Jon Stewart may have left the Daily Show in August, but he isn’t quite done making a difference yet. With a post-9/11 bill aimed at helping First Responders who risked their lives on September 11, 2001, set to begin phasing out, the former TV host decided to help do something to change that.
The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, named for a New York City police officer who died of a respiratory disease linked to his participation in rescue and recovery operations after the World Trade Center was attacked, came into being in 2010 after Congress was finally shamed — including by Stewart, who spent his final show of 2010 razing lawmakers for their uncaring attitude toward those responsible for dealing with the aftermath of the greatest tragedy in our nation’s history — into passing the legislation that would provide thousands of first responders with treatment for their injuries and compensation for their economic losses.
Unfortunately, the legislation is due to expire in this Congress, with the phase-out beginning next month — an issue that could leave many families without much-needed financial assistance. Stewart has joined with lawmakers and first responders who wish to avert catastrophe by reauthorizing the bill.
This time, instead of humiliating lawmakers on his show, the comedian will be taking a more direct approach. Stewart will join 100 first responders and walk the halls of Congress on September 16 to reason with an oddly-reluctant Congress in person. The Huffington Post reports:
Stewart first broached the idea with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D – N.Y.), the 9/11 bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate. Several responders were in the audience when the senator appeared on one of Stewart’s final shows in July, said Glen Caplin, a former Gillibrand aide who is coordinating the Capitol Hill push for his new employer, the Global Strategy Group.
The last 9/11 bill, named after an NYPD detective who died after exposure to the toxic site, passed in 2010, more than nine years after the attacks, when Congress was finally cajoled into addressing the mounting problems suffered by Americans who rushed from all over the nation to help in the aftermath.
But funding for the $1.6 billion health and monitoring effort ends in October. It has enough cash on hand to keep operating for up to another year, but the resulting uncertainty could cause problems for patients and push doctors to seek more permanent work. More than 72,000 responders and survivors from every Congressional district are enrolled in health programs funded by the bill.
To make matters worse, the $2.75 billion Victims Compensation Fund — which hemorrhaged $90 million because of the “Sequester” in 2013, is set to end on October 3, 2016. Anyone diagnosed with a 9/11-related illness or cancer after that date will not be eligible for assistance.
“This is such bulls**t. It’s insane,” Stewart told Gillibrand during a Daily Show interview — and Stewart’s vow to assist in keeping these programs alive is not of small import to first responders.
“I have no role models, no heroes, but Jon Stewart comes as close as possible to that,” said John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation, a 9/11 advocacy group. “I like to think we pitched a good eight innings, and we called on Jon, who was our Mariano Rivera, to close it.”
Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, whose purpose one can easily guess, has listed lawmakers who have no pledged their support — and it doesn’t look pretty on either side of the fence. Surprisingly Republicans, who reference 9/11 almost as much as they do Benghazi, offer little support to the reauthorization act– though Democrats do seem more willing to lend a hand in getting the bill to pass.
“Jon Stewart and our first responders shouldn’t have to be in Washington walking the halls of Congress to keep the health care program running that our heroes need and deserve,” Gillibrand told HuffPo. “Congress should do the right thing and treat our 9/11 heroes who answered the call of duty with the same dignity and respect as our veterans.”
“We’re asking for a permanent bill, but lets not kid ourselves,” Feal said of the proposed legislation. “There’s nothing permanent about 9/11 responders. We’re all going to die off.”
If you would like to help convince Congress to do the right thing, there’s an app for that. Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act allows you to search for your representatives so that you can let them know how you, as a voter, would feel if they neglected thousands and thousands of brave men and women who served our nation on September 11.
“This tool will allow 9/11 responders, survivors, their families and supporters to see where each member of Congress stands on renewing and extending the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and whether ‘Never Forgetting 9/11′ is just a hollow political statement or something that members of Congress are in fact committed to doing,” said deputy chief of the New York City Fire Department Richie Alles when the app was introduced.
Stewart can be expected to go the long haul with this fight. Earlier this year he said that lawmakers’ seeming unwillingness to pass the bill makes him so angry he “can’t even think straight.”
