 Welcome everyone to another crisis conversation live from the Better Life Lab. I'm so delighted to have everyone here today. We've got an amazing panel to talk about when we started these conversations. We wanted to create space to try to understand what was happening to all of us during the pandemic. We were all feeling such isolation. Then as the pandemic has worn on, we wanted to create space to understand what it was showing about the cracks in our system, and what we could learn to emerge better and stronger. Now in this past week after the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, just an eruption of anger and anguish about continued killing of black bodies. It's completely opened up this very difficult discussion that we really need to be having about not only the systems, the cracks in the system, but how the system itself is rotten to the core with structural racism. Today, we want to address that head on and look at how it affects lives, our work, our care, our families, really understand pre-pandemic during the pandemic, and then paint a vision of what do we need to do to move forward? How can we truly emerge better and stronger? Because we cannot in the better life lab, our mission is to create a nation, our vision is for all people across all genders, all racial and ethnic identities, to have the ability to combine work and care, and time for connection in meaningful ways across the arc of their lives. We cannot do that when there are so many people who are afraid to simply be alive in America today. What I want to do is start the conversation with you, Autumn. Autumn McDonald is a colleague of mine at New America. She's a fellow at the New America, California. You've been hosting conversations about COVID in the black community, and you have written one of the most haunting and searing pieces that I have read recently in the New America Weekly today, about your own experience. When we talk about we're creating space about what's happening during the pandemic and now during these protests, I also want to recognize that this is a difficult space, and I would love for you to share some of your thoughts and your story. Joy, thank you so much for having me, Brigitte. It's a pleasure to be talking to you and to be talking with all of the other women for today. I have like most parents been thinking about all of the different things that are of this moment, if you will, as it relates to COVID. So I've had my parent head on. I have a full-time job, a very busy job. I've been on multiple Zooms. I've been thinking about how to teach them and also be their parent in this moment. But this moment is not the first time that I've had really painful experiences as it relates to what happened, the murder of George Floyd. This isn't the beginning of that. It's constantly been something I think about. I have three kids. My oldest is seven. Just the other night, we spoke about George Floyd's murder and he was brought to tears. He thought that it was something that had happened a while ago. So he wanted to correct me as kind of like, no, this is, you're talking about the past. And I had to tell him that it was right now. And as I was thinking about giving him the talk, which we've done little bits of before, I was just really in pain, honestly, because I was thinking about the endless patience afforded to the men and women who went in government buildings with armed and screamed in the face of police officers. And yet I was talking to a child about how he needed to be submissive, how he had to make sure that he did these things and not those things in an attempt, not a way to fully protect him, but in an attempt to try to protect him. And it was a really difficult conversation to have and it was connected to other things that have happened recently. I couldn't help but think to myself that the week that California schools closed, that was the week that parents and teachers and district leaders were supposed to come together because in my second graders' class, four times in the last, the two weeks before, the N-word had been used. A friend of my child's told him that he was a slave, that he was his slave. And when I think about sitting down with him and talking to him about how to try to protect him, in some ways it feels like it's a lottery ticket. Like I don't have any true power over whether or not he's protected. I'm just kind of doing the best that I can. And I think of how people have viewed him. I think about when he was just four years old and we were playing soccer. And he raised his voice a little bit and so did his friend in the exact same way. But a parent told me that she was alarmed because he was being violent and seemed hostile, my four-year-old. And yet the little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes was exactly the same way, was simply being overtired. And so it's painful. It's just really painful. Yeah, yeah. I want to turn to you, Dr. Mesa, next. We have Dr. Nicole Mason with us. She's the president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. And Autumn's talking about some really haunting and horrific experiences within a family. I'm thinking you've done amazing work looking at the experiences of Black families and Black women in particular and during the pandemic. I was thinking this morning that unemployment figures come out and all of the media and the president talk about how employment is going down. And yet the real story is that it's not going down for the Black community. And why isn't that in the headline? Why are we still seeing things through kind of a white lens? So Dr. Mason, can we turn it to you and talk a little bit about what you're finding in terms of how the pandemic is exacerbating already existing racial inequity? Dr. Mason, you're on mute. So I think you need to unmute yourself. Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bridget, for having me. I'm really glad to be here and be in this conversation. I want to start out by saying that you're absolutely right. We are not with the new unemployment figures in the celebration of a very small drop. We gained 2 million jobs, but lost 20 million. I would hardly call that progress. And we have a long way to go. So and you're right to highlight the fact that Black and Latina women, in particular, their unemployment rate remains unchanged because of their disproportionate representation in the sectors that were hardest hit. This moment is, I think, an inflection point for many of us who have been doing this work for some time. And it's a culmination of what I see as persistent inequalities that have persisted over time. So the fragility of the economic of our economy, as well as the health care system, the pandemic has only exacerbated those inequalities that have existed for some time that we had not been talking about, but that many communities of color were well aware of. And specifically, thinking about women of color, women and families of color, the pandemic has only exacerbated their economic vulnerability and fragility. And before, I don't want to take up too much time, but one of the points I do want to make about this moment is that I do think it's an inflection point and different than many of the other moments we've had over the years in that I think George Floyd is a symbol and Amy Cooper is a symbol. Ahmad Aubrey is a symbol of what communities of color. And I'm glad to see a lot of white folks who are waking up and engaging in new and meaningful ways, but of all the systemic and institutional racism that we know to be true for some time. And the idea that we just don't have the freedom and liberties that we are guaranteed by the Constitution and that are fundamental rights. And I think it's a moment of reckoning that I think has been a long time coming. So at this point, I'd like to go to Kemi. Kemi Relay, she's the director of Work Equity at the National Employment Law Project. Kemi, when we were talking before through this past week, you had talked about when we think about policy, particularly family policy, that there is an anti-blackness at its core. Can you talk about that? Can you talk about the structural racism that has pervaded or created the system that really determines the experiences that they have in their lives? Yes. Thank you. And I want to echo my gratitude for this space and really also echo my gratitude to my co-panelists because I know the labor and grace and centering that it requires to even sit in this conversation in this moment. And anti-blackness, anti-black racism is the scaffolding and the fulcrum of economic inequality and injustice in the US. So much of the black experience is really shaped by a system that dehumanizes us and views black people as a productive labor force. And so as Dr. Mason said, structural racism is being laid bare for white people perhaps, but not for black folks who experience structural harm across so many institutions. Lynchings are violent, but there's also violence and harm when people's basic needs are not met. So lack of housing, employment, nutrition, healthcare, including mental health care, it's all violent. And I think about or expectant mothers, working mothers or working mothers, what is happening is also an issue of reproductive justice. A workplace needs to have safe conditions, provide adequate leave, but they also need to be able to be rest assured that when they leave their child to go to work at any age, that child will be safe. And so the system of racist policing does not allow for that peace of mind for black mothers. And I think in sitting in my grief, particularly yesterday when I first learned that George Floyd's mother died two years ago and realizing that he was literally reaching for ancestor, I turned to a text that's been a guide for me, revolutionary mothering, love on the front lines. And they talk about radical mothering as investing in each other's existence and care and interdependence. They define radical mothering as the imperative to build a bridge that allows us to build across barriers. And so what's been really sitting heavy with me is who is deemed worthy, who is deserving of care. And so we're in a system that does not care for children and communities that denigrates black, blacks, indigenous, trans, queer folks for how we show up in our radical mothering and then simultaneously extracts us to mother and care for others. And so it really feels like the intersections of care and work and how we think about the nuances of how that shows up in systems and in the interpersonal is all being laid bare in this moment. You know, Angela, I wanna get to you in a moment but Kimmy, if I could go back to you, you talk about care being extractive in the black community, you know, in communities of color. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What do you mean by care being extractive? Well, you know, I think to talk about sort of the present context is also looking at a historical context. And we know that jobs that are about caring for people have always been gendered from the beginning and have always been undervalued, especially when there are jobs that have been done by black women, particularly in domestic work and in childcare. And there's a deep legacy of systemic exclusion. So, you know, some of the seminal protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime protection, collective bargaining, minimum wage, excluded domestic and agricultural workers. So the greatest harm was felt by black women. It's something like nine out of 10 at the time worked either as domestic workers or agricultural workers. And so there is this way in that, you know, women doing this work have always had inherent worth and dignity. And it is through this pandemic that they're being labeled essential, but this labor has always been essential and underpaid. And, you know, one image that's coming to mind is this image of the black hands of black women incarcerated in a prison in South Carolina, sewing masks to be distributed for healthcare workers in a way that they're not able to use those masks for themselves. Angela, let