“I can’t breathe.” Eric Garner said it before he was murdered by police in 2014, and George Floyd said it again in a chilling echo in 2020. 

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has stolen the breath from thousands of black New Jerseyans at a rate far higher than that of their White counterparts.

As of the beginning of December, New Jersey lost 17,306 lives to COVID. The population of New Jersey is about 8,882,000. That means nearly one out of every 500 New Jersey residents has died of COVID-19 complications.

The grief and loss have hit certain communities harder than others. This year, deaths among white New Jerseyans were up 28%. Death rates for Black New Jerseyans increased by 68%. Among Hispanics, deaths increased by 124%, and among Asians, 107%.

Black New Jerseyans make up 14% of the state population, but account for 21.3% of COVID-19 deaths. There are many reasons for this disparity, and it is unfortunately unsurprising that the racist structure of America has manifested itself in higher death rates. Black lives matter not only in terms of our white supremacist criminal justice system, but also in healthcare. We need to understand and address the reasons the pandemic has disproportionately harmed communities of color.

Race, Unemployment, and “Essential Workers”

During the pandemic, many businesses finally owned up to the fact that workers can perform their duties competently from home. (Incidentally, disability advocates have been arguing for remote work policies for years, so the increased accessibility of remote work seemed like a valid proposition to employers only when able bodies were threatened by the pandemic.)

However, we know that not every worker has that privilege. Many people lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Before COVID touched down, the Black unemployment rate nationally was 6.3%, but it would more than double in the coming months. In August, 7.3% of White Americans were unemployed, compared to 13% of Black workers. 

Healthcare is expensive, and health insurance in the United States is frequently tied to one’s employer – lose your job, and you can lose your health insurance. While uninsured New Jerseyans can take a PCR test at no cost through a federal program, you can’t currently self-pay for a rapid-result COVID test at CVS, locking the uninsured out of a test that could provide them fast answers and delaying both their medical care and self-isolation periods. The average hospital stay for COVID-19 will run you between $51,000 and $78,000, depending on your age. Kind of hard to swing without a job.

(In related news, we need Medicare For All.)

For many who remain employed, their jobs incur daily exposure to the virus. Compared to Whites, Black Americans make up a disproportionate number of essential workers in general, and emergency personnel, transportation and delivery workers, warehouse workers, and healthcare workers specifically. Similarly, Latinx workers make up a disproportion number of essential workers in general; and food and agriculture workers; industrial, commercial, and residential facilities and services workers; and critical manufacturing workers, specifically.

Race and Healthcare Disparities

Hospitalization rates for Black NJ residents are more than triple those of White New Jerseyans, and Latinx hospitalization rates are higher still. One reason for this is that those who are less likely to be insured are more likely to go to the hospital, due to a lack of (or inadequate) outpatient care services; in New Jersey, one out of 10 Black residents is uninsured, while one out of 5 Latinx residents has no health insurance, compared to one out of 20 Whites.

The material disparities between BIPOC and Whites in NJ, along with the stress of racial oppression, also contribute to a higher rate of preexisting conditions and risk factors among Black residents, including high blood pressure, asthma, and diabetes. Discrimination and mistreatment from healthcare providers also contribute to poorer quality healthcare and outcomes for Black Americans.

COVID, Race, and the Carceral State of New Jersey

39,000 New Jerseyans are incarcerated, and black incarceration rates in the state are more than nine times that of white New Jerseyans. While NJ passed legislation to release around 2,200 incarcerated people in November, the legislature still has not moved to release and expunge the records of marijuana offenders, despite the successful ballot measure legalizing cannabis. (Notably, the legislature moved a week later to draft a legalization bill that earmarked cannabis tax revenue to fund policing – fortunately, that bill was not passed.)

By November, more than 3,000 incarcerated people and 1,000 prison employees contracted the virus, which killed dozens of inmates. The cramped, poorly ventilated quarters of prison, as well as the inhumane ways our incarcerated neighbors are treated, create a perfect home for COVID-19.

Fact Check: Black Lives Matter Protests Did NOT Contribute to a Surge in COVID-19 Cases

This year was defined not only by a deadly pandemic, but also by greater public consciousness of police brutality and alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement, as BLM activists and supporters gathered in cities across the country to protest the extrajudicial execution of black Americans in general, and the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, specifically.