“Let’s schedule a call, and let’s schedule a ritual shaming around that time,” Stewart said earlier this year. “I obviously at that point will be knee-deep in, more than likely, grain alcohol.
Unlike Google, Bing, and Yahoo, who have algorithms that weigh keyword density,
relevance, links, and SENIORITY (that’s right – if you have had dominance for a keyword for years, it’s darn hard for anyone tobump you from it) LinkedIn is still relatively virgin territory.
For business owners in the more popular competitive fields it is virtually impossible to beg, steal, or borrow a top page one ranking on Google. The smart larger firms started optimizing for SEO ages ago. They hire rooms full of people in Bangalore or Shanghai to sit around for $2.20 a day and stuff keywords into content, Meta tags, Meta descriptions, photo titles,pop-ups, dropdowns, and URL’s.
LinkedIn is still doable, and it’s more than just keyword stuffing. If you research the appropriate words to compete with, and integrate them into valuable content it does not detract from the integrity of your profile. For several of my clients I have been able to get keywords like “real estate – 95131” ranked not just on the first page, but NUMBER ONE, on LinkedIn: The fastest growing search medium for professional services. Check it out at http://bayintegratedmarketing.com
Congratulations to the 324 Black small-business owners and entrepreneurs across the country who received $5,000 in the 2022-23 cycle! This round’s total grant funding reached $1.6 million. From transportation and plumbing companies, to artists and restaurant owners, we could not be more honored to back these 324 Black businesses. Since inception, the Coalition has distributed $8.1 million in cash grants to 1,414 Black small-business owners, while also offering mentoring and additional resources to help small businesses scale and thrive.
Express interest in receiving a grant by completing the streamlined application (available during application period).
3
APPLICATION PERIOD
If eligible for grant, randomly-selected finalists and those on a waitlist will be asked to complete a full grant application.
4
APPLICATION REVIEW PERIOD
We’ll take care of this step! Your full application will be under review.
5
GRANTS AWARDED
Grantees will be notified with instructions on how to join the coaching platform and receive their $5,000 grant.
ELIGIBLE BUSINESSES MUST:
– Meet the criteria for being a Black-owned enterprise in a qualifying industry (See details below in “Who is eligible to apply?”). – Employ between 3 and 20 people, including the owner and any full-time employees, part-time employees, or individuals working under a 1099 or similar contractual agreement. – Be located in an economically vulnerable community, according to the Distressed Communities Index. – Have been harmed financially by the COVID-19 pandemic.
SEE IF YOUR BUSINESS QUALIFIES
Enter the zip code associated with your business (as listed on your W9 Form) to see if you are eligible:
Less than 20% of U.S. employer businesses are minority-owned, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet the owners of these 1.1 million minority-owned businesses often face heightened challenges when it comes to securing business funding.
In fact, Black entrepreneurs were three times less likely to apply for credit out of fear of loan denial, according to a paper by Duke University and the UNC Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise that found significant funding gaps between minority groups and white male business owners.
Federal Grants for Small Business Minorities
1. Grants.gov
Grants.gov is one of the first resources you may want to look into for business grants—both minority grants and other opportunities. The database, maintained by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), contains information about more than 1,000 federal grants. It also includes details about the eligibility requirements for each program.
To apply for a grant through the Grants.gov system, you’ll need to first establish a Workspace accountthat you (and your team) use to access the system’s applications. Once you complete this step, you’ll be free to search for federal grants that align with your business goals and apply for those you believe are a good match for you.
2. USDA Rural Business Development Grants
The USDA Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG) is another federal resource that provides small rural businesses with funding, technical assistance and training. While there is no maximum grant amount, $10,000 to $500,000 is the standard RBDG award range.
To be eligible for this USDA grant, you must own a small rural business that earns less than $1 million per year (gross revenue) and has 50 new workers or less. If you believe your business may be eligible for funding, you can visit the USDA website for information on how to speak with a Business Program Specialist in your state. The specialist can give you guidance regarding the forms and applications you will need to complete.
