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The True Color of Covid
The current pandemic affecting the world has caused a renewed focus on things ignored by the “leadership”.
As I said in 2018, in reference to the Kerner Commission Report, “Many of the problems we see in our communities have gone unnoticed, unresolved and even unrecognized.” The 1968 Kerner Report recognized the need for aggressive governmental financial investment due to institutional racism and discrimination suffered by African Americans. Sadly, 50+ years later, it has yet to take place.
Disparities in housing, criminal justice, health, and education remain.
Education is the cornerstone of any modern government committed to the advancement of all its people.
Why is it surprising that some communities are more affected and death rates higher, all things being considered equal, than in others?
Why have national, state, and local leaders not spoken of the need to more directly address the education, health, financial, and housing disparities that continue to expose and exacerbate this disparate situation?
When schools are closed, it will have a long-term effect on learning and ultimately, every aspect of our lives.
Schools have been closed before, not because of a pandemic, but by the government’s infusion of race. Though the “research” has been done to eliminate further infection, the remedies are illusory. The search for treatment continues; the effects on educational disparities continue.
When schools supported by the government were closed to persons of color, certain other schools were the only available places to improve upon an under-financed and separate educational system. I attended two such schools; Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia, and Howard University in the District of Columbia.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) are under continuing financial stress from a lack of a national commitment that stretches back many years.
Graduates from these schools have contributed greatly to our nation’s advancement, through their individual contributions, and being able to improve the communities and their families in every conceivable realm.
Medicine, law, science and literature are among the beneficiaries of their contributions. Just look at the economic returns enjoyed by the NBA, NFL, MLB, the entertainment industry and the media, to name a few, as a result of HBCU’s.
Rather than continue the nebulous “conversations” about reparations, creating commissions and expert studies, let’s get serious about the effects of educational needs and the lack thereof on our society on a continuing basis.
Stay tuned.
