Let's Interrupt History: Racial Equity in a Time of Crisis

Crises are the fulcrums of who we are as a society. The current COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. From the front-line health care and emergency workers to the idled people building toilet paper igloos in their homes, this crisis spotlights how our past experiences and decisions shape our current behaviors and reactions. And racism is our country’s most powerful shaper.

In the fifth week of wall-to-wall coronavirus news coverage, we began seeing data on the dramatic consequences of racial inequity. In Chicago, more than 70 percent of virus-related fatalities were among Black people—a percentage more than double their share of the population. In Michigan, Blacks make up about 15 percent of the state population but represent 52 percent of COVID-19 deaths. The same story is playing out in East Coast cities and Southern states where the virus has emerged.

We are told that viruses don’t discriminate, that this is an equal opportunity threat. Epidemiologically that may be true, but the conditions that created the virus’ existential consequences were years in the making.

Repeating History

Our finance industry is not unaffected. On March 27, Congress approved an unprecedented amount of money aimed at softening the pandemic’s economic consequences under the CARES Act. Included in the Act was $359 billion for the Payroll Protection Program (P3) to protect small businesses and nonprofits from being wiped out by providing forgivable loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).                      

It was a major victory that, for the first time in history, the SBA opened up its programs to nonprofit corporations. However, the SBA is pushing out those loans through our current banking infrastructure, which has historically failed communities of color.

...