The COVID-19 pandemic is an environmental justice crisis—it has exposed inequalities that have persisted in places across the country with decades of pollution.
Intervention on behalf of the of League of Women Voters of North Carolina and the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute to defend North Carolina voters from a right-wing group’s attempt to bully elections officials into unlawfully purging voters before the coming presidential election.
Now is a moment to fix longstanding inequities in our voting systems and build a more inclusive democracy, rather than solely seeking out emergency, short-term policy changes.
“The potential for executive action to jumpstart the transition that we need — to reorient our democracy for democratic engagement and redress historic inequities — is huge.”
COVID-19 has exposed longstanding racial and economic inequalities in American life, which is evident in the fact that communities of color are being hit the hardest by both the medical and the economic impacts of the virus.
The ongoing devaluing of Black life that’s now on full display forces us to confront America’s racist origins and to uproot our systems of racial violence, economic subordination, and hoarding of political power.
Rather than cutting funds for public needs while allowing police budgets to swell, cities, states, and the federal government must shift funding to the real priorities of communities.
Look to Haitian history for a blueprint of how to change our current reality, dream big, and unapologetically craft a new future that is a truly inclusive democracy.
"To say that people post-crisis, as they try to rebuild their lives, have to carry the impact of this is just another round of disadvantage and discrimination.”
Besides, focusing narrowly on individual instances of discrimination often leaves in place workplace policies and the power structures that perpetuate systemic discrimination against Black and brown communities in particular.
On the superhighway to freedom, while we might be moving in different lanes and at different speeds, let’s ensure we’re all headed in the right direction to emancipation and justice.
The COVID-19 crisis has cast into stark relief what has always been true: the wealth and prosperity of the U.S. economy rests on the labor, and the lives, of black and brown communities.
Gulf Coast communities face the same environmental and racial injustices they faced during Hurricane Katrina—except now with the overlapping crises of COVID-19, economic collapse, and uprisings for Black Lives. Policy change must undo this injustice.
How can an affirmative constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote, eliminate the symptoms of a democracy that has intentionally excluded Black and brown people?