posted on: Monday, March 22, 2010

By Niki Jagpal

As our country celebrates the House’s passage of the healthcare bill, many of us rightly welcome the first major social change program passed since the 1960’s. But even as we do so, much work remains to be done to address the myriad disparities that persist as barriers to equal life opportunities. Since 1966, the United Nations General Assembly has brought ending racial discrimination to the forefront, following the 1960 police attacks on peaceful anti-Apartheid protesters in South Africa. With the passage of Resolution 2142 in 1965, the UN General Assembly called on the international community to increase our efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, proclaiming March 21 as the date to do so. So as the House signed the healthcare bill for the Senate’s consideration, I wonder how many of us know the extent to which racial disparities continue to impede equal access to basic healthcare.

For example, in the most recent health report issued by the Measure of America used the Human Development Index adapted to the United States found significant disparities in healthcare by race. And although our country ranks high among developed countries using this metric, we’re not doing so well when 29 countries have residents who live, on average, longer lives than we do while spending 8 times less on healthcare. We rank 39th in the world for infant mortality and the rates by race are even more disturbing (full data tables are available at the links above).

I’m privileged to be a mentee of Dr. john a. powell, and wrote about an interview I did with him on how structural barriers to equality must be addressed must be addressed and how philanthropy can contribute meaningfully to those efforts. And this is the time for grantmakers to really analyze their strategies to ensure that racial equity remains a priority in all their work. And there are some great foundations leading the way – the Woods Fund of Chicago, Funders for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning Issues and the California Endowment, for example. But the time is now for more foundations to embrace the principles of justice and equality on which this country was founded. One way is to acknowledge explicitly race as a persistent barrier to social inclusion. And there are many resources for funders who wish to do so (GrantCraft and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity produced a guide for funders and the Diversity in Philanthropy Project is another resource; there are many more resources on each of the sites above). As the healthcare bill moves to the Senate, I hope more grantmakers will consider funding work that seeks to end racial discrimination as some of their peers have.

Niki Jagpal is research and policy director at NCRP.