There was no shortage of public commentary critiquing these protests as being a vector for the spread of the virus, but research has shown that this was not the case. This exposes the public misunderstanding of the science of COVID-19. While any large gathering incurs risk of exposure and spread, outdoor gatherings are far safer than those indoors, especially if those participants are wearing masks. At these protests, activists distributed hand sanitizer, wore masks, and took other efforts to reduce the risk. As a result, BLM protests did not cause a spike in COVID cases.

Compare this to the Sturgis bike rally, attracting hundreds of thousands of gatherers – many refusing to wear masks – likely contributing to a surge in COVID cases across the Midwest. 

As of November, North Dakota had the highest per-capita COVID death rates in the world. Contact tracers, overwhelmed by cases, have been forced to reach out only to cases who tested positive with their self-isolation instructions – as of November, they had neither the time nor resources to reach out to their close contacts with quarantine instructions.

Government Has Abandoned Us – We Need Each Other

At no point during the United States’ history have we been able to trust the government to take care of people of color. The lack of a federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the loss of 281,000 American lives, including 17,306 just in New Jersey, at time of writing. Our country has experienced the highest number of COVID deaths in the world. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, tens of thousands of our citizens are incarcerated, indoor restaurants and bars are still open, and the virus shows no signs of slowing down.

The only chance we have right now is in each other. Our neighbors are being evicted. Others are dying. We must advocate for policies that reduce these racial disparities, improve material conditions for those suffering socioeconomically, and protect people with preexisting conditions. Apart from activism, mutual aid is necessary to our survival.

You can find a spreadsheet listing mutual aid organizations helping New Jerseyans hit hard by COVID at bit.ly/NJCovidMutualAid. If you would like to volunteer with the South Jersey Mutual Aid Network, or if you need assistance from them, you can access their contact form at bit.ly/SJMutualAidForm.

And of course, protect yourself and others by continuing to follow COVID-19 best practices as closely as possible. Only leave the house when unavoidable, and when you do, wear a mask. Avoid close contact with those outside of your household and avoid indoor gatherings. Wash your hands with soap and warm water for 30 seconds and use hand sanitizer when you cannot. Disinfect any surfaces you share with others.

Take care of yourself and those around you. We are all we have.

Anyone who lives here in New York City knows the sight of mostly empty luxury towers lording over our neighborhoods. These developments generate immense wealth for real estate capital while raising rents for the working class residents who actually live here. As luxury buildings proliferate, tens of thousands are forced into homelessness and millions more pay most of their meager wages to their landlords. Gentrification is a campaign waged by real estate capital and their representatives in the state that dispossesses disproportionately black and brown working class New Yorkers for profit.  

NYC-DSA endorsed candidate for City Council in District 35 Michael Hollingsworth has spent life building tenant power and fighting for the people. He joins us to discuss his history as an organizer in the struggle to build working class power in his neighborhood and why he decided to run for city council on a socialist slate. We also hear from a member from DSA’s healthcare working group on the worker led fight to keep a hospital open in East Flatbush.

Earlier today, Joe Biden was sworn in as the President of the United States. He comes into office as more than 400,000 people in this country have died from Covid-19, 2020 was the hottest year on record and white supremacists are desperately fighting to maintain their power in this country after social uprisings against police brutality this summer strengthened movements for racial justice and Black Liberation. Biden ran his campaign for President as a centrist democrat and has since proposed a 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus plan called the “American Rescue Plan” and announced 17 executive actions he plans to take on day one that many in the mainstream media are describing as Biden’s way of beginning to dismantle Trump’s legacy. Today with our DSA comrades we will talk about how Biden’s plans leaves out many struggling people including essential workers and why Biden must go further in the first 100 days of his administration and embrace bold policies that Democratic Socialists and grassroots movements across the country are organizing for like defunding the police and a Green New Deal in order to truly dismantle Trump’s legacy. We’ll also hear from Desiree Joy Frias who has been on the ground at the Teamster union worker strike at Hunts Point Produce Market.

