Until Justice Just Is

Building Bridges to Equity

Structural racism plays a large role in determining the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and affects people’s access to quality health care, financial security, child care, transportation, political power, and other social determinants of health. Understanding and addressing systemic racism from this public health perspective is crucial to eliminating racial and ethnic inequities, and to improving opportunity and well-being across communities. Our collective efforts can root out injustice, transform institutions, and create a world that sees women, girls and people of color the way we see them: Equal. Powerful. Unstoppable. Join Us for Until Justice Just Is 2024!

Until Justice Just Is our time to raise awareness and advocate for racial justice in our community and across the country. Our mission is to eliminate these barriers to equality, and we need your help. This April, we're launching our annual Until Justice Just Is campaign. This years theme is centered around Building Bridges to Equity. Explore topics like Bodily Autonomy, Women's Financial Empowerment/Caregiving, Gun Violence, and Transportation. Your experiences, stories, interest, and action can increase government funding and resources, and enhance awareness. Educate others about the intersection of race and bodily autonomy, women’s financial empowerment and caregiving, gun violence, and transportation; and advocate to your elected officials to support policies that will dismantle systemic racism. Together, we can make a difference - join us!

Advancing Justice: Ensuring Equity for All

  • Until Justice Just Is

    Bodily Autonomy

    We need to focus on some of the many ways marginalized bodies are restricted, policed, and violated. Laws have been proposed and passed that limit the rights of trans, gender nonconforming, and non-binary individuals, impacting their access to essential medical care and their ability to exist in public spaces. The fight for reproductive choice is an ongoing struggle that has taken critical decisions out of the hands of individuals. Weight stigma, which disproportionately impacts women of color, is yet another way that bodies are policed and has a profoundly negative impact on people’s physical and mental health. People of color also face discrimination based on their hair texture and style, as well as in medical settings.

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    Financial Empowerment

    It wasn't until 1974 that women were granted the ability to have credit cards in their own names, denying them authority over their financial lives for generations. A growing number of women are managing their money today and making critical choices on investing, saving, and budgeting. Inequalities still exist, and parenthood, gender, and racial wage disparities prevent women from realizing their full economic potential in spite of all this progress. In addition, a large amount of unpaid work, including as housework, childcare, and elder care, is still required of women. A woman's lifetime earnings could be lost by $400,000 or more due to the gender pay gap, which has a significant negative impact on her long-term quality of life.

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    Gun Violence

    The history of gun ownership in America and its effects on marginalized people's lives are examined in our YWCA Racial Justice Challenge. The YWCA is dedicated to making communities safe havens for the development of women and girls. The world's largest civilian gun ownership base is found in the United States. But news reports and studies demonstrate that gun violence poses a serious risk to the health and safety of Americans everywhere from school hallways to nightclubs and music festivals to homes and neighborhoods across the nation. Women are disproportionately at danger of harm and death due to the unacceptablely high rates of gun violence that they face, especially as women of color.

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    Transportation

    Every element of our lives is impacted by transportation availability, including our capacity to educate our children, obtain healthcare, and commute to work. Because there is so much on the line, transportation fairness is essential to ending racism and advancing women's rights. Rethinking how we view our sidewalks, buses, and roads is crucial to addressing both historical injustices like segregation and contemporary injustices like marginalized communities' lack of access to safe transportation, sexual harassment on public transit, and pedestrian-unsafe roads. People of color and those with low incomes are disproportionately affected by these discrepancies, which exacerbates already-existing economic and social inequality.

until justice just is

Until Justice Just Is 2023 was centered around the theme Advancing Justice: Ensuring Equity for All. Discover the key factors relating to each of these issues by clicking on the photo below. As we continue the fight, it’s important to learn how our history is affecting people of color in our community to this day.

For over 50 years, YWCA Monterey County has been involved in important social movements. These include voting rights, civil rights, affordable housing, pay equity, violence prevention, immigration, and health care reform. Continuing to focus on these additional three areas: racial justice and civil rights, empowerment and economic advancement of women and girls, and health and safety of women and girls. We combine programs and advocacy to create institutional change.

YWCA is on a mission to eliminate racism, empower women, stand up for social justice, help families, and strengthen communities. I am joining the movement for racial justice with YWCA and hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Join us and YWCA in advancing justice — until justice just is.

UNTIL JUSTICE JUST IS PLEDGE*


Mindful of the continuing affliction of institutional and structural racism as well as the daily realities of all forms of bias, prejudice, and bigotry in my own life, my family, my circle of friends, my co-workers, and the society in which I live, with conviction and hope:
I take this pledge, fully aware that the struggle to eliminate racism will not end with a mere pledge but calls for an ongoing transformation within myself and the institutions and structures of our society.

I pledge to look deeply and continuously in my heart and in my mind to identify all signs and vestiges of racism; to rebuke the use of racist language and behavior towards others; to root out such racism in my daily life and in my encounters with persons I know and with strangers I do not know; and to expand my consciousness to be more aware and sensitive to my use of overt and subtle expressions of racism and racial stereotypes.

I pledge to educate myself on racial justice issues and share what I learn in my own communities even if it means challenging my family, my partner, my children, my friends, my co-workers, and those I encounter on a daily basis.

I pledge, within my means, to actively work to support public policy solutions that prominently, openly, and enthusiastically promote racial equity in all aspects of human affairs; and to actively support and devote my time to YWCA, as well as other organizations working to eradicate racism from our society.

YWCA Monterey County is on a mission to eliminate racism and empower women. I join YWCA in advancing justice today and every day — until justice just is.

*This pledge has been adapted by YWCA Monterey County from the Pledge to Eliminate Racism in My Life, YWCA Bergen County which is an adaptation of the Pledge to Heal Racism in My Life, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, April 10, 2006.

Pledge Form

Add your name to take the Pledge!