Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT)

Racial inequity is one of the most destructive remnants of an anachronistic tradition in this country, resulting from the implementation of policies and systems of oppression that have adversely impacted individuals and communities of color for generations. There are few places this inequity is more rampant than in Chicago, a place that has consistently and completely maintained that inequity through racially unjust policies and targeted disinvestment. An assessment and acknowledgement of this truth, coupled with racial healing and transformation is needed to begin to dismantle the systems that uphold racial inequities.

Woods Fund Chicago invites you to join us on a journey to eradicating these racial inequities.

Since June, Woods Fund Chicago has been serving as the administering and lead organization for a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) effort called TRHT Greater Chicago. The TRHT is a comprehensive, national and community-based process to “unearth and jettison the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs created by racism”.  Support for the effort was provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF).
 
TRHT Greater Chicago is anchored by a group of individuals representing diverse sectors and backgrounds who first coalesced at the WKKF TRHT summit in December 2016. Following the summit, this group submitted a successful application to WKKF to support a TRHT effort in greater Chicago. The mission of TRHT Greater Chicago is to proliferate healing and equity within individuals, neighborhoods, and communities to change the race narrative to fuel transformation, erase the belief in racial hierarchy, and drive towards racial equity.

TRHT Greater Chicago will create regional transformational change in four areas: truth and narrative; healing; law and policy; and youth. Each is the focus of an individual working group or “design team”.  

The first three design teams completed an initial planning phase in March 2018 to develop one- and three-year goals and create the following visions:

Truth and Narrative
Authentic, honest narratives rooted in community replace stereotypes, false narratives and stories that perpetuate racism or support racist structures in Chicago.

• Arts and Culture: Artists are engaged to raise awareness of racism and the impact of racism, and to shape truthful historical narratives that will be disseminated widely in schools and communities

• Media: Multigenerational community partners develop and adopt framework tools to identify false racial narratives in the media, and then hold them accountable to stop perpetuating those narratives

• Education: Curriculum is inventoried and augmented with lessons that fill in gaps and correct falsehoods in racial narratives by including diverse voices and perspectives

Healing
Engaging in racial healing in Chicagoland brings racially and ethnically diverse people together across generations to freely speak their truth. By doing this, it will result in the following:

• In the midst of disagreement and pain, and connection and laughter, people validate each other’s truths and craft a shared understanding of Chicago’s historical and present-day racism

• People start to heal from their trauma, take ownership in their role in racism, reject the myth of the hierarchy of human value, and find acceptance among people and their cultures

• As people cultivate connections with each other, they are motivated to find common ground to eliminate unjust policies and practices that inflict harm on their fellow Chicagoans

• As a result, the pursuit of equity in education, criminal justice, housing, health, economic sufficiency, and neighborhood development becomes the priority.  Physical, mental, and emotional boundaries melt, and people begin to feel safe, strong, and hopeful together

Law and Policy
Achieving transformational racial equity where all residents are equally aware of and protected by the laws, policies, and ordinances that are responsible for ensuring a safe existence. In this new reality:

• No one is treated unequally or preferentially

• No one is discriminated against

• There is transparency, fairness, and equity in enforcement

• Historical contexts that unjustly created racial inequity are confronted and dispelled

• There is a genuine, multidimensional and inclusive commitment to change the narratives and practices that have perpetuated the false assumption of hierarchy of human value

• Status and power dynamics are neutralized so that fairness and accountability are equally distributed

• Laws, policies, resources, rights, and opportunities are understood, embraced, and applied equitably, justly, and transparently

Youth
Envisioning a city that includes youth in meaningful ways to work for racial equity where they:

• Are listened to and are engaged in exciting and genuine conversations that include racially and ethnically diverse and intergenerational voices

• Can express themselves authentically in powerful, proactive, and progressive ways

• Have decision-making power to inform public policies in education, laws, and narratives

• Feel loved, rooted, united, and safe in their hometown of Chicago

The youth design team will develop goals by the end of August 2018.

Email TRHT@woodsfund.org to join a design team or with any questions or concerns.