Racism, especially in the United States, is prevalent. This year, several black people died during arrest or, more often than not, from mere suspicion. Black people were often met with abuse and horrible stigma coming from other people. Without a higher status, a poor, underprivileged black person was always subject to judgmental society, composed majorly of white people.
In contrast, a black person with standing and education to boast was often met with eyes of doubt and absence of trust coming from the majority of the people. These are the realities faced by the black people in the United States, and it continues and prevails until today, amidst the ongoing pandemic.
Many black people became a victim of racism; some continue to suffer as victims for the same reason, racism. Jasmine Burgan, a victim of racism, was now 26 years old. She had a job at a donut shop earning a minimum wage that is enough for herself. Having an 8$ per hour of pay and without access to healthcare, she cannot allow herself to get sick to avoid the expensive medical and hospitalization bills.
To this day, Jasmine still thinks that it was like that because of his race, age, and status. It only deepens when the bathroom floor of the house she was renting caved in and saw that it was full of black mold. This also happened to one of the people in the apartment complex, a white person.
The damages were repaired and replaced as new without any hassle on the person or intervention from the local community worker. Why does it take too long a time for Burgan's request for repairs to be accepted and be done? Racism.
Dr. Carl Allamby, also an example, finishes medical school. It is evident that there is only a low percentage of black people becoming a doctor or having any position in the healthcare industry. It can be seen in the looks of excitement and happiness from his black patients.
Dr. Allamby also experiences an incident that happened to his wife, where the nurse assumes that his baby will grow fatherless. He even knew that by being Black, his patients' assumptions and doubts on his intelligence and education differs, and he accepted that this is always how it's going to be. He also recalls having to bring his children into the ER in the middle of the night because he spent the day working to be prepared for a massive bill due to the absence of health insurance.
Even with the expansion of Medicaid, he can understand if a lot of the Black people still do not know about it and will only go to him once every year.
Fayetteville, Arkansas Mayor Lioneld Jordan admitted that there's a lot that he didn't know about racism. After learning more about it, he started to address the problems of racism and its health effects on his Black people. With this, he passed a resolution that would declare racism as a health problem.
Aside from him, with the calls for the declaration getting louder, and with the prevalence of racism in the United States that can be seen in the recent happenings, other states' public officials declared racism as a health crisis that must be appropriately addressed. Different versions of ordinances and resolutions are expected to be pass and implemented, tackling the problems of racism.
Racism has been happening around the globe for black people. On late October, in Waukegan, an approaching police officer shot at a vehicle in reverse, shot a black passenger teen to death and have the driver admitted to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the "Not F****** Around Coalition" or NFAC, an armed all-black Atlanta-based black community has protested over the summer seeking for justice against discriminatory policing as well as countless deaths of black shootings.
