Big Ideas for Equity and Wellness in 2024, Pt. 2

To continue to explore these big ideas for equity and wellness in 2024, here are the other 17 ideas:

1) Work in DEI will not be as emotionally taxing and will be appropriately compensated  & supported– so many DEI professionals have left the profession due to burnout and a lack of emotional or financial support.  Companies who express their commitment to this work, will back it up by providing adequate investment in this area, and suitable support for those professionals who are charged to lead it. That includes DEI coaching for professionals, paid sabbaticals, and adequate staffing & budgets.

2) Companies will stop running away from discussing race and the adverse impact of racism on their employees- as we currently are witnessing with challenging conversations about anti-semitism and Islamophobia, far too many companies are ill equipped and skittish about discussing difficult topics.  For far too many years, race and racism also were topics, which companies avoided.  The racial reckoning of 2020 forced them to do so, but since then, a fair amount have retreated from such conversations.  Now is the time to return to dealing with race and racism, and its impact on your workplace & employees.  By finding experts who can facilitate such discussions, companies can ensure all their employees feel seen, respected, and heard.

3) Companies will find more ways to socially connect employees – while hybrid work is helpful for many employees, for some, especially new hires, companies should be more intentional about how to socially connect employees when they are actually in the office.  All employees can benefit from feeling more socially engaged at work, which helps with mental wellness and engagement.  But it shouldn’t feel forced or not thoughtful.  Employees should have a wealth of options to connect with their colleagues, as a natural part of their work week.

4) Insurance companies will less influence on healthcare decisions than medical providers – one of the challenges of improving mental health in this country, is the influence insurance companies have on care decisions.  Rigid session limits, denial of reimbursement submissions, onerous paperwork, and low fees to providers, make continuity of care, and quality access difficult.  Care models must be in place, wherein mental healthcare is not simply commodified to enable an insurance company to deny care and to be super profitable.  This will require employers, major hospital systems, and governments to exert pressure on these insurance companies, to maintain the highest standards of care for patients.

5) Immigration will not be used to divide and will be viewed as a strength – the so called migrant crisis has been used to divide populations who have been historically oppressed. And to stoke racist replacement conspiracy theories and fear of "White decline." Rather than viewing the migrants as a great threat, citizens should push the government to find a pathway to work authorization. It is no surprise to hear Trump's racist remarks about immigrants "poisoning the blood" of our country, given his long history of xenophobia. What was somewhat alarming was that 42% of Iowan caucus voters polled said that those remarks actually increased the likelihood that they would vote for Trump. We can therefore see that such xenophobia is now out in the open and prevalent in many parts of our country, especially among Trump supporters. They no longer even feel ashamed of hiding their prejudices and racism.

6) Industries that rely on exploitative labor for their profit margin will figure out a better business model- I appreciate and support the restaurant industry, especially as it struggled during the pandemic, yet its business model is built on exploitative labor.  It is one of the few industries to be allowed a different minimum wage than the standard, based on the assumption, often false, that workers' income will be supplemented by tips. Unfortunately, many restaurants believe they would not be able to survive without exploiting labor, due to their very slim margins.  Despite attempts at no-tip models, which enabled higher minimum wages, such efforts were not met with success.  Therefore, new models must be developed to provide a living wage to employees while allowing restaurateurs to reap a reasonable profit.

7) Emerging social media platforms such as Spill and Threads will replace the toxic platform of X - when an owner of a social media platform says openly, "DEI must die," as Musk has often stated, one cannot be surprised that his site would be a toxic stew of white supremacy, racism, Islamophobia, and anti-semitism. The so called town square that was once Twitter has morphed into a bastion of hate and misinformation that is X, and one wonders how any reputable organization or individual would still want to be associated with it. Hopefully, Meta will finally figure out how to invigorate Threads to make it a viable replacement, especially for journalists and those interested in truth, and other competitors like Spill will provide a safe haven for those who are used to being abused or marginalized on these social media platforms.

8) There will be more investment in public education than voucher programs or charter schools – the intention of the charter school movement was to innovate, in order to push public schools to adopt beneficial models of education. It was not to replace the public education system as a whole. Unfortunately, as the movement grew, and financiers saw an opportunity to shape young minds to their advantage, charter schools have become exactly that, a competitor meant to damage, and eventually, eradicate public school systems. Hopefully, there will be more government investment in public education, so that ALL students can benefit from innovative approaches, which have emerged from the charter school movement, and a waning influence of charter schools or voucher programs, aimed as so called "choice," but has really been another way to undermine public education.

