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“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins had a hunch. He had used data compiled for emergency responders in late March to create a computerized map showing cases of the novel coronavirus by address. A cluster of red pins curved around downtown and extended into black neighborhoods toward the city’s western edge.

At the time, policymakers and public health experts studying the still mysterious disease had been focusing on risk factors such as international travel, age and chronic health conditions including diabetes and heart disease — not race. Most states — including Louisiana — weren’t even publicly tracking race-related data about the virus’s impact.

But Perkins’s map was showing him that ignoring race could be a catastrophic mistake.

“People in these areas need to know their neighborhoods are being affected disproportionately,” he said.

It was a rare, early action aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus among African Americans, who bore the brunt of the disease across the country as attention and resources flowed elsewhere.

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

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Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org

Jamala & Health Dept Directors on COVID-19 Preparedness

Jamala & Health Dept Directors on COVID-19 Preparedness

Host Hank Thompson speaks with St. Louis County health director, Spring Schmidt, St. Louis City health director, Dr. Fred Echols, and community activist, Jamala Rogers to discuss the 2019 Coronavirus and St. Louis’ ability to handle an epidemic.

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

Sign up for Updates

Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

  • Adopting cite and release policies for any offense that poses no physical threat to the community.Releasing individuals who are being held because they cannot afford cash bail, unless they pose a risk to public safety.
  • Identifying and releasing the elderly, those with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to infection,and people within six months of completing their sentence or incarcerated on technical violations of probation and paroleunless doing so would pose a serious public safety risk.
  • Ensuring humane conditions of confinement including good medical care and maintaining access to and connections with counsel as well as family and loved ones.
  • Dramatically reducing immigration detention and not conducting immigration enforcement operations in and around hospitals or medical clinics.

“Elected prosecutors have an obligation to protect all members of the community including those behind prison walls and living in densely populated detention facilities,” said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, which organized the statement. “Make no mistake, an outbreak of the coronavirus in incarceration and detention settings will spread quickly and impact not simply those behind bars, but our entire community. We must act now to reduce the existing detained populations and incarcerate fewer people moving forward. In doing so, we can not only help to reduce the spread of infection but also bring home people who no longer present a safety risk to their communities.”

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

Sign up for Updates

Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org

Statement on St. Louis’ Jail Population

Statement on St. Louis’ Jail Population

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

Sign up for Updates

Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org

Open Letter on Voter Protections during COVID

Open Letter on Voter Protections during COVID

April 6, 2020 – The undersigned voter advocates urge Missouri lawmakers and officials  to adopt the following policy measures to ensure accessible, safe and orderly elections in  Missouri in 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The Missouri Voter Protection Coalition is a nonpartisan statewide network working to  protect the right to vote in Missouri. For more than a decade we have worked to promote  access to the ballot and remove barriers to voting. In the wake of the threat posed by the  COVID-19 crisis, we urge the adoption of the following measures to ensure the  accessible, safe and orderly conduct of the 2020 primary and general elections. The  Missouri Voter Protection Coalition joined with more than 150 organizations calling on  Congress to appropriate federal funds to support state elections infrastructures and urge Missouri officials to release needed funds. The below recommended policy measures for  Missouri, prepared in collaboration with experts and advocates, align with  recommendations advanced by the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, the Brennan Center for Justice and National Task Force on Election Crises focused on the  particulars of Missouri election law and administration.

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

Sign up for Updates

Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org

COVID-19 and the Color Line

COVID-19 and the Color Line

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, its toll on African Americans is coming into sharper focus. In almost every setting, African Americans are contracting the virus—and dying from it—at startlingly disproportionate rates. In Milwaukee County, African Americans account for 27 percent of the population and over half of all COVID-19 cases. In Illinois, African Americans account for 15 percent of the population, 33 percent of COVID-19 cases, and 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths. In Georgia, African Americans account for 37 percent of the population and 62 percent of COVID deaths. Starkest of all, in the city of St. Louis, African Americans account for 47 percent of the population, almost three quarters of COVID-19 cases, and it appears almost everyone who has died of the virus has been black.

How do we account for this damage, for what New York Times columnist Charles Blow aptly dubbed the racial time bomb at the heart of the COVID-19 crisis? The answer to that question has deep and tangled historical roots. It is a story not just of discrimination, but of systematic exploitation, exclusion, subordination, and predation. The ability to live a long and healthy life is predicated on access to a range of social and economic resources systematically denied African American families and communities. In St. Louis, as elsewhere, African American workers are overrepresented among frontline service workers, among whom low wages are the rule and the luxury of social distancing is not. In order to get to work, or even to shop at a grocery store, many must spend hours on public transportation. Because health care in our society is generally allocated according to employment, it is least accessible to those who need it the most. In St. Louis, African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to be uninsured. Without economic security or options, and without adequate protection on the job, these workers—and their communities—have been delivered to disease by their history—by U.S. history.

Recent Posts

“This is what happens to us” Washington Post article on failed response by cities to COVID-19

Poor reporting of data, which initially masked the fact that the disease was disproportionately affecting black communities, remains a problem even as states move to reopen their economies.

Today, Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties, according to an analysis of census and other data by The Washington Post.

Read More »

Prosecutors’ Statement on COVID-19 & Incarceration

Today over 30 elected prosecutors representing more than17 million people across the country issued a joint statement recommending immediate actions to mitigate community spread of COVID–19 amongst the 2.3 million adults and children held in prisons, local jails, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention centers, and other forms of confinement. Key recommendations include:

Read More »

Sign up for Updates

Organization for Black Struggle
P.O. Box 5277
St. Louis, MO 63115
(314) 367-5959 | contactus@obs-stl.org