Black Americans have to be involved at all levels of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot afford to be silent, detached, denied, or prevented from being at the decision-making tables in terms of COVID-19 public health policies, research, clinical trials, remedies, and vaccine development. Our lives and future are at stake.
(The mission of the Black Community, Clergy and Labor Alliance (BCCLA) is to develop a Black united front, which has not happened on a broad or sustained manner since the civil rights era. BCCLA’s education committee is meeting with LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King to help ensure Black students receive the attention and resources necessary for developing their full potential.) In a previous column, Schools Fail Black Students, So Why Are We Silent? (Nov. 2008), I described barriers in LAUSD that contributed to a failure of the district to properly educate Black students. Substantially, those same barriers exist today. They underscored,