Covid, Race, and the Revolution is the new name of our weekly publication about the equity implications of this extraordinary moment in the nation. We will continue to bear witness to Covid’s disproportionate impact on people of color and highlight bold solutions for equitable recovery. But the murder of George Floyd has heightened national awareness of structural racism and brought revolutionary fervor to the struggle to create an anti-racist nation — and we seize that fervor here. We will offer commentary, news, and analysis about revolutionary strategies, and the insights and aspirations of movement leaders.
The two of us are a generation apart yet joined in our singular excitement at witnessing the rebirth of the nation. This could be the moment, decades in the making, when the revolution for a just society in which all can reach their full potential finds its power.
Riddled with suffering and death on a scale this country hasn’t seen in a century, the nation is enduring a nightmare of callous, dysfunctional government leadership. The devastation is rooted in racism, inequality, and centuries-long disregard for the lives of Black, Indigenous, and Brown people. The pandemic has made it painfully clear that the entire country is vulnerable to the fallout of racism. Black leaders and leaders of color have demanded that the racialized impact of the pandemic be addressed, just as they’ve demanded that racialized policing and incarceration be addressed. White people, heretofore in denial, began acknowledging the existence of structural racism. The deliberate, vicious murder of George Floyd has shown the whole nation the lethal reality of racism baked into society’s systems and institutions.
Progressive social media and many mainstream news outlets that are fed up with lies and threats to democracy, including freedom of the press, are steadily producing real-time information, reporting, and reactions. The resistance from right-wing activists and their media mouthpieces — news outlets spewing racist tropes and attempting to shore up opponents to change — have emboldened and expanded the ranks of the justice advocates, not tempered them. Unquestionably, the unabated spread of Covid-19 has also kept awareness of racism from fading into the background. But huge worldwide demonstrations, denouncing the George Floyd murder and insisting that Black Lives Matter, opened the flood gates and released legitimate, long-ignored demands of people of color that structural racism must be destroyed. In a stunning show of solidarity, hundreds of thousands of White people
have joined in these demonstrations. Collectively these events have ushered in this revolutionary moment.
Make no mistake: Black liberation requires revolution. It is no accident that the demonstrators are united in their commitment to center Black people, their history, their continued oppression, and their goals. The isolation, degradation, discrimination, and oppression of Black people is at the heart of all oppression in America. Only by addressing this truth head on with clarity, honesty, and determination to fix it, will liberation for all be achieved. The way forward will entail deconstructing, reimagining, and reconstructing the nation’s politics, economy, systems, and major institutions. The revolutionary spirit that conceived this nation is upon us again, this time with a full vision of equality, democracy, and participation.
Nearly all the necessary elements for transformative change were in place before the pandemic. Brilliant Black, Indigenous, and other scholars of color have produced honest, accessible, fact-based accounts of US history. Acknowledgment that this nation was built on stolen land, genocide, human bondage, and slave labor, and that the nation still relies on a narrative of white supremacy to oppress people of color, has become a key element in the quest to fundamentally reshape the future. There is now broad understanding of the interplay between structural racism and the toxic economic inequality that is hollowing out the middle class, baking in poverty, halting economic mobility, and literally killing Americans. There is also a keen sense of the magnitude of the challenge, thanks to books and articles revealing how corporate interests have hijacked democracy and used their
outsize influence to thwart public policy aimed at achieving racial and economic equity, not to mention initiatives to enhance voting power by Black and Latinx people.
Not only is the country strategically ready for the revolution; we also have plenty of evidence about what the new social order will look like. It envisions that all people live in communities filled with the opportunity provided by good schools, safe neighborhoods, and the basics for a healthy life, including grocery stores, affordable medical care, playgrounds, and accessible, well-connected public transit. Years of community-based programs and initiatives have been shown to improve outcomes for low-income Black and Latinx children. These programs have demonstrated how to implement effective, nuanced, place-based policy with realistic price tags — large-scale solutions, not the piecemeal efforts with stingy funding that benefit only a few, and that we have accepted for too long.
There is also a fully developed robust national policy agenda that provides universal, high-quality health care for all; affordable, readily available childcare for all who need it; a 21st century public preschool through four-year college educational system; living-wage jobs; voice for workers in all workplaces; and an environment protected for future generations. The majority of these policies have garnered extensive support, and need only political will to become law.
For the new generation of Black and Brown justice advocates, however, this policy agenda is necessary but insufficient. Creating an anti-racist society will require more than fixing the system that has been sustained by racism and white supremacy. Being truly responsive to the call for racial and economic justice demands radical approaches that defund the police; treat housing as a human right; guarantee a job for everyone who wants one; provide a guaranteed minimum income; and finally provide reparations for the harm caused by slavery and continuing racist degradation, theft, and violence. And that’s just for starters. Reinforcing the possibility that these demands can become reality are the numerous campaign victories led by multiracial, intersectional coalitions demonstrating the power of transformative solidarity to achieve radical change.
Maximizing this moment to become a full-fledged revolution will challenge us all. This is not the time to be risk averse. It will require courage, the usual sort, but the not-so-usual as well. Privileges must be abandoned. Generosity and grace must be summoned. Assumptions will be tested. Setbacks will be endured. Loyalties and alignments will be questioned and some will be found wanting. The very idea of allyship must be examined: White people cannot simply view themselves as helping people of color fight for their dignity. This is not a Black problem, it is America’s problem. Whites must move from allyship to ownership of the problem. People of color must move from demanding inclusion and respect to creating and leading the America we all want and need.
– Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence and host of the podcast Radical Imagination, PolicyLink
– Michael McAfee, President and CEO, PolicyLink
Highlights from the News, Analysis, and Commentary
A young generation of color living in the American heartland has surged over the past decade, a seismic change fueling racial protests in every corner of the country and forcing communities, colleges, and corporations nationwide to reckon with racism, finds a Washington Postreview of new US Census Bureau data. In Iowa, for example, where the anti-racist movement has taken off, the under 30 population of color has grown faster than the older White population in 84 of the state’s 99 counties, and in some places has increased by more than 50 percent.
The growing movement is animated by a radical vision, Amna Akbar writes in the New York Times: activists don’t want incremental policy reforms but a new society — justice reimagined, housing as a human right, jobs for all, and a carbon-neutral globe. A big obstacle to change on this scale may be the White liberals who profess to support the movement, Betsy Hodges, former Minneapolis mayor, writes in the New
York Times. “We have mostly settled for illusions of change, like testing pilot programs and funding volunteer opportunities. These efforts make us feel better about racism, but fundamentally change little for the communities of color whose disadvantages often come from the hoarding of advantage by mostly White neighborhoods.”
We hope you find the COVID-19 and Race Series an important tool for keeping up with news about the virus and its impact on communities we serve. As a nonprofit organization, PolicyLink is honored to provide resources to support the needs of our nation's 100 million economically insecure individuals. Generous partners like you make our work possible.