3. USDA Water & Waste Disposal Loan & Grant Program
The U.S. Department of Agriculture program isn’t directly available to small businesses. However, small businesses (and households, too) may benefit if an eligible applicant applies. This program, designed to help upgrade local water and waste disposal infrastructure, is only open to rural federally-recognized tribes, private nonprofit organizations or state and local governments.
This assistance is offered as a loan paid back over a term of up to 40 years. The exact term length and the interest rate offered depends on how critical the need for the infrastructure is and the area’s median household income. In some cases, the USDA may offer this assistance in the form of a grant instead of a loan.
4. Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs
If your business is developing innovative new technology through partnerships with research institutions, you may qualify for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program grant. These grants can be offered up to nearly $2 million.
These competitive programs don’t place any restrictions on minority status.
Private Grants for Small Business Minorities
5. FedEx Small Business Grant Contest
Many small businesses have struggled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In response to the crisis, FedEx created the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest. For the year 2022, 10 small businesses (defined as having less than 100 employees) will receive one of the following grant award packages.
Grand Prize: Three winners will receive a $50,000 grant, $4,000 in FedEx Office credits (for business and print services) and more.
First Place: Seven winners will receive a $20,000 grant, $1,500 in FedEx Office credits and more.
Eligible businesses can create a FedEx account and enter the 2022 grant contest until February 28, 2022. The voting period and when FedEx announces the top 100 winners runs from March 22-31, 2022. The final winners are announced May 4, 2022.
6. The Coalition to Back Black Businesses
The Coalition to Back Black Businesses is a partnership of several brands that have come together with the goal of empowering Black-owned businesses.
The Coalition is supplying $14 million in minority grants, resources and training over a span of four years through 2023 that is meant to help small businesses recover from pandemic-related setbacks. The Coalition includes American Express, ADP, AIG Foundation, Altice USA, Dow and the S&P Global Foundation.
Select businesses will qualify for grants in the amount of $5,000 each fall, in combination with training and mentorship benefits. When the summer arrives, a few initial grant recipients will receive additional $25,000 enhancement grants as a means of additional funding and support.
Eligible businesses must be Black-owned enterprises located in economically distressed communities. You can apply on the Coalition’s website in the fall when the application process opens. The grant committee will select 400 or more eligible applicants at random to receive cash awards and other benefits.
7. National Black MBA Association Scale-Up Pitch Challenge
If you have an idea for a Black-owned startup that is scalable, it might benefit you to research the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Scale-Up Pitch Challenge. NBMBAA designed a competition to “Make Big Ideas Bigger.” The competition aims to give eligible startups the opportunity to connect with venture capitalists and other early-stage investors.
NBMBAA’s judges will also select three finalists to receive cash awards. The grand prize is a small business grant worth $50,000.
When the application process is live, eligible businesses can make a virtual pitch to a panel of judges by sharing their business idea. Finalists will later have the chance to make a live, three-minute pitch to the judges explaining why their product or service should be considered for the grant.
8. Asian Women Giving Circle Grants
The Asian Women Giving Circle (AWGC) is a network that works to raise funds for Asian American women-led projects. Eligible projects must be related to arts and culture, promote social awareness regarding issues that affect Asian American girls, women and families, and be located in New York City.
The grant committee awards grants of up to $15,000 per project. But the total number of grants awarded depends on the availability of funding. When the application process is live, you can submit your application online.
9. The National Association for the Self-Employed Growth Grants
The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) has awarded close to $1 million in grants to small business members through its Growth Grants program. Eligible small businesses can receive grants worth as much as $4,000 through the program—awarded on a quarterly basis.
You must become a member of NASE before you can apply for the Growth Grant program. Once you join, you will have the opportunity to apply for the small business grants on a quarterly basis, according to the schedule below:
January to March
April to June
July to September
October to December
The grant committee reviews all applications the month after the quarterly submission deadline ends. Recipients must demonstrate an identifiable business need, explain how they would use the grant to satisfy that need, and show a potential for growth and success should their business receive the funds.
