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Dear John,
As the COVID-19 public health emergency intensifies, Race Forward calls
on local and state governments and those who are managing emergency
responses to consider closely the impact that this disease and the
response may have on people and communities of color.
We call for an approach that provides accurate information and advances
practices and policies based in science, and that ensures compassionate
and comprehensive medical and social services for those most vulnerable
to exposure. We are all only as safe as those members of our community
who are most at risk.
While we know that anyone can contract the virus, we also know that the
impacts on communities of color could be severe. People of color are
disproportionately likely to be in low-paying or hourly-wage jobs that
make them unable to provide care or interrupt work. They are also more
likely to have limited access to affordable healthcare, childcare, and
transportation. People of color are more likely to face unsafe
conditions inside prisons, jails, and detention centers. Funding
disparities in communities of color have led to hospital closures;
shortages of frontline doctors and nurses; higher incidences of chronic
conditions, such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease; housing
overcrowding; and lack of quality elder care. These effects of
structural racism have always been present, and can have significant
ramifications as we navigate through this public health crisis.
Race Forward remains steadfast in advancing our racial justice and
equity work during these unprecedented times. Following the
recommendations of public health experts, we have adjusted some of the
approaches we take to our work. We have arranged for all of our staff
members to work remotely, and are actively working with our community
partners to continue to engage with them online. We have also limited
our off-site travel until guidance from health officials say otherwise.
We have cancelled the Annual Membership Meeting of the Government
Alliance for Race and Equity (GARE), originally scheduled for April
14-16 in Portland, OR.
GARE is also reconvening the Rapid Response group to lift up the
implications of this emergency response for communities of color. In
this moment, explicitly naming race as a factor that informs how we
assess "Who is most vulnerable? Who is burdened? Who benefits?" will
ensure that emergency response practices and policies proactively
integrate racial equity into local government responses to COVID-19. We
will continue to work at the community and institutional level to
identify and adapt to new methods of working and community-building in
digital spaces.
Leading with our values internally in the same way we do externally,
Race Forward made these adjustments in order to prioritize the health
and well-being of our staff, our partners, and the communities we serve.
We will continue to advance our work towards racial equity and will
continue to educate, organize, and mobilize with our community and
institutional partners. And, when the time is right and circumstances
are more secure, we will reconvene, recharge, and rebuild.
As an organization, as a movement, and as a nation, we must love and
support each other, and make decisions based in science and public
health, and not out of fear. Government responses to urgent health
situations have historically been driven by implicit and explicit
racism. Demagogues have exploited fear, fostering secondary outbreaks of
xenophobia and division. The Trump administration has used this crisis
to stem travel from unaffected regions, including trying to halt asylum
seekers at the Southern border. Hate-filled and racist rhetoric has
stigmatized people of color as "infected" and as threats to public
safety and burdens to the health care system. This public emergency has
already impacted Chinese and Asian Americans through increased acts of
bigotry and discrimination.
Any approach to this crisis that does not factor in systemic health
inequities and that trades on racialized fears may exacerbate infection
rates, through the misallocation of time and resources, and create a
cascading set of additional problems to solve. Fear and structural
racism make for poor science and worse policy. We strongly urge all
health emergency managers to actively dispel myths and racist
misinformation, to collectively work to create a system-wide response
needed to end the spread of this communicable disease, and to address
the needs of marginalized populations while stamping out stigma and
blame.
Race Forward remains committed to these efforts, today and everyday; in
this crisis, and in all of our actions. In the words of racial justice
advocate and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs
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, "the only way to survive is by taking care of one another."
In solidarity,
Race Forward
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