Joint Center Vice President Talks to ‘BlackHer’ About Entering Public Policy and the Joint Center’s Work

Joint Center Vice President Jessica Fulton is this week’s BlackHer Shero of the Week. In her interview with BlackHer, Jessica discussed how she entered public policy, how others can get into public policy, and the work that the Joint Center is doing with hill diversity, tech policy, economic policy, and the future of Black workers.

“Think tanks can take many forms. At the Joint Center, our goal is to create and elevate data and solutions to improve the lives of Black folks. We do this by investigating barriers for Black folks, uncovering data, and elevating solutions,” said Jessica in the interview. “For example, our Hill Staff Diversity program documents the diversity of staff on the Hill through data. Before we got involved, this was something that folks weren’t tracking at the federal government level. But by simply showing what’s happening, people pay more attention to the issue and seek out opportunities to diversify staff. We’re also thinking about the future of Black workers, and centering Black folks in conversations about the way the labor market is changing and how it will affect Black workers and their families. We’ve launched a tech policy program to ensure that Black workers are protected from potentially harmful technologies like facial recognition and big data. We’re also expanding our economic policy program to make sure that Black communities don’t get left behind as the economy recovers. At the Joint Center, one of our central values is that Black communities matter.  I say communities vs. community because Black people are not homogenous and one of our goals is to bring different groups of Black folks together to identify solutions that work for all of us.”

Read the full interview here.