BLACK WELL-BEING: MOVING TOWARD SOLUTIONS TOGETHER
A Report By Us and For Us
This report is a love note to Black Washingtonians, written for us and by us, to accelerate change. In each section, we offer approaches identified by Black Washingtonians — actions that we and our society can take to make necessary change across sectors. It is also an organizing tool. We hope you discuss the data with others to support community organizing, direct resources, and inform policy and systems change.
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Explore the topic areas
Key metrics that have moved since 2015
The Black Wellbeing Report builds on a 2015 report, Creating an Equitable Future in Washington State by Byrd Barr Place. It is critical to note that although we’ve made progress, the gap between us and everyone else has not improved. The rules by which our social systems function are the same as they’ve always been — only the flavor of harm has shifted.
This report highlights where change is needed and illustrates a more truthful narrative — one that takes into account a diversity of voices, experiences, and approaches.
Read the full report
Statewide Gathering
On June 5, 2022, hundreds of Black Washingtonians from across the state joined together in person and virtually for the Black Well-being: Moving Toward Solutions Together community event, featuring local changemakers, brilliant artists, and special guests: New York Times best-selling author Resmaa Menakem and Free Press’ Media 2070 campaign manager Venneikia Williams.
Building on community conversations and surveys conducted over the last year, this event focused on community-identified solutions that are taking shape in a 2022 report on statewide Black well-being. Together, we began to formulate a vision for Black well-being through education, health, economic mobility, public safety, and civic engagement.
Civic Engagement
Civic engagement is acting individually or collectively on the issues that matter to us. There are both formal and informal ways to influence the policies, laws, and rules that shape our world. It isn’t just the legislative system, it’s school boards, churches, and mutual aid.
Community Approaches
Interrogate and shift harmful narratives.
Stop looking to a small handful of Black leaders to represent us.
Center the arts in civics because they are foundational to social change.
Increase and enhance civic readiness.
Fund community to plan and lead.
Education
The education Black children receive is, by necessity, in two parts: in formal educational settings like schools and at home. Our education should lead us to a fulfilling career, the freedom to live our lives, and ultimately self-actualization.
Community Approaches
Fund the Black community to plan how we want our education systems to function.
Utilize mastery- or competency-based learning toward self-actualization.
Redefine academic standards to recognize and cultivate Black brilliance.
Cultivate loving interactions within the education ecosystem.
Create practices of accountability and transparency at all levels of decision making.
Revisit job descriptions and organizational structures, and diversify the workforce.
Economic Mobility
Economic mobility is our ability to access more resources over time. It is the likelihood that our children can have a higher standard of living than they grew up having. Because this country was founded on dehumanizing us to extract our wealth, income, and labor, a structural wealth gap remains despite any advances we’re making around income or homeownership.
Community Approaches
Lean into each other as our most valuable resource.
Hire Black people, pay them well, and put them in leadership roles.
Partner with Black youth to create the jobs of tomorrow.
Change the nature of traditional human resources.
Start, invest in, and expand Black-owned businesses.
Increase and sustain Black homeownership.
Get more Black involvement in urban planning.
Public Safety
Public safety is “learning how to keep each other safe without police, coercion, or the threat of systemic violence and oppression.” Public safety isn’t just physical, it starts with mental, psychological, and emotional safety.
Community Approaches
Educate, motivate, and empower Black communities, especially youth.
Fund Black brilliance to ideate, plan, and implement nuanced public safety solutions.
Dismantle systems that harm us and replace them with systems that heal.
Hold people, not just systems accountable.
Fund and create social systems that keep us safe while also addressing immediate needs.
Focus resources toward incarcerated people and their families, until we get rid of systems of punishment.
Health
Health is holistic well-being. It reaches beyond the physical and into the mental, emotional, and spiritual. When the conditions for health in all of those realms take place, health is the natural result.
Community Approaches
Redefine what care means.
Address ableism and racism in health care.
Fund Black-owned, initiated, and operated care.
Create responsive, coordinated care models.
Restructure the way insurance works and what it covers.
Address family and community, not just the individual.
Reflect well-being in employer business models and practices.
Collective Action
To support collective action, please use the discussion guide and let us know what you talked about. We hope you utilize these tools to elevate statewide collaboration — organizing, directing resources toward Black-led solutions, and informing policy change. Collectively and cooperatively, we will manifest Black well-being across Washington state.