In the National Urban League’s latest annual “State of Black America,” the civil rights group sounds the alarm that Black Americans face “three pandemics.
The report, which was themed for 2021 “The New Normal: Diverse, Equitable & Inclusive,” addresses the urgency of dealing with issues in economics, health care and public safety.
National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said, “This report should be understood as trying to chart a course forward because 2020 and 2021 are what I call years of a pivot.
“We’re trying to chart a vision of a ‘new normal’ in this country. This pandemic unmasked and took the covers off a lot of longstanding problems in this country and what we don’t want to do is put the covers back on and just rock and roll as though we had a little momentary interruption.”
Analysis from Brookings Institution, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, and the Center for Policing Equity revealed that systemic racism worsened the horrible effects of COVID-19. So along with horrible infections and deaths, there was a economic collapse and police violence across the nation.
During the coronavirus pandemic, with many businesses shut down, Black Americans were disproportionately hit by higher unemployment, lower household incomes and net worth and a larger burden of housing insecurity, according to the National Urban League study.
“Identifying and repairing the cracks in our national foundation will result in more resilient and dynamic institutions that expand opportunity for everyone,” Morial said.
The analysis looks at a more equitable future with some solutions for overcoming some racial barriers.
The study suggests free and low-cost banking services that allow households to build wealth and a credit history, a more hands-on approach to treating hypertension and virtual responses to some police calls.
The report also discusses the racial disparities in hypertension, noting that addressing this will require more attention to the social needs of Black people, such as: financial hardships, limited access to health care, housing, and utility and transportation needs. Researchers who partnered with the NUL found that when these needs aren’t met, then it leads to more stress.
They enrolled 1,822 patients from 30 practices in Pennsylvania and Maryland as part of the hypertension study. All of the patients in the ongoing study have high blood pressure with diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, heart disease, or smoke tobacco.
In addition to the findings about hypertension, the report says that Black people are 6.5 times more likely to be stopped by police while driving and 20 times more likely to be searched during a stop than White people.
Morial said the country is at a “crossroads of racial reckoning.”
“One path leads backward, toward the ‘old normal’: a return to the marginalization, discrimination, and segregation that left Black and brown Americans exceptionally vulnerable to a deadly virus and economic desperation,” Morial continued. “The other path leads toward a nation where police approach the communities they serve as allies and collaborators, and not hostile combatants.”
As the National Urban League continues to look at Black America each year—especially after facing a pandemic—many look for light at the end of the tunnel, and the report’s solutions offer some light.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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