CCHD's 'global town hall' looks at race and poverty

Social Justice News
March 7, 2008

CCHD's 'global town hall' looks at race and poverty
Alexandria, VA—Marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., over 130 sites in the United States and around the world Wednesday participated in Catholic Charities USA’s live global town hall Webcast examining the connection between racism and poverty.

“Our first-ever town hall is dedicated to starting the conversation around the connection between poverty and racism, because we know as social workers and social ministry professionals that when we find our ‘voice’ on an issue we also find our answers in the conversation,” said Janet Valente Pape, chair of Catholic Charities USA’s Board of Trustees and executive director of Catholic Charities of Wichita, KS.

Participants from across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa called in and emailed their reports of their locally facilitated conversations on the connections between race and poverty.

While whites make up the majority of the poor in the United States, poverty rates are highest among minorities. U.S. Census figures show that in 2006, the overall national poverty rate was 12.3 percent, with the rate for African Americans at 24.3 percent, nearly three times higher than the 8.2 percent poverty rate for whites. The poverty rate for Hispanics is 21.8 percent and 23.2 percent for Native Americans.

“Every day, Catholic Charities agencies see the faces of the poor across America, and we know firsthand how race and poverty are interconnected,” said Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, the National Member Service Center for more than 1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies across the country. “Catholic Charities will not stand silently while this social injustice continues. Throughout our history, whenever there have been issues that challenge our society and have great impact on the poor and marginalized, Catholic Charities has made bold statements about the moral imperatives that guide us and shape our society.”

At the heart of the day’s live video Webcast was CCUSA’s paper, Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good. Released in January, the paper examines the reality and history of racial injustice in America and calls for a renewed commitment to racial equality as a national priority to reduce poverty and ensure economic justice for all. The paper is an initiative of CCUSA’s Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America, which calls on policymakers and all Americans to cut the U.S. poverty rate in half by 2020.

To facilitate local discussions, the three-hour Webcast included several opportunities for participants to at the different sites to break off into groups and reflect and share with their colleagues. There they discussed not only the intertwined problems of poverty and race, but they candidly shared their fears, ignorance, and guilt, they felt in confronting and talking about the issue of racism.

“We all share in the responsibility of making Dr. King’s dream come true,” said Carolyn Tisdale, director of Catholic Charities of Memphis. “I am struck by the fact that it has taken us 40 years to begin to have this discussion again. It is important that each of us assumes that personal responsibility and we participate in making a change.”

Wrapping up the Webcast, participants across the country shared what concrete steps they can take as communities, organizations, and individuals to eliminate poverty and racism in the country.

In California, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County is forming a diverse county-wide coalition called Step Up Silicon Valley to cut poverty in half in Santa Clara County. “We are committed to organizing our clients to make sure their voices are heard in shaping public policies,” said Gregory R. Kepferle, CEO, of Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.

Other ideas ranged from ongoing training and developing leadership to sharing information and fostering discussions in their local communities to advocating for policy changes.

“Transformation has to start with where we live our lives everyday,” said Paul Martodam, CEO of Catholic Charities Community Services in Phoenix, AZ. For Martodam, that starts with the work and staff at his agency. He has asked his agency’s diversity council, which provides mandatory four-hour training for staff on diversity issues, to incorporate elements of Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good, into the training. The council also will be rolling out a more advance course that will take a deeper look at the issues raised in the paper later this year.

In addition, the agency will be reviewing its own policies, practices, and procedures that may be a product of “white privilege”—unearned advantage, conferred dominance, and invisible privilege enjoyed by white Americans, to the detriment, burden, and disadvantage of people of color.

“We have to examine these issues and make those changes in our own organization first and then bring that experience to the broader community,” said Martodam.

A rebroadcast of the town hall will be made available in next month at www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/livetownhall.

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