RACETOGETHER is all about Social Capital

This past week, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks announced their new race relations initiative, #racetogether. It got quite the media buzz. Then on Friday, March 20, USA Today CEO, Larry Kramer joined in with Schultz and put an interesting supplement in his paper that overviews the initiative; racetogether.usatoday.com.  

I read this supplement while returning to Pittsburgh from a #socialcapital training effort I did in Spokane WA. The piece was fascinating and they displayed comparison maps that showed the racial changes in the USA from 1960 to the projections for 2060.  It also looked at attitudinal aspects and offered some surprising T/F questions about race. I would strongly encourage you to find this supplement (on line, or in the weekend (March 20) edition of the USA Today.

Given the training on #socialcapital that I had just done related to relationships and engagement opportunities for people with disabilities, I was very taken with the supplement, and especially the questions posed on the last page. It was a quiz for the reader to do a reality check on their own race relations. The questions posed mirrored the very issues I had just done in my training related to disability inclusion and engagement. Now often in my thesis of changing the disability paradigm from micro (person with disability is problem) to macro (the community is the problem), I use social justice examples of race or gender equality as ways to better understand the challenge. The key to change rests with social capital. 

It seems that Schultz and Kramer are on that same path with #racetogether campaign. It is all about #socialcapital! So pause now, while you are reading this blog, and go the website, racetogether.usatoday.com and read the supplement carefully.  With a little imagination you can easily substitute the word "race" with the word "disability." We can create a better world for everyone if we just begin to build relationships!