Tag: COVID-19 pandemic quarantine

Are we aware the economy is in free-fall? During the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, health has been a central topic, but what about financial health? With the stock market being stunted and the government doling out trillions of dollars to individual citizens, small businesses and corporations, we need to know what is happening with our finances.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools to close across the world. As an educator, I know firsthand the disparities that exist in the classroom. When the pandemic began, I recognized how inequities in education would manifest themselves as distance education unfolded.

“I learned how to jailbreak iPhones through a lot of different YouTube tutorials. My mom was worried at the time because it was something unfamiliar and taboo, but my peers at school were so intrigued after seeing what iPhones are truly capable of that they started to pay to get their phones broken and customized by me,” said George Hofstetter.

As new issues in our community continue to mount as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, education of Black youth is taking center stage. In Black communities locally and across the nation, there were already learning gaps, achievement gaps, a digital divide, and a lack of knowledge of self that Black youth as a body were already struggling to overcome before this forced pivot to online school.

As the longtime publicist for the San Francisco Black Film Festival, I have to go on record and say that “Digging for Weldon Irvine” is, out of over 200 films, one of the most informative and well crafted documentaries that has been selected to screen in the 22nd San Francisco Black Film Festival.

According to Mark Twain (supposedly), history doesn’t repeat itself, but it frequently rhymes. He was right. Donald Trump, for example, rhymes with Mussolini. The decline of organized labor in recent decades rhymes with its decline in the 1920s. And the coming depression will rhyme, in many respects, with the Great Depression.

“I can say, first of all, we really need to take care of ourselves and stay home. Stay off the streets. Stay away from gatherings. This is really serious,” said the highly regarded visual artist Tarika Lewis, known historically as the first woman to join the Black Panther Party.