About Us
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
FIER was founded in 2020 amidst the countless protests against police brutality and rampant xenophobia stemming from the COVID 19 pandemic. Our name, the Foundation for Inter-Ethnic Restoration, came from our desire to unite different ethnic/racial groups and address racial tension in society.
Our Mission
Introduction
Introduction
Our mission is to bring ethnic communities together, address racial trauma through education about racial literacy, foster community engagement and host open/inclusive discussion
Our Team
Introduction
Our Team
FIER is a melange of experts, mental health professionals and volunteers all dedicated to providing an innovative approach to tackling racial trauma. Whether through mediation, discussion, or civic engagement, we strive for the betterment of our communities.
Race and Society
In a 2014 Newsweek article (written by Robert Sussman), the first paragraph reads: "In 1950, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a statement asserting that all humans belong to the same species and that "race" is not a biological reality but a myth."
Today, a brief search on the internet will show several sources ranging from PBS to The Scientific American describing the consequences of Social Darwinism and Scientific Racism. They all describe various motivations, historical events and ideologies related to race. A myriad of statistics about racial discrimination and racial disparities across institutions can easily relay the extent to which our society is permeated by racial bias and prejudice. Even now, a glance at the local news shows the rampant hate crimes taking place across the country.
It's obvious that race is a social construct that has had generational effects on how communities interact with one another. While these articles are all important for a variety of reasons, they point to a few underlying and unacknowledged issues within our society:
1) Societal stigmatization of discussions centered around race--a lack of racial literacy that fosters racial gaslighting, racial tension, and racial trauma.
2) The lack of empathy between ethnic communities with regards to one another's lived experiences.
3) The lack of knowledge about how ethnic communities are historically, psychologically and emotionally impacted by all four forms of racism.
4) The absence of an inclusive, safe, validating space for communities to unite, express solidarity and share their experiences with racism, prejudice or race-based violence.
Consequently, the inability to address these issues leaves society in a vicious social cycle of violence, trauma, tension, passivity, then silence.
The Foundation for Inter-Ethnic Restoration is dedicated to breaking that cycle.
Fun Facts
United States Department of Justice
According to research conducted by the United States Department of Justice in 2020, 68% of *single-bias incidents were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry.
[*A single-bias incident is defined as an incident in which one or more offense types are motivated by the same bias.] (Click here to learn more)
USAFacts.com
Anti-race/ethnicity/ancestry offenses have been the most prevalent offense since 1996; these offenses have also increased the most, accounting for 42% of the rise in hate crime between 2014 and 2019. (Click here to learn more.)
Equal Justice Initiative
Bias against African Americans overwhelmingly comprised the largest category of race-based hate crime incidents, with a total of 56% of race-based hate crimes being motivated by anti-Black bias. (Click here to learn more.)
NBC News
The compilation of hate crime data, published by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, revealed that anti-Asian hate crime increased by 339 percent last year compared to the year before, with New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities surpassing their record numbers in 2020 (Click here to learn more.)
Pew Research Center
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Hispanics with darker skin say they personally experienced at least one of the eight discrimination incidents during the year previous to the survey, while 54% of Hispanics with lighter skin color say the same. (Click here to learn more.)
The Conversation
Initial findings from a survey conducted by researchers for The Conversation indicate that among white respondents, 65% said their parents had “never” or “rarely” had conversations with them about racism when they were children. (Click here to learn more.)
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