America's Wire Releases Commentary By Dr. Gail C. Christopher On The Root Cause Of Racism In America And Rationale For The National Day Of Racial Healing On January 17 Initiated By The W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Enterprise

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- America's Wire today released a commentary by Dr. Gail C. Christopher that cites the need for America to heal its racial divides, noting that "vitriolic, divisive rhetoric and raw emotions raging throughout the past year pulled the scab off a persistent wound in the American psyche, bringing the issue of race front and center and exposing the divides in our society."

Dr. Christopher, who is senior advisor at the Kellogg Foundation and vice president for TRHT, writes that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of equality articulated in his famous "I Have a Dream" address at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 remains unfulfilled in many communities today.

"Think about Dr. King's powerful vision," she writes.  "'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.'"  That's the America many of us strive to create, but clearly, despite progress in some areas, we are still seeking to realize."

She writes that the United States has made progress over the decades, citing statutes and rulings ranging from Brown v. Board of Education to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that outlawed public discrimination.  Yet, these actions only addressed the effects of racism, she writes, not its core foundation.  "Time has demonstrated that government and courts can enact and uphold laws, but they don't change hearts, minds and souls or address the root cause of racism. "

Furthermore, Dr. Christopher asserts that "racism is rooted in the false belief in a human hierarchy, an antiquated taxonomy of the human family, which has fueled structural racism and conscious and unconscious bias throughout U.S. culture with a perception of inferiority or superiority based on race, physical characteristics or place of origin.  Whites are placed at the top and all other racial groups in descending order.  This absurd notion, which science has soundly discredited, was used to justify colonization and enslavement for centuries. And the false ideology fuels white supremacist movements and other overt expressions of racial and ethnic hatred and bigotry." 

In the article, Dr. Christopher writes that the National Day of Healing, as well as the work by the TRHT, which is comprised of more than 130 community, civic, corporate and private sector organizations, will help create a new narrative that "refutes the belief in a hierarchy of human value and replaces it with the scientifically proven assertion that we're all descendants of one human ancestry and guided by an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''

This commentary, as well as other articles and commentaries, are available free of charge from America's Wire, an independent new service operated by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.  Go to www.Americaswire.org  and click downloads (right column) to publish the article. America's Wire provides mainstream newspapers, community papers, websites, ethnic publications and wire services with stories and commentaries reporting on structural inequities and the communities impacted.  

(To schedule print or broadcast interviews with Dr. Christopher, please contact Michael K. Frisby at [email protected] or 202-625-4328. America's Wire is an independent new service sponsored by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.)

For more information on the TRHT and how communities, organizations and individuals can help eliminate the hierarchy of human value in America, go to  http://www.racialequityresourceguide.org/guides-workshops/trht-implementation-guidebook
for the TRHT implementation guide.

CONTACT:
Michael K. Frisby
202-625-4328
[email protected]

SOURCE America's Wire

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