Cities deploy dedicated teams to combat racial disparities exposed by Covid

Nov. 02, 2020

With over 220,000 mortalities and counting, the only ii certainties in the era of the coronavirus are decease and our nation's delayed response to the onslaught of the pandemic.

As the impact of the virus struggles to sustain our interest through the angst of a presidential election cycle, our collective response fourth dimension to the ceaseless parade of bad political news suffers from communal exhaustion.

Subconscious in the mix of this malaise are some of the innovative efforts to address the racial disparities—so oft referenced in this column—and placed permanently on display in the disparate death rates of Covid-19.

In select cities beyond the nation (Chicago, Oakland, Bedrock, Colo. and others), Racial Equity Rapid Response (RERR) teams have been organized at the municipal level in club to troubleshoot and redress the racial disparities that have exacerbated the outcomes of the coronavirus, especially for Blackness and Latinx communities.

It sounds slightly oxymoronic that in the 21st century, after iv centuries of sluggish, if not non-existent, responses to institutional racism in America, city leaders have decided to dedicate municipal resources to racial equity. But they take; and in some of these cities, on some of these teams, responding to racial inequities is not a drill.

Philadelphia's version of RERRs

This calendar month, the Kenney administration instituted the initial stage of its citywide Racial Disinterestedness Strategy. Information technology is comprehensive and, if fully realized, it will represent the kind of structural change that is required if the city of Philadelphia volition ever be equitable in terms of race.

Kenney's executive society 1-xx requires all municipal departments to develop "Racial Equity Plans," be open to diverse assessments of racial disinterestedness in their units and departments, and to develop annual workforce diversity, equity and inclusion plans.

The only 2 certainties in the era of the coronavirus are death and our nation'south delayed response to the onslaught of the pandemic.

The goal, co-ordinate to the strategy, is to "ensure that equity considerations become institutionally engrained and institutional barriers to success are dismantled." If all of this sounds like too much planning and non enough action, notation that in order for racial equity to exist realized, these kinds of strategic plans are necessary. And as with any municipal/policy plan, the proof volition be in the results which will be easy to determine based upon the benchmarks outlined in Mayor Kenney'southward executive order.

Simply, unlike in Chicago, Bedrock, and a handful of other cities, Mayor Kenney's strategy is non, by definition, a "rapid response" to the disparities exposed past Covid-19.

The cities that have deployed rapid response teams realize that, in general, regime is not built for speed. Even in emergency situations, authorities is sluggish—bureaucratic and as well frequently ineffective. Just the pandemic revealed an uglier and maybe deliberately inept federal response. Some in the Blackness community came to believe that the federal response was deliberately inept because the regime quickly became aware of the disparate death rates from Covid-nineteen and accounted those more probable to die to be more or less expendable.

Sorry old folks, Black folks and anybody with a "pre-existing" status; the executive branch of the U.South. government did not find your lives worthy of a national plan to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

In the pandemic moment, an old political cliché has proven to be priceless. All of the politics that matter are local. When the first wave of the virus crested, it was governors who emerged every bit the political heroes of the moment—showtime Governor Gavin Newsom and then Governor Cuomo. Both executives did more for their states than the president was willing to do for our nation. Neither governor was perfect, merely the response proved the possibilities for leadership in the pandemic moment and revealed for all the ineptitude in the federal executive office.

Boulder and its community-connector model

Mayors are municipal executives and their piece of work has been critical to the means that cities have (or accept not) managed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

Even before Covid-19, there were precursors of what this virus has wrought. Storms and floods, for example, have revealed disparate impact along racial lines in many of our communities.

"Nosotros saw in some flooding in 2022 that there really was a lack of equity involved in the response and recovery, that there was not great customs engagement in that response and recovery," says Ryan Hanschen, an engagement specialist with the city of Boulder. " So, we had it in the back of our heads that this would be a good idea, and along comes Covid-19."

In the pandemic moment, an old political cliché has proven to be priceless. All of the politics that thing are local.

Hanschen and other leaders in Boulder realized that what is fair is not always the aforementioned every bit what is equal, especially in any given moment. Equality might dictate that everyone gets a mask during a pandemic. Equity would ensure that everyone has (free) healthcare. Equity requires a more than in-depth engagement with community. You have to know what people need in guild to make their lives equitable.

Boulder's equity response team used a community-connector model in lodge to launch i of their early programs to address the inequities of the pandemic.

The community connector model deploys members of a municipal customs to connect with their neighbors who may not be responsive to local regime. Information technology's a model that features equitable outreach in order to produce equitable outcomes. Boulder'due south connectors are paid for their piece of work and they are armed with vital information that can help citizens afford rent and secure food assistance.

"We've seen remarkable connectors who are able to serve as liaisons and piece of work closely with our Latino communities, with Nepali communities, with some senior communities, different low-income communities, making sure that they were able to share that information," says Hanschen.

The two-way flow of advice worked out well for the city of Boulder. The rapid response equity team identified families in their customs who could not afford to purchase masks for themselves. They too identified unemployed women of colour who could make masks if they had the appropriate materials.

"So, the city sat downwards with a local organization and said, 'let'south make certain that nosotros can prepare aside some funding to pay out-of-work Latino women to make the masks in the kickoff place,'" says Hanschen. "And the city was able to commit to the fabric, the time that it took, and the distribution throughout the community."

A couple of thousand masks later, Bedrock's customs was a niggling bit healthier and the promise of equity was made more real for those who can be socially invisible in the eyes of their local government.

More chiefly, in using the rapid-response racial equity arroyo, the Boulder government was challenged to recollect critically and holistically nearly how the recovery attempt in a pandemic is distinct from traditional environmental recovery efforts, which likewise lag with racial inequities.

"We recognized every bit we made the shift to recovery that we didn't want this focus on racial equity to go by the wayside," says Hanschen. "This needs to be forepart and center."

How Chicago has stepped up

Chicago, a metropolis much larger than Bedrock and much closer in size and geography to our own beloved city, has its ain version of the Racial Equity Rapid Response initiative. Information technology'south led by Candace Moore, Chicago's primary diversity officer and the co-lead for Chicago's Racial Equity Rapid Response initiative.

According to Moore, the data drove the formulation of Chicago's Racial Equity Rapid Response team. Chicago'south Department of Public Health tracked the coronavirus information by race. "They sounded the alarm and brought it to the mayor's office'due south attention," she says.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot's assistants strategized and rapidly formed a squad to focus straight on racial disparities and to "do more community connectivity work" in club to scale the metropolis's response to the coronavirus' disparate impact, particularly in the African-American community of Chicago.

If we ever actually make it at a post-pandemic moment, many critical questions will have to be answered. One volition be: "What have we learned?"

The data points that drove the formulation of the squad in Chicago were the case infection and mortality rates in the African-American community. By focusing on the communities with the highest mortality rates—Austin, Auburn-Gresham, and S Shore—the RERR team was designed to touch on the neighborhoods most afflicted by the virus.

"The key was that we had to assess what infrastructures we had and in what places we had them. We're fortunate here in Chicago that we accept a long history of community organizing," Chaser Moore tells me.

The infrastructure that Moore speaks of resides in the people and organizations already nowadays and active in the hardest hit communities. Activists and organizers have the greatest chapters to rapidly answer to racial inequity in general, and certainly in this pandemic moment.

Moore explains that her team deployed an all-ways approach, partnering with organizations with brownie in the community: Austin Meeting, South Shore Works, Latinos Progresando and WestSide United, among others.

Chicago'due south RERR team communicates in a multifariousness of ways, handing out flyers, organizing virtual calls and boondocks halls, leveraging holidays (Female parent'southward Mean solar day and Father's Day) to promote care for seniors in targeted communities.

"Our short-term goal was to flatten the bend, the mortality curve for our Black and brown communities from Covid-19, and to build an infrastructure for connected piece of work together," says Ms. Moore. "So, recognizing that we're just part of the puzzle, nosotros have seen that mortality curve, in particular, flatten across the board, but certainly for African Americans."

One of the promising outcomes for Chicago'southward RERR team is that its touch has impressed others inside the government. Many municipal colleagues have asked to encounter with the RERR team in society to solve persistent problems unrelated to the coronavirus. For Moore, the work of the RERR team is a striking example of what can happen when community organization and government work together to serve the people.

If we e'er really arrive at a mail-pandemic moment, many critical questions will have to be answered. One will be: "What have we learned?"

The scattering of cities that have deliberately designed multi-faceted teams to address the racial inequities that have existed since the nation's inception are ahead of the learning bend. Racial equity has long been the key to undoing the celebrated failures of the United States to live upwardly to its Constitutional promises.

It might be that 1 bright spot in an otherwise dreary (and dreadful) federal response to the pandemic, is the emergence of RERR teams—municipal authorities in partnership with community organizations working together to solve some of our greatest challenges when it comes to inequality.

Imagine the possibilities.

Illustration by Noa Denmon

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/racial-equity-rapid-response-teams/

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