#AfterThought: Rashawn Ray on Black Economics During Pandemic
Brookings' sociologist on how COVID-19's most impacted communities will need to adapt and operate differently
a CSG East | Brookings Feature
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B|E Note Publisher & WURD Host/Executive Producer Charles Ellison has another #AfterThought conversation with Brookings’ Governance fellow and sociologist Rashawn Ray. This conversation is powered by the Council of State Governments, Eastern Regional Conference, Council on Communities of Color as part of its #CSGCOVID19 micro-summit series.
“When it comes to reopening the economy, that shouldn’t be happening at all,” says Ray. ‘People really need to realize this a very small percentage of the population asking for this. Also, there are some Governors mostly in the Southern states, people are putting profits and politics over people. They must think about equity first. The businesses that are opening up are actually targeting specific demographics. This highly problematic as it relates to race. Because if you actually look at the businesses that are opening up, these are businesses that Black patrons primarily indulge in. And so part of what people think is that this is a kind of leveling in terms of conspiracy theories related to population control - that ‘we're going to use Black people as guinea pigs to actually see what's going to happen to them when they go back out into these businesses without giving them proper guidance.”
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