Resources Archive - Page 2 of 3 - Action Center on Race and the Economy

Resources

We know that not everyone can read our full-length reports so we have put together more accessible resources for organizers and activists. Take a look through our trainings, videos, and blog for bite-sized information about our work!

How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market

Oct 2021
THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIR will meet in OPEN SESSION, HYBRID FORMAT to conduct a hearing entitled,“How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market.” The witnesses will be: Ms. Sofia Lopez, Deputy Campaign Director on Housing, Action Center on Race and the Economy; Ms. Holly Hook, Manufactured Home Resident and MHAction Leader in Swartz Creek, MI; Mr. Norbert Michel, Vice President and Director, Center for Monetary & Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute; Mr. Michael Hendrix, Senior Fellow and Director for State and Local Policy, Manhattan Institute; and Dr. Desiree Fields, Assistant Professor of Geography and Global Metropolitan Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

Chicago ARP Briefing – ACRE 05-06-21

May 2021
On Thursday May 6th, the Action Center on Race and The Economy (ACRE) gathered Chicago Alderpeople and Community Leaders to brief the media on Chicago Mayor Lightfoot's plans to spend nearly all of the $1.9 Billion American Rescue Plan funds on debt to banks like J.P. Morgan Chase and filling holes in the city's budget. Speakers: Saqib Bhatti, Co-Executive Director, Action Center on Race and the Economy, Chicago Alderpeople Daniel La Spata, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and Byron Sigcho-Lopez, Edrika Fulford, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Alyx Goodwin, Senior Organizer, Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)

21st Century Policing – The Rise and Reach of Surveillance Technology

Apr 2021
Join Congresswoman Cori Bush, the Action Center on Race & the Economy and The Community Resource Hub for a critical discussion on surveillance technology in policing. As demands to defund the police become louder and harder to ignore, the carceral state will work overtime to maintain power. Sitting at the intersection of criminalization and capitalism, surveillance technology opens the door for law enforcement to monitor communities while private companies grow their profits. As long as community safety is defined as the presence of law enforcement instead of as a system to ensure strategic and targeted community investments, surveillance technology will continue to be prevalent. Following the webinar, read “21st Century Policing: The Rise and Reach of Surveillance Technology.” This new report discusses the threat to the safety and security of communities, especially BIPOC communities, as surveillance capitalism feeds racial capitalism. This report names companies like Shotspotter who profit from police collaboration, and is a tool for advocates to name that defunding the police is not only a shift in resources it is a shift in power away from the carceral state and into communities.

Wall Street and Big Tech Companies Helped Enable Capitol Riots

Jan 2021
Wall Street and Big Tech Companies Helped Enable Capitol Riots- ACRE and Partners Demand Amazon, Google, Blackstone and Fidelity Stop Funding Fascism In response to the white supremacist insurrection on January 6th that attacked the Capitol and delayed the certification of Electoral College votes from the 2020 Presidential Election, the Action Center on Race and the Economy launched the #StopFundingFacism campaign, with sign on support from over 40 organizations to hold responsible four of the biggest players operating behind the scenes in platforming and funding the groups and leaders that organized the riots: Amazon, Fidelity, Blackstone, and Google. On January 14th, ACRE held a press call alongside Athena Coalition, the Hate is Not Charitable Campaign and the Unmasking Fidelity Coalition to address the responsibility of these corporate actors and call for public pressure against these companies.

Fueling the Fire: Why Any Fossil Fuel Industry Bailout Would Be Disastrous For Communities of Color

Oct 2020
Join a conversation with environmental justice advocates about how the fossil fuel industry's decades of siting polluting facilities in communities of color have contributed to the disproportionately higher rates of severe illness and death from COVID among Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, as well as how Wall Street, state, and federal government have financed the survival of an industry that has been poisoning our communities and destroying our planet. Learn about what environmental justice leaders who are on the frontlines are doing to fight back against major oil and gas companies. Panelists: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib Felicia Griffin, Deputy Director, Partnership for Working Families Judith Le Blanc, Director, Native Organizers Alliance Rabbi Julie Greenberg, Climate Justice Organizer, POWER Diego Mayen, Member, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice Zolboo Namkhaidorj, Youth Organizer, Communities for a Better Environment

Cancel Wall Street Report Briefing

Sep 2020
Nationwide -- On Wednesday, September 30, Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE) will bring together elected officials, community organizers, labor leaders, and more to launch “Cancel Wall Street,” a campaign pushing for the Federal Reserve to grant cities and states zero cost, long term loans. To accompany the campaign launch, ACRE is releasing a brand new report explaining how the Federal Reserve granting cities and states zero cost loans would save local governments over $160 billion in interest payments annually. The report reveals how this move would allow local governments to shift taxpayer money away from paying excessive interest to Wall Street investors, and towards dramatically expanding lifesaving public services which are even more urgent in the midst of COVID-19 and a growing economic recession.

Race and Housing Teach-In w/ ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment)

Aug 2020
As we continue to see COVID 19 cases rise week after week, we know that the communities that have been hit the hardest, are communities of color. Communities of color are often put on the back burner and essentially ignored. While we fight for policy to keep people housed, it is our duty to educate around the history of racism and housing! ACRE and ACCE walk through the historical roots of our current problems and what that means for our current housing justice fight.

Poison Profits – A Roundtable on Race, Public Health, and Big Pharma

Aug 2020
In this conversation with guest experts on issues of race, public health and Wall Street accountability, our panelists discuss the roots of systemic racism hidden in the pharmaceutical industry, the likely barriers to access to COVID-19 vaccines and medicines and the empty promises of pharmaceutical companies to mitigate the harm of their own practices, and the devastating costs to Black and Brown people. After watching the video, read ACRE's latest report - “Poi$on: How Big Pharma Price Gouging Kills Black and Brown Folks.” Racism makes simply being Black and Brown in the U.S. a pre-existing condition and price-gouging by pharmaceutical companies is one of the root causes of the health inequities our communities face.The research and analysis is a tool for advocates to hold Big Pharma accountable for the plunder of wealth and health from Black, Brown, Indigenous and other people of color, enriching wealthy white individuals and institutions. This report is dedicated to leader, mother and grandmother Gina Owens and her late daughter Tiffany Owens, who should still be here today, and who we are honored to fight alongside.

How to Talk About Defunding the Police

Aug 2020
Cops and Capitalism Summer Webinar Series How to Talk About Defunding the Police Defund the Police! What was once a third rail has become a rallying cry as the grassroots movement demands that we publicly contend with the fact that police do not keep us safe. This webinar grounds participants on the history of policing, digs into the demand to defund the police and how to organize within community and advocate with leaders. Panelists also shared real-time organizing examples happening on the ground. Panelists: Tracey Corder, Deputy Campaign Director, ACRE Jasson Perez, Senior Research Analyst, ACRE Alyx Goodwin, Senior Organizer, ACRE Rick Banks, Political Director, Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC)