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Connecting Women to Change the World

Special Series

Racism & Poverty – Rachel Ross

Episode Summary

Hey Change Maker!

Welcome to Week 2 of our Racism & Poverty series. This week we are going outside the U.S. to see how racism keeps people in poverty in Romania. Rachel Ross, our very first returning podcast guest, is the founder and executive director of Forget Me Not Ministries, a nonprofit organization that is educating, embracing and equipping the Roma for Christ.

During the second half of the episode, we switch gears to talk about racist policies, punishments biased by racial differences, reflections on current race-related events, and white privilege. We end the show with suggestions for Dr. Zaria about how white allies can begin with education to get involved.

About Rachel Ross

Rachel Ross is an adoptive mama with two beautiful children, Izabella and Izaiah. She is a graduate of Lincoln Christian University, and the founding director of Forget Me Not Ministries in Tinca, Romania. Rachel is working with the Roma gypsies to equip, educate, and empower them in order to prevent abandonment, abuse, trafficking, and child marriages. God gave Rachel a heart for the abandoned and for Romania in junior high, growing up in Las Vegas. He has taken her on an incredible journey over the past 17 years living in Romania, and after she began working with abandoned babies and children, her passion grew to help break the cycles the Roma community are often caught in, allowing families to stay together and the number of orphans in Romania to decrease. Rachel’s heart is to keep Christ at the center of all Forget Me Not projects and truly believes that personal, community, and generational transformation are possible with God.

About Forget Me Not Ministries

Based in Tinca, Romania, Forget Me Not Ministries is working to break the destructive cycles of poverty that the Roma are trapped in due to racial discrimination, lack of education, and an absence of jobs. Each program is designed to bring dignity and empowerment to the Roma by showing them that they are capable and worthy.

Key Timestamps

What does poverty mean in your context?
4:42 – 5:59

What does racism mean in your context?
6:00 – 7:29

What does oppression mean in your context?
7:30 – 8:29

Can you define the term “whiteness”?
9:15 – 12:47

Where do you see racism and poverty intersect in our culture?
13:23 – 17:32

Discussion about the lack of education about black history.
17:33 – 23:00

What do you believe are the biggest challenges to meaningful racial reconciliation in our country?
23:48 – 25:33

Where do you see racism in policies, practices, etc, that contribute to poverty?
27:26 – 30:05

As a policymaker, what would you do to help fix some of these issues?
30:42 – 32:53

Discussion about the differences in punishments for white people and black and brown people.
32:54 – 36:42

What are your thoughts and reflections as a black person in this country after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict?
36:56 – 42:28

What do you wish that my fellow white people would understand about race and racism in America? What are we not understanding at this point that you wish that more of us would?
42:31 – 46:57

How would you define what it means to be an ally?
47:00 – 51:00

How do you define privilege?
51:01 – 55:54

Race and poverty are very challenging topics. What else would you tell our listeners that they could do to be a part of the solution?
55:55 – 59:57

If a listener has the fear that they’re going to do something wrong or say something wrong about racism and the role white people play, what would you say to that?
59:58 – 1:02:49

Thanks for listening to The Constellation Coalition Podcast!

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