The non-profit activist group Rainbow PUSH Coalition hosted a virtual town hall meeting Thursday in an attempt to call to action and respond to concerns brought on by the coronavirus.
Founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1996, Rainbow PUSH Coalition is the fusion of Black movements and organizations Operation PUSH and Rainbow Coalition, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition website.
The meeting was hosted by radio and television personality Rev. Mark Thompson and focused on issues surrounding minority groups, particularly the Black community, impacted by the coronavirus.
The panel included speakers from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, National Medical Association, U.S. House, National Bar Association and more.
“We need to stop taking a colorblind approach to COVID-19 and start taking a health equity approach,” panel member Dr. Rashawn Ray said.
A range of topics were discussed during the meeting, but a few key matters were central to the conversation.
Inequities in America affects minority groups during the crisis
As of May, America has reached over 1 million total cases of coronavirus and 65 thousand deaths. During the meeting, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said that in states like Louisiana, where Black people make up only 30 percent of the population, 70 percent of deaths in relation to COVID-19 are Black.
“These are healthcare workers, these are people without money and what we already knew existed, which is this glaring disparity that Rainbow PUSH has been pushing for decades, we know is now coming to light in a glaring way,” Klobuchar said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health reported that African American adults are “60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic White adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes by a physician.”
This statistic is not an outlier for other ailments that are disproportionately higher in Black communities including high blood pressure and heart disease.
“We’re finding too that people that are infected with COVID-19 and have diabetes are much more likely to have more severe disease, especially for those who have uncontrolled diabetes with high blood sugars,” said President-Elect of the National Medical Association Leon McDougle.
In addition to the polarities regarding health, a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that Black and Hispanic workers are among the lowest percentile with the ability to telecommute, making social distancing less attainable. The majority of these include jobs in the healthcare industry and the service sector.
“Unfortunately the essential workers also are at the most risk for COVID-19 because they are being exposed,” Rep. Ro Khanna said. “And it is outrageous. It is simply outrageous that they don’t have basic protection, that they aren’t getting the masks and the equipment that they need.”
Chris Smalls, a five-year Amazon employee, was fired after staging a walkout at the Staten Island warehouse he managed in protest of the conditions he and his colleagues faced.
“I stood up because I didn’t want to bring this virus home to my family, my kids who I haven’t seen in two months. I stood up because I didn’t want to bring this virus home to our communities,” Smalls said.
Lack of PPP funding for minority-owned businesses
Representative and Chair of the House Financial Services Committee Maxine Waters spotlighted the lack of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans granted to minority and women-owned businesses in America. Waters said that the program was created to “provide forgivable loans for small businesses that pay employees and keep them on the payroll.”
According to CBS News, around 90 percent of minority or women-owned businesses will not be granted the PPP. Waters cited that big banks including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and US Bank prioritized their bigger clients, shutting out small businesses throughout the U.S.
“Our financial system is inherently designed to serve the interests of their top clients,” Waters said. “Too many of the larger financial institutions do not take the time to work with our smaller minority businesses, many of which are sole proprietorships because these kinds do not bring in the fees that the larger clients can generate.”
To combat this, Waters suggests providing additional funds to the PPP, increasing it from 349 billion to 659 billion and prioritizing smaller businesses, reserving finances for various financial community institutions and micro-lenders.
Voter suppression and improved mail-in voting
According to NY Times, during the Wisconsin primaries, polling stations in the state’s largest city, Milwaukee went from 180 to five in an effort to lessen the spread of the coronavirus. Panel members expressed the need for a larger effort of mail-in ballots.
“Right now, [six to 12] states have horrible rules that make it harder to get your ballots. Guess right in the front: Alabama,” Klobuchar said. “To get a mail-in ballot you have to have either two witnesses or a notary.”
The senator went on to say that 25 percent of Americans vote by mail and proposed the introduction of the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act. According to Klobuchar the bill would make in-person voting easier by “[keeping] the polling places open 20 days early” and making mail-in voting more attainable.
President of Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Spencer Overton expanded on this and said free postage for mail-in votes and sanitary polling stations are important in improving the election process.
Vulnerability to America’s jail population
According to a 2018 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are over two million people incarcerated in America. Under the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, at-risk inmates could be released to serve their sentences in home confinement.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said it is important to assure that the act is being enforced and enacted.
“Unfortunately, the attorney general intervened and changed the rules midstream against the actual law that the Congress voted on and the president signed… in the midst of that decision-making rules were changed,” Jackson Lee said.
Jackson Lee said that the prison system is lacking testing and preventative items such as masks and gloves.
Rainbow PUSH Coalition has partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Bar Association and other organizations to take legal action on 10 facilities throughout the country to fight the mistreatment of prisoners.
Chair of The Rainbow PUSH Criminal Justice Project Rev. Dr. Fredrick D. Haynes lll called for free testing for both those incarcerated as well as people working in close proximity with inmates, reduced sentences for vulnerable populations and free video, phone calls and commissary items throughout the crisis.
“It’s impossible to lock up a virus,” Haynes said. “An infection anywhere is a threat to good health everywhere.”
