Addressing The Impact Of Structural Racism On Resourcing Racial Justice Groups

By Debbie Solomon Director at Synergi

Mental Health Week occurred this month and as always, there is a heightened awareness of the ways in which people can improve their mental health. This ranges from accessing talking therapies and mindfulness to being more active. It could be argued that there are values to these ‘remedies’ in that they may illicit a shift in a person’s perspective. However, we also need to interrogate who these ‘remedies’ are aimed at and the neoliberal approach to locate the responsibility within the individual ‘fix yourself’ approach, rather than seeking to challenge the structures that hold us in a state of oppression and distress.  

Last year we funded the Yuvanis Foundation who wanted to provide bereavement support for Asian women, with a focus on the Muslim community as a response to the increase in deaths during the Covid 19 pandemic. The government have published four reports on the health inequalities related to Covid 19 deaths without addressing the role of structural racism. In this hostile environment, is it any wonder that some communities are not able to access services that speak to their religious and cultural identities? Talking about one’s mental health places you in a vulnerable position: imagine trying to navigate that space whilst speaking to someone who does not share your cultural identity nor has an understanding of the nuances attached to that identity.  

Talking about one’s mental health places you in a vulnerable position: imagine trying to navigate that space whilst speaking to someone who does not share your cultural identity nor has an understanding of the nuances attached to that identity.  

The idea for the bereavement service came from the experiences of a woman from the Muslim community who had a bereavement and was not able to find appropriate bereavement counselling. The fund delivered an 8-weeks bereavement peer-support service and a space for women to talk about their grief in a supportive environment. The point of the service was not system change but being able to provide support in an accessible way. The structural changes I spoke about earlier, where the topic of conversations in two meetings I attended this month. 

I was invited to a London Funders’ event to discuss the barriers and funding approaches facing the race equality sector. From the funder’s perspective, there were many perceived barriers to fund racial justice groups. One such barrier was the notion that funders could only fund registered charities; however, this is not the case. Two funders explained that you can fund unregistered groups with the stipulation that the funds have to be within the funder’s charitable aims. Another barrier was that there was a disconnect between the work being implemented by the funders and the board members. My response was to articulate that for lived experiences groups, the work that they do, with and for the community, is not paid but is in addition to their paid employment. This means that the time they have is limited and needs to be used effectively.  

To put it another way, it takes time and collective effort for grassroots groups to complete grant applications, time that is unpaid. It takes time and effort for a Grant Officer employed by a funder to review applications, this time is paid.  

At Synergi we are extremely cognisant of the time it takes to apply for a grant which is why we do most of the ‘heavy lifting’ and make the grant process as seamless as possible. We launched the Synergi grant programme this month to shift resources to lived experiences groups. We don’t ask grantees for reports as this perpetuates the power dynamics. We also don’t want to pretend that there are no power dynamics at play. Rather, we offer two grant calls during the grant period and use this time to be relational and not extractive. The calls are also used to support and provide signposting beyond the initial financial resources we offer, in conjunction with offering resources tailored to the needs of the grantees. We have found this approach to be super helpful in meeting lived experience folks where they are at.  

The second meeting was a breakfast meeting with various people who had a connection with social justice. The topic of the energy required to complete funding applications came up briefly, but the focus of the conversation was centred on representation and EDI. My take is that representation alone is not the answer. Yes, there is value in folks seeing racialised people in different spaces and roles. However, there is an assumption that the bar needs to be lowered to meet the racial quota – this argument was used against the appointment of Claudia Gay. My push back would be that we are looking at this in the wrong way. There is a false equivalency to assert that having racialised people in senior positions is representative of experiences of all racialised folk. The same logic is not applied to people racialised as white.  

There is a false equivalency to assert that having racialised people in senior positions is representative of experiences of all racialised folk.

The funding landscape can be viewed as creating dependency, a paternalistic relationship if you will. Perhaps we should be seeking to fund in a more sustainable way, and a move from the ‘white saviour ‘narrative. If the prospect of the devolution of funders, like Lankelly Chase’s announcement in 2023, elicits a fear in you to ask ‘where is the money going to come from to do this work?’ then it follows to ask, are we really clear on what the ask is from funders? Do we want to be relational with funders and not allyship? I’m being intentional here, as argued by Emma Dabri in What White People Can do Next: From Allyship to Coalition as allyship has become a stand in for ‘charity at the expense of solidarity’(p.14) . What I’m asking here is, do we really want to maintain the status quo or seek something beyond the financial reciprocity we have come to expect and accept? Drawing on the work of Farzana Khan and Nusrat Faizullah from Resourcing Racial Justice, the ask is ‘A Life Affirming Economies’ an infrastructure built in coalition with funders that resources grassroots roots in a sustainable way. 

I feel the work of the folks over at Ubele, who recently celebrated their 10 year anniversary, had from their inception, the vision to think in a sustainable way. Their aim was to build, and they are literally doing this in a tangible way but also with the fortitude to know that resilience comes in many forms. They are creating an infrastructure that allows racialised communities become self-sufficient. The breadth of their work is varied, but so are we.