me turn to you now. Angela Hanks, you're with the Groundwork Collaborative, the deputy director there. And when we were talking earlier, we were talking about painting a picture, painting a vision. What does it look like? How do we get there? How do we move beyond these structures of institutional and structural racism? How do we create really the, not just the vision, but the reality of an America that lives up to its promise of equal opportunity? Talk a little bit about some of your work and then the way forward. So I thank you for that intro. I think I want to take a quick step back first and just dig into a few things that Kemi raised that I think are really essential to having this conversation about moving forward. All of the things that Kemi discussed and pointed out, these are policy choices often intentional, right? We think about the history of domestic workers being denied rights in this country. It's because those workers were largely black women that they didn't get those rights, right? So it's important to acknowledge that racism is so baked into every economic system or democracy that on doing it really will require an effort across a number of dimensions. There's no sort of one single solution to eradicating systemic and structural racism because it's so deeply embedded into all of our systems. So I think acknowledging that this is a result of policy choices also leads us to the conclusion that policy choices are what's going to get us out of this. So in thinking about the COVID-19 crisis, a colleague Kendra Bozarth and I wrote a piece talking about the disproportionate impact of this particular crisis on black women. And in that piece, one of the things we talk about are sort of the compounding oppressions, right? So there's policy choices that have led to a higher black unemployment rate. Black workers are also more likely to be deemed essential and have to put themselves at risk in order to put food on the table at this time. There's also a higher infection rate and death rate among black communities. And that's a direct result of redlining environmental racism, medical racism. So again, if we're going to change these systems, we really have to get to the root of what the problem is. So as I think about in my work and the work of groundwork moving forward, the work that we do is sort of thinking about how to build an economy that is affirmatively inclusive. And when I say that, what I really mean is not like, you know, the kind of traditional and women and people of color getting tacked on at the end as an afterthought, which is often the best that we can get, but really, I mean an economy absent exclusion based on your identity. And so so much of that is about policy change, but I would also say it's about, you know, reshaping the narratives that we tell ourselves about black people in particular. You know, again, it's already been mentioned, but so much of our policy and so much of the way that black people have been treated in this country is because fundamentally anti-blackness dictates so much of our policymaking and so much of our interactions. And so in order to have an affirmatively inclusive economy, one of the things you have to do is sort of rewrite those narratives that currently incorporate anti-blackness and really think about what would it look like if we centered black people in our work. My colleague, Janelle Jones, who I think is on right now, has this great phrase that she uses often, black women best, and what she means by that phrase is if we create an economy that centers black women, everyone else will benefit. And so we really have to start our policymaking there. Think about what are the specific challenges that black women face in the economy, in our society at large, and then build out from there. And because we know that black women's shoulders so many burdens are imposed upon black women in this economy, in this society, that if we do that and build from there, we'll really see better outcomes. Angela, I was so struck when we were talking before, we were talking about narratives, that there is this narrative of choice, that if certain people live certain ways, it's because of individual choices. And that that's one of the first things that we need to do is really reshape that narrative and see the truth, that choices have been very constrained by the systems. So if I could go back to you, Dr. Mason, if you could talk a little bit about some of the work that you've been doing at the Institute, long history of looking into these issues of equity, and particularly for women. As you look forward, what are you seeing in the work that you're doing in terms of how we begin to reshape the narrative and to understand a larger truth and how do we begin to reshape systems and economics? So this is a really good question. And I believe that this moment calls on us to reimagine an economy that works for everyone and not just the few at the top. And what that means is centering the most vulnerable in these conversations around the economy and some of the inequalities that have persisted over time and for some time. So I do, like Angela and some of the other folks on the podcast, I agree that this is about policy choices and some bad policy choices that we've made that have become entrenched. And it's also in my opinion about structural and institutional racism and discrimination that has become entrenched over time and understanding that people in these systems are maintaining bad policies. And so thinking about what must be done about that and also policy holders and makers as well. And I do think a large part of this, at least in our work and thinking about the economy and the disproportionate impact on women of color and communities of color is a big piece of this work is around narrative and culture change and this idea of individualism and this idea of individualism and choice and understanding and framing it in a way that is able to speak to the live realities of people and the choices that they don't. They do not have. One of the things that struck me recently was George Floyd's teacher talking about his essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up which was a Supreme Court judge. And I was really saddened by that picture because what I knew about George because of the institutional and structural discrimination and the poor education system and the other barriers that he was facing. George Floyd at seven years old, articulating that dream, he was gonna have a hard time being able to realize it and we know that he was not able to. And so that's the reality for many people of color and black people in particular in this country. And so coming to grips with the long history of historic inequalities, I think is really important in this moment as well. So Autumn, I see you nodding your head. I would love for you to speak to that. You do a lot of work around narrative and narrative refraining. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think it's so critical that the voices of those with the lived experiences be elevated such that people understand what people are truly experiencing. That is in terms of the economic piece. We do a lot of work related to economic precarity and what it looks like to try to move the walk, if you will, that has been a non-inclusive economy to make sure that it is indeed inclusive. I think that when you think of what it looks like to lift up the voices of those who are experiencing this, it's a critical piece in having those voices not just be heard by others, by the peers, by community, but specifically the people who have the power to impact the policy, the grass tops, if you will. And we've been thinking a lot on our team about what does it look like to bring into proximity, what those true experiences are, such that they are moving the people who are actually influencing the policies. I love what I think all the other panelists have said as it relates to, this is not just being an issue of people being left behind or underrepresented. These are actively harming policies and practices. These are systems that have actively been put in place, policies that are actively harming black people. And so I think that it's critical to just be really thoughtful about what it looks like to influence them, to change them, and to make sure that that voice is something that is brought center and centered. As we've been talking to people around the state and trying to understand their personal stories, but as I mentioned, I think it's just a critical piece to think about what does it look like to really move the way we operate. I'll add in one other quick thing, which is that we've also been doing these sessions called the webinars COVID in the black community. We've done three thus far. The first one was specifically about COVID in the black community as it relates to health disparity. The second one focused in on education. And then the third one was on the economic precarity element and what that looks like for the black community in this COVID era. And just in general, we talked about the historical context as well. And we have one next week on Thursday, the 11th, that's going to jump into COVID in the black community, but specifically thinking about community voice, civic engagement. And then of course we can't not speak about what's happening now, but I wanna note again, as others have, it's not just happening now. It's not like George Floyd's murder is the beginning of black people dying at the hands of police. And I think that the critical piece here in the change is policy. It's systems change. And it's also others pulling up and seeing this as their burden. Like racism and the issue of racism as institutional racism is everyone's problem. And I think that I've seen so many things that I've talked about it like, this is something that black people need to deal with that this is like a black person issue. And I see you shaking your head and I know that is not how you feel about it. But I think that it's just really critical as we think about what is it that changes it. It's when people are as alarmed as if it was happening to their child. I would love to see every white parent, every white person seeing this as if George Floyd is their brother, is their father, is their best friend. There's such powerful words, Autumn. Just like the piece you wrote, I think when we were talking earlier this week, I have been haunted by it. So I really appreciate you sharing your story so personally. And I think you're absolutely right that this is something, this is the original sin, the original stain that was born in 1619 in the colony of Virginia where I am right now, a horrific legacy through the years. Again, yes, in Virginia where I am right now, we all need to begin to recognize that and to work against it. Kimmy, if I could go back to you, we've been talking a lot about, at the Better Life Club, we work a lot on family policy. And you testified recently in support of a national paid family and medical leave bill of the Family Act. Can you talk a little bit about the role of structural racism and what's held us back? We are alone among so many advanced economies for really not supporting our families in the United States. And can you talk about the, really the sort of structural racism at the root there and how can we move forward? Well, I think that this also gets into, again, this piece of how gendered and racist some of the core narratives about deservedness and who deserves safety, who deserves the infrastructure to be able to care for our families. And so I see that being linked to the thread of, for so many black and Latinx and indigenous folks of color that we are seen as sites of labor, as sites of extractive capital. And the piece that I want to speak to is that in, you know, there's some level where in the space of, there's a critical side of work at the space of policy change. And in this moment, what is so clear is that people literally are the power. We are the power. And that it's not just about proximity, but that literally we are the power within