Blog
Community Outlets for Black Youth to Channel Frustrations About Racism
Why do we need community outlets for Black youth? Most Black youth in the United States encounter racism in their daily lives, which can lead to continual psychological and emotional distress. Child Trends explains, “Ongoing individual and collective psychological or physical injuries due to exposure and re-exposure to race-based adversity, discrimination, and stress, referred to as racial trauma, is harmful to children’s development and well-being.”
Youth can also experience secondary traumatic stress or vicarious trauma after witnessing another person’s direct experiences or hearing about someone’s experience with discrimination or racism.
Racial trauma is serious and can pose harmful effects on Black children and youth of if not addressed. More specifically, the racial tension and unrest in the United States this year has caused youth to feel frustratedn, stressed and even hopeless. To help protect children from the harmful effects of racial trauma and give them a sense of self-efficacy, it is important to find outlets that will allow them to channel their frustrations into positive, tangible change.
Check out some of these community outlets for Black youth in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that teach youth about constructive ways to engage in racial/social justice efforts during these tumultuous times in our country.
Pittsburgh
The Mission of B.Y.E is to educate Black youth and young adults on topics that affect their everyday lives, to give them better/more accessible opportunities, more productive things to attend in Pittsburgh and support for anything they will need.
Project PEACE, a partnership of the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, is a peer-mediation, anti-bullying and youth court training program that enhances in Pennsylvania schools and communities the skills of nonviolent conflict resolution and active civic engagement, which are necessary for productive citizenship.
YWCA Center for Race & Gender Equity
YWCA Greater Pittsburgh’s primary advocacy initiative, the Center for Race & Gender Equity, provides training, organizes events, engages in advocacy, and builds community around the vision of a world in which all women and girls, especially women and girls of color, have equitable access to personal and professional opportunities, free from racial injustice.
The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh’s Education & Youth Development Department
ULGP’s Education and Youth Development Department has an excellent track record for providing innovative and effective out of school time learning programming that’s designed to inspire, encourage. lead and cultivate young African Americans as well as other youth to excel academically.
Philadelphia
ACLU
Join us in demanding that our city officials divest from the Philadelphia Police Department and invest in community-based services and responses for people in crisis.
The Racial Justice Organizing Committee
The Racial Justice Organizing Committee is a group of activists and advocates, working towards the abolition of white supremacy and racism in all of the ways it presents in our communities and schools.
BLM Philly, a local chapter of the BLM Global Network, is a Black organization that seeks to disrupt the [multiple/overlapping/layered, countless] violences against Black people and elevates the experiences and leadership of our most marginalized. We work to build local Black power and a healing, joyful, liberatory movement through grassroots organizing, political education, youth development, and coalition building.
The Philadelphia Student Union exists to build the power of young people to demand a high-quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. We are a youth-centered organization and we make positive changes in the short term by learning how to organize to build power.
Movement Alliance Project builds power with community organizations working at the intersection of race, technology and inequality. We run strategic campaigns, lift up untold stories, and build infrastructure for poor and working people to win lasting power and a just society.