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Institutional and Community Strategies
There are three broad strategies to describe race relations and racial justice work: Individual, Intergroup and Institutional. Individual and intergroup strategies are covered elsewhere. In creating your plan of action its best not to be caught up in arguments about which broad strategy is the 'right' one. Experience suggests that all three will be required at different times, for different purposes, to more toward racial equity.
Institutional/Community strategies, sometimes referred to as the Racial Justice and Equity pathway, include activities to change the policies and practices of places and institutions that create, maintain, or fail to interrupt racial inequities. These may be in government, among organizations (for example, a network of public and private early care and education providers - who may or may not be organized together in some way) or within systems - the public education system, the financing system, the housing system). Some of these policies and practices are created by law; some by regulations, and some by the decisions of individuals within institutions. Thus, there are many targets and levers for change at the institutional/community level.
Strategies at this level can change the structure of opportunities and access to opportunities; reallocate resources; and provide incentives and sanctions for actions at many other levels. A structural racism analysis points out the ways in which institutional/community strategies can also strengthen a community and promote cultures that are more aware of and deeply committed to racial equity. [FN: This description is drawn from Three Pathways of Race Relations and Racial Justice Work, by Maggie Potapchuk, Gita Gulati-Partee, and Gwen Wright, unpublished, 11/08.]
It is useful to keep in mind that implementing institutional strategies always have an individual component, understanding the emotional and relational aspects of this work. Institutional/community strategies are also more likely to be successful when they are part of a systemic approach that includes an understanding of the current manifestations of racism and attention to addressing root causes or seizing on trends and opportunities, rather than working just on an immediate issue without considering its full context. To understand how strategies fit together in a plan of action please refer to section Community Change Processes.
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