Chapter 2: “How to Talk about Race at Work” (Part 2)

[IDEA Team]

Read “Systemic Inequality and Economic Opportunity” and reply to one of the following prompts in the Forum area below.

(Reply to 1 prompt):

1. Share your take-aways from reading about the historical exploitation, occupational segregation, and persistent devaluation of workers of color. What was new to you from the readings?

• “Slaveholders extracted more than $14 trillion worth of labor” from those they enslaved
• Jim Crow Laws “codified the role of Black people in the Southern economy and society”
• Black Codes “fined Black people if they worked in any occupation other than farming or domestic servitude”
• 13th Amendment was created with a loophole that forced some Black people back into unpaid labor on white plantations
• The New Deal reserved benefits for white workers while restricting and excluding people of color o Fair Labor Standards Act “largely excluded African American workers from receiving these benefits by exempting many domestic, agricultural, and service occupations.”
• Wagner Act “excluded domestic and agricultural workers and permitted labor unions to discriminate against workers of color in other industries”
• EEOC – 10 states with the highest percentage of Black residents had state and local policing expenditures of more than $230 per resident per year – at least 328 times more than what each state spends on enforcing anti-discrimination laws.”

2. How have you thought about, defined, understood, described exclusion thus far?

3. How does exclusion or systemic racism show up in your organization?

4. How might more detailed learning deepen your definition and understanding?

5. What further learning do you need and will you commit to doing in order to better understand the thing in the way of our reach for inclusion?

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