The Organization’s Background
Undernutrition can be long-lasting or transient, driven by various elements, including race and ethnic origin. Rabbi Herman Schaalman of Emanuel Synagogue, Rev. William Johnson of the Episcopal Church of the Atonement, and other Edgewater Clerical Rabbinical Association colleagues founded Care for Real in 1971 (Careforreal.org., 2021). Today, known as the Edgewater Community Religious Association (ECRA), this society seeks to assist survivors of fires in Arson Alley, the Kenmore-Winthrop stretch between Foster and Devon (Careforreal.org, 2021). It was intended to be a short term solution to a specific problem. Nonetheless, it quickly became apparent that Edgewater lacked a continuing support system for needy residents. Currently, Care for Real serves as a welfare program for the surrounding population of Edgewater (Careforreal.org, 2021). Discriminatory practices have led to undernourishment, as witnessed in 2016, where black non-Hispanic households were twice as probable to experience food insecurity as the national aggregate income, 22.5% against 12.3% (Bowen et al., 2021). Therefore, Care for Real strives to provide food and clothing, among other social support initiatives, to reduce instances of malnutrition.
How the Organization Embraces Whole Personal Health
Care for Real (CfR) assists underprivileged neighbors, and families overcome food insecurity dignifiedly. CfR provides food, clothing, referrals, and other services with compassion to promote the health and wellness of low-income citizens, ultimately contributing to developing a better, healthier, egalitarian, and more cohesive society. Each year, Care for Real provides food for countless communities. Care for Real distributes meals six days a week through Edgewater and Rogers Park facilities. During the past fiscal year, Care for Real distributed 2,046,297 tons of food (Careforreal.org, 2021). When it became unsafe for customers to assemble indoors, CfR relocated food delivery outside.
The institution enhances the individual health of its neighbors through its delivery of personal care items meant to improve the well-being of the society it serves. Numerous food-insecure neighbors lack access to sensitive care supplies such as hair care, oral health, menstruation, diapers, and cleaning supplies. Numerous items are not eligible for acquisition with SNAP benefits or via CfR food collaborations. Care for Real relies on the generosity of residents, donation campaigns, and business owners to collect and deliver these supplies. In the fiscal year 2020-2021, the agency began gathering and delivering personal care items created specifically for Black hair and skin to more effectively address customers’ requirements with decency (Careforreal.org, 2021). As such, the entity is working to ensure that the wellness of the people it serves is met.
The Causes of Racism
Racism is the conviction that a person’s ethnicity significantly predicts their characteristics and talents. As a result, a hierarchical framework is established whereby some groups are dominant over others (Babacan & Gopalkrishnan, 2020). Gorski (2019) defines racism as the systematic subjugation of a racial group to benefit another group socially, economically, and politically. The research article discusses some of the factors that contribute to the creation of racism and subsequent food insecurities within the afflicted population in this section.
Individuals Self-Interest
Numerous studies have shown self-interest as the primary cause of racist sentiments. During the colonial period, Africans were captured and subjugated into slavery (Bowser, 2017). Thus, this occurred because European investors saw that indentured slaves were incapable of performing the labor required to develop tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton in the United States of America. Rather than attempting to recruit voluntary employees, Europeans opted for servitude (Bowser, 2017). They required justification for their savage actions and maintained that enslavement was permissible because enslaved people were subhuman.
Discriminatory Regulations
Regulations that discriminate against individuals contingent of their race and keep them impoverished foster racist ideas. Housing rules are an excellent illustration of this, as numerous regulations prohibited Black individuals from owning homes in specific communities, forcing them to live in substandard housing and prohibiting them from building money (Zambrana et al., 2017). Restrictive employment policies are based on preconceptions or preconceptions about the capabilities, characteristics, or productivity of members of a particular sex, color, age, creed, demographic origin, or members of the disabled community (Stypinska & Turek, 2017). Furthermore, Stypinska and Turek (2017) insinuate that other laws limit job prospects to a person based on their identification with a specific race, religion, country of origin, or handicap. Therefore, society views these as justification for the assumption that African Americans must live in low-income, violence-ridden communities and that this is a decision.
Media Representation
How the media, including books, television, music, and films, portrays race substantially influences how society perceives the race. While the mainstream press represents culture as a whole, it perpetuates racial prejudices and hence contributes to discrimination (Titley, 2019). Racism in the entertainment industry is frequently imperceptible and unintentional, but it has devastating consequences. For instance, Black individuals are disproportionately featured in the media as practitioners of violent crime, while Black individuals are also strongly represented in newspaper stories concerning poverty (Loewstedt & Mboti, 2017). Thus, this affects Black peoples’ perceptions of themselves and the community’s perceptions of people of color.
