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Published
2024-01-03
Section
Racial Healing
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Copyright (c) 2023 Heath Brown
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
Truth, Racial Healing, And Transformation:
The Promise And Peril Of The Biden–Harris Presidential Transition
Heath Brown
City University of New York, John Jay College
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/jsepa.v2i1.5107
Keywords: public policy, racial justice, healing
Abstract
The public policy process in the United States has strong status quo biases that frustrate efforts to adopt policies focused on racial justice and social equity. On occasion, a policy window opens and the chance for real change increases greatly. This article is a case study focused on advocacy for a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission during an open policy window that occurred in 2020 related to brutal police violence (readers should know in advance that traumatic events covered in this article include descriptions of racial violence). The findings are drawn primarily from original interviews with advocates for the Commission, providing an outsider’s perspective on this political process.
Author Biography
Heath Brown, City University of New York, John Jay College
Heath Brown, PhD (hbrown@jjay.cuny.edu) is an associate professor of public policy at the City University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center. In the past, he’s written the books Lobbying the New President: Interests in Transition (Routledge) and Immigrants and Electoral Politics: Nonprofit Organizing in a Time of Demographic Change (Cornell University Press), a book focused on the intersection of social equity, representation, and politics. He is currently working on a book on the 2020 Biden–Harris presidential transition.
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