Black-owned and diverse businesses can seek grant funding through the Fast Break for Small Business program, which is sponsored by LegalZoom as well as the NBA, WNBA and NBA. The program aims to distribute grants to more than 5,000 small businesses for a total of $6 million in cash awards. Grants come in $10,000 increments, and winners will also receive $500 in LegalZoom services.
The next round of grant applications opens in the spring of 2022. You can sign up online for updates regarding future funding opportunities.
11. First Nations Development Institute Grants
Since 1993, First Nations has been offering grants to help support Native American organizations and projects, totaling $51.6 million in grants, along with technical resources.
We all aspire to be more loving, to have more compassion and goodwill for all humanity. It is actually a really easy thing to declare that we have love for all people, that we wish everyone well.
Of course the difficulty comes when we move from the general to the specific. We can claim to love all the children of the world, yet harbor angry thoughts for the child kicking our airplane seat from behind us. We can declare our wish for the well-being of all people and yet wish ruin on that politician we cannot abide. Going from the generic to the specific is always the hard part. As Linus famously observes in Schulz’s Peanuts, “I love mankind – it’s people I can’t stand.”
This is the reason that in the practice of Metta Bhavana (cultivation of lovingkindness) we explicitly start with the specific. We start by practicing the generation of love and goodwill to four specific people. Our self, a (specific) friend, a (specific) neutral person and a (specific) enemy. It is only by working with the specific that we can understand the limits and edges of our ability to love. If you start with the general, with ‘all people,’ it is easy to convince yourself that you do truly love all beings. But ‘all beings’ includes all those specific people, the ones that give you trouble. That’s why the traditional form of Metta Bhavana is the way it is, and why it is such a powerful practice. Making the statement that you love all beings can be a platitude – working with all of the specifics can be a lifelong practice.
At the end of the traditional form of Metta meditation we do move from the specific and out to all beings. This part is traditionally known as the ‘sending to the ten directions.’ The ten directions here are the classical eight compass points, plus upward and downward. The point is to take what we have practiced for the specific people and apply the same to all beings – while still acknowledging that ‘all being’ includes billions of specific people and many trillions of specific creatures. All of whom are individuals. All of whom we wish to be well, happy and free from suffering.
Having practiced in this way we then continue to live our lives. And guess what? The people you will meet this week are part of ‘the ten directions.’ The saint, the politician, the criminal, the victim – all those you see or read about are part of those you covered in the ten directions. And so the specific becomes general, which becomes specific again in our lives.
Recognizing this cycle of specific – general – specific in our lives is one of the most powerful points of awakening any of us can have, and it is core to the practice of Metta Bhavana. I have linked on our website a fully-guided Metta Bhavana meditation, with some emphasis on sending to the ten directions. You can of course listen to it at any time, but a few of us have committed to listen together starting at 7pm PT on Sunday August 9th. You are welcome to join with us then if you wish.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, there has been a resurgence of state-sponsored voter suppression that is targeting communities of color “with almost surgical precision.” Already this year, states have purged their voter rolls, blocked rights restoration efforts, slashed polling place numbers, restricted early voting, allowed discriminatory voter ID laws and limited access to voting by mail.
There’s no question that these unjust voter suppression tactics are successful. Black and brown people, women and young people have historically been denied access to the ballot box, and this crucial election year is no exception. In response to the heightened need to ensure voting is safe and accessible for all people, especially in the Deep South, we launched the SPLC’s Vote Your Voice initiative to help support voter registration and mobilization efforts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced the first round of Vote Your Voice grants to 12 voter outreach organizations across the Deep South as part of the $30 million voter mobilization initiative. Each organization submitted an innovative and exhaustive proposal to boost voter registration, education and mobilization in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
The organizations announced below have records of achievement in their communities registering, educating and mobilizing voters of color, young people, low-income people and returning citizens, and we are thrilled to support their work and engage more people in civil participation in the South.
Click here to read more about the 12 Vote Your Voice grantee organizations who will be working to empower voters of color and ensure more voters in the Deep South will have a say in the direction of our country as we deal with the pandemic fallout and reckon with injustices.
