The spring of 2020 has been a crazy time; this isn’t my usual one topic/essay post, but I thought it was worth mentioning some important events from this unusual spring: covid-19 first wave, black lives matter protests and an historic Supreme Court ruling for gender equality.
For starters, happy Juneteenth! I look forward to a day when our racist war on drugs ends and our racist justice system (including policing, trials, sentencing, imprisonment) is restructured for equality and emancipation can be more fully realized.
I support the Anti-Racism & Black Lives Matter movements, including (but not limited to) the recent protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor & Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the weaponization of police by white woman Amy Cooper against Christopher Cooper. These problems, along with so many others are caused by structural racism (aka institutional racism or systemic racism), which many white people are unaware of, but for which a great deal of statistical evidence and personal stories by people of color demonstrate as a significant societal problem. See also: unconscious bias (i.e., implicit bias or implicit association).
I don’t want to attempt to unpack this as there’s so much information available online, and some very eloquent explanations by those more knowledgeable than I; just search on those terms (e.g., structural racism) or on the names of the people I mentioned previously. That said, I’ll provide a few recommendations for white folks looking to understand (or broaden their understanding of) institutional racism:
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson (excellent book explaining the black experience in America to a white audience who have had very different life experiences)
- Black Lives Matter (website where you can learn about the movement, chapters, donate, take action, etc.)
- Implicit Association Test (scientific tests you can take at home to see how your unconscious correllates and categorizes information, which may surprise you)
Next topic: gender discrimination is confirmed as disallowed by “sex” discrimination statute in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, confirmed by 6-3 US Supreme Court ruling, with a conservative majority, wow! This always seemed straightforward to me: discrimination by gender identity, gender expression or gender attraction (e.g., transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual) should automatically be covered by “sex discrimination” because the person’s sex has to be taken into account in order to identify the “abnormal” individuals and thus discriminate against them. This is a very logical and interesting majority opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch: BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA No. 17-1618.
Last topic: life with Covid-19 pandemic. The weather has gotten much nicer in the north and restrictions have been easing all across the country, but the pandemic is not over (it’s even rising in some states). This has been a confusing time with so many changes to recommendations and understanding of the virus transmission as studies continue for this new virus. I already posted about the early reactions (e.g, war analogies and mask shaming) here back in April, but life continues and, as usual, changes.
Since the end of March, we’ve been hit with massive unemployment and economic turbulence. The federal government has passed multiple relief packages, but federal guidance has been inconsistent & unhelpful. States have taken a variety of approaches, from stricter regulations in some northern states and much more relaxed approaches by other states. Various states reopened before their case counts took a downturn and are now seeing a rise in cases.
I can speak to my home state of Massachusetts best where we had a fairly severe outbreak and social distancing measures have been on the stricter side. It seems every week we hear about some local bar, nightclub, restaurant or yoga that has announced it is closing its doors for good. A week ago, I went to one of our commercial centers (Davis Square) and observed more than half the businesses (bars, stores and some restaurants) were not yet open despite the recent allowance of retail shopping (with restrictions); some had brown paper in the windows, perhaps never to reopen.
Many of my friends and acquaintances were laid off / furloughed or have had their hours and wages cut. School districts and cities are looking at huge budget shortfalls due to the crisis and it looks like the next year will be especially tough, even if we were to get a vaccine or highly effective treatment. Despite my cautious optimism about the mass awakening about racism and the need for deep changes, I am extremely worried about the aftermath of our Covid-19 cases and business closures. During discussion at a recent town hall for my city, there were many calls for allocating money to address racism and our city councilor counseled us that we have a budget crisis and won’t even be able to cover the basics for 2021, so it’s unlikely we can invest dollars in many changes.
I guess we’ll see… official summer is just a few days away, what changes (or miracles) might it bring?