Like many of you, our primary feelings right now are those of anger and urgency. We are isolated in our homes, or continuing to work in essential jobs made dangerous, as we watch COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise. Amidst this deadly pandemic we are witnessing a new stage in the emergence of the far right. White supremacists, encouraged by the President and our congressional representative, Elise Stefanik, are beginning to violently challenge our already precarious and frail democracy.

Both of the bourgeois parties have rallied together to protect big business and the political establishment. This could potentially cause a fallout between the Republican party, Trump and his white supremacist supporters, and boost the growth of the radical far-right movement. We will see increased calls for militarization and policing. Calls will be made for “unity,” signalling a rightward turn for the Democratic party as they reach across the aisle to work with conservative colleagues to restore the legitimacy of political institutions. We must be prepared to present an alternative.

High Peaks DSA is vehemently anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist. We believe that building a better society depends on true democracy, representation, economic justice, collaboration and care. Fascism, racism, and capitalism are the antithesis of justice and community care. Cornel West offers inspiration here. He reminds us to “never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” Fighting for justice is uncomfortable, confrontational and messy, and it is loving. This is the instinct that we organize from.

These past couple weeks have been hard. We are tired, but we can feel energy starting to creep back in. It is tempting to wait it out, and wish against our better instincts that Joe Biden’s inauguration will bring more normalcy, but we know that no such thing will happen. As we wrote in June, after the world erupted in anger at the unjust murder of George Floyd, “the system is not broken, it is working as it was always intended to. Our system was born when colonists brought the first African slaves to work this land for their own financial gain over 300 years ago.”

The same is true of the Capitol Police’s response to the white supremacist spectacle on January 6, 2021. The system that colluded to allow them to ransack the Capitol has been 300+ years in the making and will not disappear overnight. It is imperative that we continue organizing locally, to counter white supremacy and fascism in our community, to organize ourselves as the working class in order to challenge the power structures enabling white supremacy, which cannot exist without our labor, and to build support structures that can care for each other through sustained hardship.

In the spirit of solidarity and organizing during these tumultuous times, we hope you will join us in the following:

1. Our members’ meeting tomorrow, January 20th at 7 PM. We will discuss events of the last few weeks & the local priorities moving forward.
2. Our next Public Meeting will be on Wednesday, February 3rd, and will be focused on how you can get involved in local campaigns for justice as we move into a new political era.
3. The Tempest Collective’s: “Fighting the Far Right in the Biden Era”, featuring speakers from Santa Cruz and Chicago DSA chapters, labor organizers, and more.
4. Advocating for the health and safety of the most vulnerable.  Check out this really big news from our friends at RAPP (Releasing Aging People in Prison)!

The post What’s Next? appeared first on High Peaks DSA.

The spirit of black radical traditions, at their best, can turn the world upside down and help usher in a political economy of dignity, voice, and decision-making power for working-class communities. Liberationist streams of black radical spirituality are as contemporary as Alice Walker’s call for democratic socialist womanism, as old as Reverend George Washington Woodbey’s Black Baptist socialism and beyond. This discussion between Rev. Andrew Wilkes and Rev. Sekou, artist, author, and public theologian, is part of an ongoing series on faith and socialism. In this conversation, Rev. Wilkes and Rev. Sekou talk about the ethical and religious streams within black radical traditions and the implications for our times

In this age of relentless corporate media propaganda, working class media institutions that are actually rooted in the socialist movement are crucial for the struggles ahead. Tonight Marian Jones and Sarah Leonard join us to discuss their new socialist feminist publication: Lux Magazine. We’ll hear about how Lux came about through organizing and why its socialist feminist analysis not only helps us understand the crises we’re living through, but provides an intellectual framework to build a better world.

http://lux-magazine.com/

https://ezsubscription.com/lux/subscribe

Twitter - @readlux 

Metro Atlanta DSA forcefully condemns the coup attempt by supporters of Donald Trump that occurred in the United States Capitol building on January 6th. We echo the calls for Trump to resign or be removed from office as soon as possible. We call for the expulsion from Congress of all GOP politicians who encouraged this attack and we urge all our members and supporters to pressure their legislators to support Representative Cori Bush’s resolution to do so.

Since announcing his candidacy for president in 2015, Trump has organized a campaign of hatred, violence, and terror against working people. We saw this throughout his campaign, at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and in the repression of the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020. We saw further escalation in this week’s attack on the Capitol building by a mob of white supremacists and far-right terrorists.

