stay aware in the pandemic: tuesday, march 31st

We have had enough listening to ridiculous misinformation about the Coronavirus pandemic, so we want to do something about it. AFROPUNK will now publish a daily aggregate of (fact-checked) articles from around the web which we think are important to our community, news and opinion pieces, global, national and local. Many of these articles will first appear on our new Facebook Group, “AFROPUNK COVID-19, Chaos And Quarantine.”  Please join the conversation there.

In the meantime…

Want to know why Black communities are on the ‘Frontline’ of the COVID-19 pandemic in America? Short answer is the country’s history of segregationist policies and red-lining, which have left neighborhoods inhabited by predominantly Black and Brown people increasingly vulnerable. Latest proof is in the Charlotte, NC area.

Whole Foods, Instacart, Amazon workers are striking over Coronavirus health and benefit concerns and Amazon has fired one of the workers who organized a strike at its Staten Island (New York) location.

Proof that we need radical healthcare reform in the U.S: the Los Angeles County teen who was the first American teenager to die of COVID-19 was denied treatment because he didn’t have health insurance.

The Rent Freeze movement is picking up steam throughout the nation, because local civic responses vary  between piss-poor (Chicago) and moderate (Los Angeles). In the meantime, over the weekend an art projection in Midtown Manhatta urged New York to “Cancel the Rent” and “End Bail”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-XMtujDH5l/

The fact that an NYC Free Meals program developed for public school kids is expanding to adults  is both “good” news and proof how utterly broken our social system is. Positive news also for Americans trying to pay off their student loans: the relief bill passed by the US Congress last week suspends those payments until September 30th.

Meanwhile in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro keeps lying about the virus to the point where even both Twitter and Facebook  have had to delete his posts.

Trustworthy source of the day: Son of Baldwin.