A Federal Agenda for Health, Justice, & Racial Equity from The Praxis Project Network
January 14, 2021
Biden-Harris Transition Team
Office of the President Elect
Contact: Xavier Morales, Ph.D., MRP, Executive Director, The Praxis Project
A Federal Agenda for Health, Justice, & Racial Equity from The Praxis Project Network
Dear Biden Harris Transition Team:
Congratulations on your win in the 2020 election! We want to honor and uplift the incredible community organizing and engagement of Black communities, Indigenous communities, and other communities of color that helped your administration secure this election. We are looking forward to seeing you remedy many of the harms that were caused to these same communities over the last four years, and move the United States towards a place where equity and justice can be achieved for all communities.
The Praxis Project is a national nonprofit organization that works with over 200 base-building community organizers and organizations across the nation seeking to advance racial and social justice among their communities. Organizers in Praxis’ network represent Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color, from urban and rural areas. We advocate for health, justice and racial equity, specifically focusing on human rights and the social determinants of health. Community organizers like Black Lives Matter have been leading the way for justice movements to protect communities and our natural resources for years. Our organizing partners have continued to effectively advance community priorities throughout COVID-19 and its inequitable impacts on people of color; it’s necessary for public health and our federal administration to follow the priorities of these leaders to truly effect change.
Requests and Recommendations to the New Administration’s Transition Team:
Community organizers advancing health, justice and racial equity in their communities throughout the nation have established priority areas that need to be addressed at a federal level. This list is not exhaustive, but reflect urgent needs identified by over 50 basebuilding grassroots organizations across several social determinants of health. Throughout all of these important areas, we need to name and address the disproportionate impact many of these conditions have on women and girls, queer, trans and intersex communities, immigrant communities, people with disabilities, communities of color, and others who have been marginalized. Lastly, it is critical to center racial justice and follow the leadership of the Black communities, Indigenous communities, Latinx and other communities of color that laid the foundation to your election. We call upon the Biden administration to ensure the following basic human rights are afforded to all communities:
Immediate, concrete actions that will improve health, justice and racial equity:
Renew the CARES Act to support economic justice and security for workers, families, and small businesses during COVID-19 recovery.
Pass the THRIVE Agenda/Green New Deal to combat racial injustice and invest in Black, Brown & Indigenous communities .
Pass the BREATHE Act to support racially-just community safety efforts.
Follow the Movement for Black Lives’ COVID-19 Policy Platform.
Protect the rights of all voters so that communities can contribute to advancing equitable policies.
Community organizers and organizations are improving the social determinants of health by advancing the following priorities that need your support:
Economic Justice: Ensure the availability of safe, reliable, high quality employment opportunities that provide individuals with living wages and salaries.
Ensure federal-level fair, livable wages for all workers.
Implement rights for low-wage workers, including access to health insurance, paid sick leave, protections against wage theft, and other basic workplace rights.
Environmental Justice: Fight pollution and toxic exposures; guarantee safe and non-toxic water, indoor and outdoor air, and soil for all communities.
Pass and implement policies to protect Tribal lands and resources.
End hydraulic fracking and the use of pesticides in agriculture
Advocate for investment in renewable and clean energy
Strengthen and enforce the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to address racially-based environmental injustice.
Fair & Just Legal System: Re-think our present legal and justice systems to ensure that all people, regardless of their identities, are treated equitably by members of the justice system, including law enforcement, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges.
Ensure police-free schools.
Redirect funds from police departments to restorative justice practices and other forms of community supports.
End money bail and pretrial detention.
Critically analyze the prison-industrial complex and move towards prison abolition.
Food Justice: Ensure all communities, regardless of race or income, can have both increased access to nutritious, affordable food and the power to influence a food system that prioritizes environmental and human needs
Support values-aligned, universal healthy school meals.
Create food sovereignty through local farming and youth education.
Support small-scale farm operations.
Direct food aid to low-income residents.
Healthcare Justice: Provide universal access to high quality, accessible, culturally appropriate clinical care that is responsive to an individual and their community’s social conditions.
Continue to address racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes by addressing racism.
Continue to advocate for abortion access and reproductive justice protections.
Ensure universal access to affordable healthcare.
Housing Justice: Ensure stable, high-quality, safe, and affordable housing to residents of all income levels.
Advocate for affordable, quality housing for low-income immigrants and BIPOC.
Call for emergency moratorium on evictions & foreclosures.
Implement federal-level rent control.
End criminalization of homeless communities.
Address the shortage of low- and middle-income family housing.
Reinstitute regulations to affirmatively further fair housing in the Fair Housing Act.
Migrant Justice: Protect immigrant and refugee families from being separated, reduce fear in communities, protect individuals’ livelihoods, and facilitate access to quality, health-affirming services.
Demilitarize communities at the U.S.-Mexico Border and reunite families who have been torn apart.
End criminalization, detention and deportation of immigrants and refugees.
Advance meaningful immigration reform with a path to citizenship.
Continue Temporary Protected Status for immigrants.
End new asylum policies requiring waiting at the border.
Dismantle U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Starting in January, and throughout the next four years and beyond, we urge you to keep these priorities at the forefront of your justice efforts. When we meaningfully address the needs of those who have been the most marginalized by our systems, all of us benefit. Creating a reality in which we can achieve health, equity, and wellness requires leadership on all levels. We are in this work together and we at the Praxis Project offer to help implement any of the above recommendations in any manner you deem appropriate.
Respectfully,
Xavier Morales, Ph.D., MRP
The Praxis Project and our following partners:
