over 200 years, right on through the end of the Civil War; the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which included a provision for equal…

Restructure Your Organization to Actually Advance Racial Justice

Evelyn R. Carter
Organizations want to both support their Black employees and upskill their workforce around racism, bias, and inclusivity in ways that are unprecedented. What should come next? Companies can do a few virtual trainings then default back to the status quo — or they can recognize that the racial bias…