the system. And so the ways in which we use that power to facilitate our imaginations of what is possible outside of these structures that were never actually designed for us to thrive, designed for us to be successful, designed for us to live as I think where I want to see our work move. And I want to echo what Angela lifted up about the critical nature of centering black people, black women in particular, including trans women, and that thinking about the multiple intersecting ways in which the systems compounds that population's ability to thrive. And that not only is it deliberate, but in those moments where we have sort of what we call race neutral, which neutral is often locked into cis white men that we're really thinking through who are we centering in this work? Who are we centering in the policy? So I didn't exactly answer your specific question about paid family leave, but I just felt really called to this moment that that is a strategy, but that is not going to get us to the liberation and the imagination and the liberation that we want to see for our communities. I love that notion that this is really about imagining what's possible, breaking beyond what the barriers are and really re-imagining what America could be. Angela, I'd like to turn to you. Can we mention power? Can you talk about the role of power here? This is really a lot of what we're talking about, systems to keep certain people in power, whites in power, white men in power, and how do we move beyond that? Systems of power can be very difficult, entrenched power, taking it on. Can you talk a little bit about the strategy of dealing with power? Yeah, I think there are a few ways to think about this. So in this particular moment, I think with the protests and uprisings you're seeing across the country, you're seeing one expression of sort of pushing back on sort of corrosive power that has oppressed black people in so many different ways across the country. So I think there's sort of the power in direct action and power building and organizing that can happen at the grassroots level. That's absolutely essential in order to combat structural racism. I think in addition to that sort of grassroots people power, there's also some urgency for us to actually wield public power in a way that benefits black people. So I would argue that right now we're watching all of the state violence, which is not an expression of public power, but what an expression of actual public power would look like was meeting the demands of people who are out in the streets protesting over being exhausted by the toll that racism takes on black communities. And so I think if our government or institutions, our communities were more responsive to those needs, to those demands, then we could shift the power balance. And then the last thing I'll say on sort of the power piece is when you're thinking about building an uplifting grassroots power, building public power, you also have to think about what it means to curb private power as well. So in this moment, whether it's corporations who are sort of crisis profiteering off of this moment on the backs of black and brown workers, whether it's, gosh, there's so many different ways this is happening right now, it really is important to think about, in addition to building that public power, what are we doing to make sure that private actors can't exploit and extract in the same way that they have in the past. So much of what you're saying, I just think about some of the past conversations that we've had, we had a home health worker on, she earns like a pittance, she's doing such important work, she doesn't have access to paid sick days. So she's in her 70s, she's still working and still making, she doesn't have any retirement, doing such important work. And when I asked, well, how did that feel that she has to make the choice if she's sick, and she's a breadwinner for her extended family? Does she go, does she work sick and potentially spread infection, which is against her own code as a carer? And then, but to make that decision, it means that it costs her and her family. And when I asked her about it, she just said, it makes you feel like they think you're worthless. And it's so infuriating that so many people, like you say, essential workers, or we've had, we've talked with childcare workers, how is it possible that when we talk about childcare and we talk about early care and learning, the conversation seems to be around curriculum and quality. How can we talk about quality when we don't talk about the fact that so many of our care workers, our early ed teachers, our childcare workers, they don't make as much as a parking lot attendant and they have no benefits. And there is no path for advancement. They don't have retirement. We spoke to one who's, you know, she's worked as an early ed preschool teacher for years and is so much in debt with student loans that she's actually thinking about leaving the profession that she loves. It's infuriating that we don't see larger systems here. You know, so Angela, how, you know, I go back to you to like, how do we work the, you know, again, change these narratives, get more sort of everyone on the same side, if you will, to fight these systemic structures. Yeah, just really quickly on that point about essential workers, I was on a webinar that EPI hosted earlier this week listening in and one of the panelists said something that I thought was really striking is that, you know, we talk about essential workers right now, but often the companies are really talking or, you know, governments or whoever are talking about essential work while simultaneously devaluing the actual workers themselves. So they don't see the people as essential. They see the roles as essential. And that's sort of like, we need to flip that, right? Like we need to make sure that the people are essential first and that they have adequate protections to be safe and healthy on the job. And so, you know, there are a lot of things that we think about and we think about how