9) The so called "parental rights" movement will fade, and the federal government will intervene to stop states from clearly violating the rights of individuals to read any books they want & to learn true history, not propagandist narratives- after a year or so of leading the charge for book banning, especially those focused on LGBTQ+ and racial themes, so called "parental rights" groups, such as Moms for Liberty, which are really "White parents who don't want their children to learn the truth about racism" groups, have seen their influence wane, as their racism, transphobia, and homophobia becomes more evident, and pushback against censorship has ramped up. And hopefully, the federal government will investigate any civil rights violations related to such censorship.

10) Women will not have to leave their states to maintain their abortion rights - the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court has left many women in a very vulnerable state, with no ability to legally control their own bodies in some states. There needs to be a renewed push to protect women's right to choose, at the federal level, to ensure different states do not suppress these rights, and require women to have to leave their state to access reproductive rights or be charged for fetal abuse, after suffering a miscarriage, as is the reality in a case in Ohio.

11) Worker owned coops will increase - it is abundantly clear that the corporation as the primary business model does not adequately benefit workers, who are the drivers of profit, but see little to none of it. Therefore, other models such as worker owned cooperatives must increase to provide more support for workers, and enable them to truly reap the benefits of their labor.

12) More community land trusts will be developed to genuinely keep housing affordable - community land trusts are nonprofit entities which seek to maintain community control, in order to reduce speculative housing development, and to keep housing more affordable. While such models have blossomed in Europe, they have had limited success here, due to the voracious appetite for speculative real estate development, at the expense of affordable housing for middle and low-income populations. We must explore such models, in order to address affordable housing shortages, and to provide adequate housing for all income levels.

13) Misinformation will be contained - I recently saw a news segment on PragerU a non-accredited digital "educational" organization, which teaches that White people ended slavery and slavery in this country was not so bad. Incredibly, this racist propaganda is being taught in some schools in our country. With the amount of misinformation that is online and being promoted by so called credible sources, the level of ignorance in this country is very high. Although many social media platforms do not care about truly containing this flood of misinformation, government intervention, similar to what is happening in the European Union, can force them to be responsible for regulating false and misleading information.

14) The plight and suffering of Palestinians will be recognized and they will receive aid for their emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing - it has been beyond disheartening to watch the relentless killing of innocent civilians in Gaza. And it has also been painful to witness how calling for a ceasefire and supporting the human rights of Palestinians have been equated with being anti-semitic and anti-Israel, resulting in unfair punishment for students and workers. It is not true. Whether it is student groups, the U.N. body, or community organizations, being pro-Palestinian DOES NOT make one anti-semitic. Period. This campaign to crush Hamas has resulted in needless deaths and continued suffering of the Palestinian people. Whenever this "war" ends, the Palestinian people will need aid to heal, both physically and emotionally. We must not forget their plight, and we must support them in rebuilding their land, while healing their bodies & minds.

15) There will actually be progress made to reduce poverty and homelessness in this country - for a country who is able to provide billions in aid to so many other countries, it is confusing to my children why we are not able to end poverty and homelessness, by investing those same billions on our own citizens. It is worth understanding why our Defense budget ($877 billion in 2022) so radically dwarfs our Education budget ($76.4 billion in 2022) and why we are not able to allocate more money to eradicate poverty and homelessness.

16) All Confederate flags, monuments and streets named after Confederate soldiers will be removed and outlawed - so many people in the South still don't believe they lost the Civil War, and as a country, the government has allowed them to maintain this delusion by enabling them to keep monuments to their treasonous "heroes." Children should most certainly learn about this disgraceful chapter in our history by visiting these artifacts in museums, not by having schools or streets named after Confederate soldiers. We must end this toxic notion that celebrating the Confederacy is only about honoring one's Southern heritage. The Confederacy, its flag, and any monuments are symbols of terrorism to Black people in this country, and have no place outside of museums or other centers of learning. Period.

17) A movement to eradicate the Electoral College will emerge - the Electoral College was created as a compromise to get the Southern states to ratify the Constitution, by developing the three-fifths rule, where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a human. It was never meant to be a permanent part of our democracy. In 2020, a Pew Research survey, found that 58% of Americans favored amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College. It gives unfair advantage to smaller states, and has resulted in candidates who have won the popular vote, not being elected president. The Electoral College is what enables a twice impeached, racist, xenophobic, aspiring dictator, who lost the popular vote overwhelmingly in both his elections, to be able to actually run again and have a fair shot at being elected president. There needs to be a movement to eliminate this last vestige of the politics of slavery, which has shaped this country.

Our work to improve our society continues, and these ideas are hopeful ones to consider as we enter 2024.

#BigIdeas2024