Quick Judgments
Individuals make snap judgments about others dependent on their appearance, apparel, manner of speaking, and other physical characteristics. Due to the way the media portrays race and the perseverance of racist beliefs, it is too easy to label entire populations as sloppy, violent, or loud. Occasionally, sweeping statements are not always detrimental, as is the case with Asian people being often stigmatized as intelligent and quiet (Craven & Price, 2020). When left alone, these lightning-fast pronouncements have sizable repercussions on how individuals are considered and the types of possibilities they receive.
Sustaining a Status Quo
Sustaining an established order that supports racism is frequently rationalized to maintain tranquility. Craven and Price (2020) insinuated that racist ideologies have long been utilized in America to stifle opposition to racial inequities. When individuals hold racial stereotypes, for example, that Black people are fundamentally more dangerous and violent, they are unconcerned about police violence or criminalization. Those who profit from racial institutions require racist ideologies to promote racism; otherwise, society will fight against the established quo.
Ways to Assist Organizations such As Care for Real
Financial Donations
Many individuals and corporations place a premium on community engagement. Contributions to charitable organizations are one method for businesses, entrepreneurs, and personnel to give back. Fundraising unites individuals around a common purpose and contributes to an institution’s community profile. Citizens can donate money to causes such as improving health, funding demographic research, stocking food banks, or supporting groups that combat food insecurity, such as CfR. Additionally, supporting charity is a commitment to society’s inhabitants’ future well-being.
Social Media Campaigns
Social networking may be a powerful instrument for a community to assist entities like CfR by cultivating followers, increasing donations, communicating accomplishments, and connecting with like-minded groups. CfR may use social media to hire volunteers, promote initiatives, and illustrate the influence of their work. LinkedIn, for instance, is a proficient networking site, whereas Facebook caters to wider and younger viewers. CfR’s online presence would be maintained by presenting news, offering useful content, remaining active, and consistently updating its information, thereby drawing contributions such as food and clothing.
Collaborations
Since the beginning of the century, many local charities have acknowledged that their usefulness has reached a point of diminishing returns. Alliances with businesses, in particular, may help charities like CfR increase their influence, and an increasing number of charitable organizations are exploring market-based methods for advancement. For multiple causes, the quest for cross-sector relationships with firms has been spontaneous but also extrinsically motivated. First, institutions have started to incorporate the notion of cross-sector collaboration. Second, federal aid circumstances have begun to shift dramatically in two directions in a few countries. The total amount of money allocated to entities like CfR has declined or remained constant. As a result, collaborating with like-minded companies enables these businesses to operate more efficiently and safely.
Voluntary Services and Offerings
Since organizations like CfR are non-profit firms, they fully depend on their resources to accomplish their internal and external activities. Functions such as having employees to help in the daily running of the enterprise could be offered voluntarily by society members that the corporations serve. The services offered would act as cost-cutting measures for the charitable entities as they would be freely done. Considering that these NGOs serve a larger proportion of their communities, much assistance would be required from within and outside the firms. To ensure that CfR and like-minded businesses continue providing and helping their respective demographics, voluntary assistance from individuals would seem to be of great importance and aid in the longevity of such enterprises.
References
Babacan, H., & Gopalkrishnan, N. (2020). Situating racism: The local, national and the global. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bowen, S., Elliott, S., & Hardison‐Moody, A. (2021). The structural roots of food insecurity: How racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity. Sociology Compass, 15(7), 1-23.
Bowser, B. P. (2017). Racism: Origin and theory. Journal of Black Studies, 48(6), 572-590.
Careforreal.org. (2020). 2020-2021 Annual Report | Care for Real. Web.
Craven, R., & Price, K. (2020). Misconceptions, stereotypes and racism: Let’s face the facts. In Teaching Aboriginal Studies (pp. 42-67). Routledge.
Gorski, P. C. (2019). Fighting racism, battling burnout: Causes of activist burnout in US racial justice activists. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(5), 667-687.
Loewstedt, A., & Mboti, N. (2017). Media racism: Beyond modernity and postmodernity. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 13(1-2), 111-130.
Stypinska, J., & Turek, K. (2017). Hard and soft age discrimination: The dual nature of workplace discrimination. European Journal of Ageing, 14(1), 49-61.
Titley, G. (2019). Racism and media. Sage.
Zambrana, R. E., Harvey Wingfield, A., Lapeyrouse, L. M., Dávila, B. A., Hoagland, T. L., & Valdez, R. B. (2017). Blatant, subtle, and insidious: URM faculty perceptions of discriminatory practices in predominantly White institutions. Sociological Inquiry, 87(2), 207-232.