Over the last year, The Rockefeller Foundation has had the privilege of supporting an influential group of leaders in the economic equity sphere through our Bellagio Center Residency and Convening Program. Many of the individuals you’ll see featured in this inaugural Bellagio Perspective are affiliated with the Foundation’s Economic Equity initiative’s pro-worker portfolio, each in their own way working to promote economic and racial equity at the nexus of democracy, workers’ rights, and tax policies that center workers over capital. Read further to learn more about how we’re advancing racial and economic justice.
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"Our hope is that a more racially just tax system will support labor instead of capital, reducing inequity and promoting pro-worker policies to ensure working families have stability and that we contribute to closing the racial wealth gap."
"People are working hard and working multiple jobs, and still can’t thrive. Policymakers and corporations have stacked the system against folks in this way. In the United States, 87 percent of occupations are considered racially segregated, and that’s after you control education.”
"To hope is the very first and most fundamental ingredient for any change to happen. So we have no choice but to be hopeful."
"I fail to see how any change-making can be sustainable without actually transforming the systems that undergird policies and institutions."
"One of the things we should do is question systems. That means looking at the root of the system and determining whether it can be changed."
"If we don't have a concept of anti-racism, anti-sexism, and proactive inclusion, the default will be economic rights that are by design, management, and implementation, exclusionary."
"When someone's really coming at you, instead of being scared, know that what it means is" whatever you're doing is working."
"Enacting change requires a mass intellectual movement—you need to influence people. Then they'll demand change from leaders."