This attack was a convening of far-right activists and militants from across the country, called to D.C. by Trump himself. The crowd was made up of professional internet personalities, small business owners, neo-nazi militias, and even a Republican legislator from West Virginia. Despite aesthetic appeals to “liberty,” this movement is fundamentally opposed to the constitutionalism and rule of law of modern liberal democracy. 

Trump’s presidency is an extension of a wider neofascist movement fueled by the decay of capitalism in a dwindling empire. Squeezed between the pandemic, the climate crisis, and the declining rate of profit, the small capitalists and fascist militias are on track to grow increasingly hostile to both the liberal democratic state and the working class at large. Appeasement is not an option – the only effective counter is a mass movement of the working class fighting for truly democratic control of our society. Metro Atlanta DSA is committed to building this movement to defeat the fascists and the wealthy elites.

David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have been defeated in Georgia. Working people showed up and voted in record numbers to reject the GOP and their cruel agenda. With Democrats on the cusp of taking power in the White House and both houses of Congress, our immediate task as socialists is to demand that the new Democratic Party government take bold action to empower working people and isolate the forces of reaction. If President-Elect Biden and Democratic Leaders Schumer and Pelosi truly intend to oppose fascism, they must tear it out at the root. We demand they pass a People’s Bailout for working people and that they move to swiftly expel the far-right coup instigators from Congress. Anything less will effectively enable the fascists to regroup and begin planning to take the House in 2022 and elect a Trump 2.0 in 2024.

This election was a referendum on COVID Relief. Congress must send all USA residents $2000 survival checks, in addition to retroactive compensation of $2000 per month for the entire span of this pandemic. To both address the immediate unemployment crisis and avert the worst of the climate catastrophe, we demand a Green New Deal to put Americans back to work and achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030. We can create good paying union jobs for all building green infrastructure for a clean and habitable planet for future generations. Finally, we must pass the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act and establish a single-payer Medicare for All system, so that people are never forced to choose between their healthcare and their rent.

The dramatic upset in the Georgia Senate election can in large part be credited to an unprecedented electoral mobilization by organized labor. The hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE, with support from other unions across the country, knocked 1,500,000 doors in the Senate election. Without their intervention, the Republican Party would still control the US Senate. Joe Biden owes it to the trade union movement to pass bold pro-labor reforms. Congress must establish a $15 minimum wage tied to inflation, pass the PRO Act, repeal Taft-Hartley, ban right-to-work laws at the federal level, and permit unions to organize through card-check.

We are under no illusions about the Democratic Party. Their neoliberal elite leadership has betrayed working people to serve wealthy corporate interests over and over again, and they will do it again as soon as the opportunity arises. Neoliberal rule from 2008-2016 is what gave us Trump in the first place. Our only recourse is to organize ourselves as working class people in a mass movement for justice and equality. We now have an opportunity for bold federal action, and we must seize this moment to build a vibrant movement for socialism that can overwhelm the forces of reaction. Join us in this fight – a better world is possible.

Join Metro Atlanta DSA today.

History is on the move. Reactionary Trump supporters seized the Capitol building earlier today in a fascist show of force. What does this all mean? RPM host and antifascist special correspondent Amy Wilson join us to discuss. 

We lost so many people this year, including socialist intellectual Leo Panitch. We’ll share clips from his presentation to the North Brooklyn DSA on the importance of building a culture of socialist political education. 

Later in the show DSA National Political Committee member Justin Charles will also join us to talk about the importance of working class organization for the struggles ahead.

The post SANTA AND METRO DC SOCIALIST ELVES DELIVER COAL TO CONGRESS appeared first on Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America.

Tonight we are talking about how care providers have been treated during the COVID-19 pandenic, focusing on vaccines to explain the role they will play liberating us from the COVID-19 epidemic (especially in our communities of color).

 

This is a deeply personal subject and in this episode we hope to honor everyone’s values and beliefs while grounding this segment in the science and public health knowledge of our guest.

 

Guest Jamese Lamb is an NYC-DSA Bronx/Upper Manhattan branch member and has a doctorate in Nursing from Duke University. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice and you should consult a primary care physician for your own personal care needs or eligibility for the vaccine.