DAY 1: Wellbeing and Racial Equity Work

The Food Solutions New England Sustainability Institute, which created the original 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge on which this challenge is modeled, emphasizes wellbeing as the foundation for racial equity work: 

“We are all wired for wellbeing.” So say folks from The Full Frame Initiative (FFI). And while this may be the case, they go on to say, “We do not all have a fair shot at wellbeing.” This ends up being due significantly to different kinds of treatment and opportunities that can fall along lines of identity, including race and ethnicity. While this clearly impacts the targets of racism and other -isms, it also ends up impacting everyone in society. 

So what is wellbeing? According to FFI, “Wellbeing is the set of needs and experiences essential, in combination and balance, to weather challenges and have health and hope.” Wellbeing is not the same as “wellness,” which often is used in very individualistic ways – for example, whether or not you are “well,” it is because of the choices you have made. 

According to the FFI definition of wellbeing, there are five key factors in play, which are largely socially determined: Safety. Stability. Mastery. Social Connectedness. Meaningful Access to Relevant Resources.

What is your reaction to this definition of wellbeing from FFI, including the five domains? How does this framework help you to think about the focus of your racial equity work as a bookseller and beyond? Where do you observe and/or experience barriers to the domains of wellbeing in bookselling and the broader publishing industry?

• Share this definition of “wellbeing” with others and have a conversation about your respective reactions. 

• Take a look at the Wellbeing Principles and bring them to your work/volunteerism to see how they might inform the design of processes, programs and policies.

• Wellbeing, like all anti-racism work, is an ongoing process. It helps to check in regularly to see where and how you are. The Wellbeing Blueprint “Pulse Check” tool was created for this purpose and can be used as a model if you want to create your own.

More Resources

• Wellbeing Blueprint
• Full Frame Initiative Wellbeing Blueprint
• Racial Equity Tools
• Embrace Race
• What is Wellbeing?

Yesterday: What to Expect
Tomorrow: Dismantling Bias

Author Photo Credit: LaylaFSaad.com | Quote from Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad, Sourcebooks, 2020

SIBA thanks its generous sponsors, who have made the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge possible:

Many of the quotes used in the Challenge are excerpted from Words of Change: Anti-Racism by permission of Sasquatch Books. Copyright 2020 By Kenyra Rankin. All rights reserved.

Although SIBA has modified when appropriate for a bookseller audience, the majority of prompts and resources come directly from the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge created by Food Solutions New England (FSNE). We are so grateful for their extraordinary work creating this program and making it available to other organizations.