to reimagine an economy that would actually work for us all. And some of those things are thinking about like, for example, how you measure what a healthy economy looks like, you know, if we're focused on GDP alone, but we're not thinking about the facts that black households have one-tenth of the wealth of white households. We're not thinking about the fact that the black unemployment rate is almost always twice what the white unemployment rate is. We're not thinking about the fact that there is discrimination in housing and in healthcare and sort of across all of these dimensions. In so many areas of the labor market, care work is again a perfect example of where that's true. We have largely black and brown women doing so much care work across this country and yet they lack even the most basic protections to keep them safe on the job. And so, as we're thinking about like, what is the proactive vision for it? I think you really do have to focus on what are the specific harms that exist now and build up from there. So, you know, on the sort of labor market side, it's about, you know, again, making sure that people are able to thrive and making sure that we don't just settle for, oh, well, you know, the unemployment rate is down, so things are fine. I mean, again, even prior to COVID, if white unemployment was at where black unemployment was in March of 2020, we would have been in crisis mode then. So really thinking about the way that we evaluate the health and strength of the economy and then build out our policies to ensure that the specific harms that we've identified are the ones that we're addressing. Those are such important points. You know, I'd like to close. I want to thank everyone for sticking with us. This is such an important conversation and I know we've gone over and Dr. Mason had a hard stop at 130, so I told her to go ahead and leave. But I'm so grateful to have her here. So grateful to have all of you here. But I wanted to close out. I want to turn back with you to you, Autumn. You know, just because, again, the story that you wrote has just really, like I say, it's really stuck with me. You talk about talking to your son and how he was thinking you were talking about back then and you had to tell him that, no, this is now. You know, as you think about where we are and how we move forward and you know, you think about your young children, you know, what's your vision for how we move forward here? You talked about how it's so important to center the lived experiences of people and particularly people of color, you know, in the policies and really see that kind of, see, respect and value that experience in those lives. You know, tell us where we go from here. Yeah, so, you know, I think about my work hat. And so my work hat thinks about like these larger issues that I know Angela just mentioned this idea like stakeholder capitalism and new capitalism, this idea of like, what is a good job and what is a good employer and what are their responsibilities? What is business's responsibility to the people that they employ, to, you know, the brown, the black, that everyone who they are bringing in as people that they employ. When I think about the personal hat, I think of myself as someone who has a seven, five and three year old and I think about their futures. I think about my daughter who just days after that whole conversation with my son said, I thought this was handled in kindergarten. I guess they learn about community helpers and so police officers are community helpers and she was like, but that's a community helper. And she said, but I thought Martin Luther King handled this. Like I thought this was done. And so I think that, you know, people need to know obviously that it's not done. I think that people who are not maybe as directly connected to it need to think about how they are educating the folks that they are in their circles. And I think that we need to be mindful about what it looks like when we think about going forward the world that we wanna live in and the role that we each play in that. And I also just wanted to hook into that piece that can be mentioned as it relates to power, which is that while I am definitely trying to pass the torch to like the shouldn't be the burden of those who are burdened, I think that there is this piece that it is equally the responsibility of everybody who kind of walks this earth. But I think that there is this piece about also owning the power that all of us have who are within the Black community, within the Latinx community, within the Indigenous community, within all of these communities that are feeling this. I would like to end with that feeling of we have the power, this is the moment, we should absolutely not squander this chance to change things that have been for a long time, but they don't have to be. So we have to do something about it. So stand in that power, everyone. Excellent, and on that note, I would love to just thank you all again for being part of this conversation, recognizing that it comes at a very difficult time. And I really appreciate and I think we've learned so much. And I think this is such an important conversation to continue having, to reshape, re-imagine, and reclaim that power for a real, the vision of America that we all want that's inclusive and decent and dignified for all people. So I wanna thank you again for being part of this. I'd love to thank the participants for being here and sharing conversation and stories in the chat. I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to bring you on, but our panelists were just so riveting. Again, thanks to the New America Events Team, the Better Life Lab team, David Shulman, the producer. Next week we will be talking about returning to work, but I think what we'll be doing as well is very intentionally making sure that everything that we do is really committed to fighting structural racism in absolutely every corner. So thank you again for your time. All of you stay safe and healthy, be well. And until next week, thank you.