3 Lessons from COVID-19 on Racial Discrimination

Thank God for COVID-19. 

I know most people wouldn’t say that, but I’m saying it. I know that so many people are sick, so many people have passed away, so many people have lost their entire industries, so many people are exhausted, and so much more. But I say thank God for COVID-19 because of the new Black movement that has arisen and has come to surface since Spring of 2020.

COVID-19 forced us to slow down and stay home. We were also forced to think. To think about where our lives were headed, to think about our current political systems, and to think about our socio-economic systems. With more time to be on our devices and watching our TVs, more people were seeing the atrocities towards black people and other racialized bodies, with more time to sit and think about what was actually happening. It caused a bit of an uprising in our whole world (not just in our North American community). We’ve had protests before, we’ve had horrible things happen to individuals before and the world did not come to a complete standstill. The world slowed to really take these atrocities in because we were all stuck at home. We had nothing else to do. We had nothing else to distract us. We had no other business to go out and take care of. We were glued to our screens, our TVs, our phones, our tablets, our computers, because we had nothing else to do and we were all at home.

We really were able to take in the stuff that was happening to Black people across this world. We were forced to sit up and pay attention. 

With this new awareness, there are 3 things that I have realized:

1. There is a Collective Responsibility 

Because of the collective standstill and the mandatory stay-at-home orders, we were all forced to pay attention to the atrocities going on in the world.  People also began to pay attention to their own feelings. They didn’t have work to distract them, they didn’t have the train to distract them, they didn’t have the gym to run off to, or a date with the girls, or a meeting at the bar or a pick up game with the guys. They didn’t have any of those things to truly come face-to-face with all the feelings they had inside of them. 

We had to feel the anger and the sadness. 

(I know I cried more than once.) We had to feel the injustice of it all. We had to really think,  “hold on, this is the life we are currently living? This is what we are accepting as the status quo for the Black people in our world?” Uh-uh. No still....

I think businesses also began to pay attention because Black people started taking their money to Black-owned businesses more than ever before. We are also looking at businesses and now asking, “what do your executives look like?” Companies talk about the things they are going to do differently and we now hold their feet to the fire asking, “What do your VPs look like? What does your Board look like?” We are holding businesses (and people) accountable. 

As a result of collective responsibility, people are waking up to the importance of Black mental health. Past repressed trauma came back to the forefront of our minds. When I think of George Floyd I think of Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, and all the other people who died at the hands of police officers. I also think of the people being incarcerated unfairly because of the colour of their skin. 

What is happening, as a community, to stop these racialized systemic injustices? It’s our responsibility. 

2. There is Bias in a Black Person’s Identity

Our society and our systems (schools, jails, politics, news) will show us that whiteness is the centre of everything. That it is the place of normalcy. That it is the place from which decisions are made. That it is the place of authority. 

At my last 9-5 job, my son was in the office when my manager walked by. My son asked me, “Mommy, is that the boss?” I said, “yeah, how did you know that?” He said, “well, that's ‘cause he’s white.” 

The idea that he would have the notion that white is the place of authority in his world is a really stark, sad, reality that he has to face in North America. Even in the Caribbean, where the majority of the people are Black (Jamaica specifically - where I’m from), there’s still the reality of shadeism or colourism. People who have lighter tones hold most of the authority.  Enslavement, colonialism and racism have left the whole world with “If you’re white, you’re alright.”

So, in my child’s school, the teachers are white and the principal is white. In his world, the people who read the news are white, and all the decision makers in his world are white. So, if that is the situation, what does that do to the psyche of Black young people trying to figure out who they are? 

I’m already a grown woman, I was raised in the Carribean and I moved to North America over 20 years ago. I have a strong sense of who I am. My perception of myself was already formulated when I got to North America, and in Jamaica, I had the benefit of having Black people everywhere telling me that the sky was my limit. 

For those people who are still trying to figure out who they are, what do you think it does to them when they go to the movies and all but maybe one or two people in a movie is white. All of the people in the movie trailers are white. Think about the idea of the Black individuals who have won Oscars. Think about the roles that they had to play and think about the Black movies that get all of the accolades. They’re the slave movies, the maid and butler movies, they are the movies of racial uprising. When Denzel Washington won the Oscar it was for his role in Training Day which was of a corrupt police officer. When Halle Berry won for Monster’s Ball she played the wife of an executed convict who falls in love with the white, racist prison guard. Think about that. What does that do? We don’t talk about this because they have become such a part of the fabric of our society that most of us don’t see it as odd, and we just accept it!!!

Representation matters. Think about when Gweneth Paltrow won her Oscar where she played a very woman in love with the very upstanding William Shakespeare in “Shakespeare in Love”. In movies such as this, White actors are being rewarded for playing normal roles. When Black people are rewarded it is for “staying in their place” which has been stereotypically assigned by society.  What does that do for someone who is growing up trying to figure out their place in the world? What does that do for their identity? It creates a message to, “stay in your place; don’t make any disruption; don’t make any waves.”

Which is why when we protest and when we make waves, we are met with so much force. Think about the foolishness on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Everyone was talking about it. We all know how the reality would have been different if there were Black and Brown people raiding that building. There would be bodies everywhere. 

3. Black People Need to Continue Demanding Change

We need change. But do Black and Brown individuals see ourselves as change makers? 

Why is it that when I first came to this country and I was looking for work, it took me about 20 interviews over the course of four years before I was interviewed by a Black woman? Why don’t we have more places of leadership? 

I think it’s great that due to COVID-19 and this racial uprising we are seeing more Black experts on TV. In the more recent past, if the expert on TV was white, I would change the channel in frustration. Similarly, if we are at the movies and there is a Black man being incarcerated, my husband is getting up and walking out. No matter how much we paid to go to the movie or whose company we are in. He is not inhaling that. We need to unlearn all the years of this. Why is it normal for Black people to be incarcerated for our entertainment? Why? 

I encourage us to use our voices even if we feel like we’re not in a big space. We need to use our voices wherever we are. Whether it’s in the co-op in our building, the parent council at our kids’ school, or in the space where we are volunteering, we need to show up if we can. We also need to be those parents volunteering on the field trips and in the community programs.   

We also need to take care of our minds. We need to give ourselves rest when we can so we can come back and fight another day. I’m not just talking about fighting and protesting in the street. There's definitely room for all of that.  But I’m talking about fighting by being joyful, going to therapy, getting rest and taking our vacation time. Fighting by teaching our children how to advocate for themselves, teaching them how to advocate well, and teaching them how to be polite so they’re not dismissed. We have to start demanding change because people are not going to roll over and give us the change that we deserve. 

Let us make the change happen. Run for public office. Write the books. Get our editorials in the newspapers. Right now they’re looking for Black writers and experts on TV more than ever. We need more guest appearances on podcasts and radio stations. People are beginning to realize we all have something to say. I want to encourage you to say it loudly and unapologetically. 

It’s not just Black people, it’s other people of colour too who need to be amplified.There is a lot of Anti-Asian sentiment and people are being harmed. Racism is like pollution.  It’s ugly and it’s everywhere. 

Bob Marley very prolifically said, “until the colour of a man’s skin is no more of significance than the colour of his eyes there will always be war.” While I don't want that to be true, it seems to be true. Make your voices heard. Refuse silence. Let us change the world. Let us demand change. We deserve it!