I am David Curley, from the BUF Black
Lives Matter Ministry Action Team.
Today I want to use the wisdom of
Chicago’s new black, feminist Mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
And I want to say why the Beloved
Community is not Color Blind.
With Mayor Lightfoot’s leadership
Chicago has begun to report Covid-19 deaths by race and ethnicity.
She said, “The results are “a call to
action for all of us.”
With a third of Chicago’s population,
black Americans have suffered 72% of the city’s Covid-19 fatalities. Latinex
populations show similar disparites.
So far, color blind responses to
Covid-19 have made existing health inequities fatal for minority communities in
Chicago.
Mayor Lightfoot now is organizing the
city to provide more resources to minority communities—better information about
the disease, more testing, and earlier diagnosis and treatment.
We
can take home a lesson for us in Washington State. As yet no government agency
in our state is even reporting Covid-19 fatalities by race or ethnicity.