We are also excited to announce that the SPLC and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta opened the application process today for a second round of grants across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The magnitude of social justice problems facing communities of color, especially in the Deep South, can often feel overwhelming. We are proud to support trusted and successful community organizations in a serious effort to leverage political power through the ballot box to promote community empowerment and self-determination in a way that leads to a more equitable and just society.
Thank you for your commitment to this work — your dedication to fighting voter suppression and white supremacy helped make the Vote Your Voice initiative possible.
In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
As is seen all over the headlines, there’s a rush to get students and teachers back to school. We say come the fall but the reality is most schools go back over summer. This is the same summer that has shown significant spikes in Covid-19 cases and increased death rates of all ages. The worsening of this situation is by no means the fault of schools, but instead is a direct result of the government’s lack of trust in professionals and inability to act. There’s a pressure to get students back in schools to get our economy ‘back to normal’ and allow parents to go to work. The justifications given for this to happen are often pretexts for the need for child-care. What is happening is that we continue (yes, I mean continue) to normalize children dying for the sake of the economy.
While I’d like nothing more than to be reunited with my students, I understand that the most vulnerable students are at risk if we go back to in person learning. One thing we cannot argue is that academics are more easily recovered than a human life.
If you are eager for schools to be back in session because you argue that the most vulnerable students are at risk of falling behind, you are absolutely correct. However, if you have not been advocating for these students prior to this, you need to consider the whole picture. We talk about the ‘achievement gap’ and ‘opportunity gap’ that exists between BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) students and white students, rich and poor, able-bodied and those with disabilities, heterosexual, cisgender students and LGBTQIA+ students, and we have labeled these students who are given less opportunity as at risk or vulnerable. If you have not always advocated for equity in schools and social justice, you need to examine your motives for doing so now to justify going back to school. If your argument is that re-opening schools is necessary to not widen the opportunity gap, you must also acknowledge that in-person schooling contributes to the opportunity gap.
If we claim to need to go back to school for these students, we must acknowledge that BIPOC populations are the most vulnerable in our school system and act on that knowledge. We need to be fully committed to seeking educational justice. Here are ten ideas as to how to support ‘vulnerable’ students.
1.Advocate for socially just teaching, ethnic studies, and rewriting entire curriculums. Many BIPOC students are disadvantaged in schools because the curriculum is whitewashed, Eurocentric and excludes the history, culture and representation of BIPOC students. Libraries and learning needs to be inclusive of all students. Schools need to be a safe place that celebrates the history and excellence of BIPOC, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, homeless, those with learning disabilities, etc. Vidhya Nagarajan for NPR (2017) best represents the many students left out of the system of education in the drawing above. We need to focus on the intersectionality of education and inclusion of all students in the classroom, curriculum and staff. If you are worried about students learning, you need to be worried about what they are being taught. Read more by experts about social justice and anti-racist teaching in the following article: http://neatoday.org/2019/01/22/why-social-justice-in-schools-matters/.
2. Fully fund schools and home libraries for students. Give students access to all the same materials and supplies that their peers have. For this to happen that includes having materials and supplies that represent them. Fully fund libraries that focus on representation of BIPOC students and cultures. Students need access to these materials at school and at home to be successful. Renaissance Learning (2015) found that students who read less than 15 min a day at home were not able to make reading growth, despite classroom interventions. We need all students to have access to quality books, which might include funding more libraries in low-income neighborhoods so they are walking distance from schools or students’ homes. If you’re worried about student learning, you have to be worried about access to learning materials and literacy.
In the article “Why White School Districts Have so Much Money” Lombardo of NPR explores research that concludes that predominately white districts receive $23 billion more in funding than schools with mostly BIPOC students. Based on their research, the national average of school funding is $1,600 less per student for districts serving mostly BIPOC students, while districts that have mostly poor, white students only receive $130 less per student than the national average (Lombardo, 2019). Funding cannot be linked to housing around the school. More than half of our students in the US attend schools that are “racially segregated” (Lombardo, 2019). It’s as if Brown v. Board of Education (1954) never happened.
3. Implement restorative justice practices into schools. Train teachers and staff in anti-racist practices and how to help change behaviors, not punish them. Hold schools accountable for the criminalization of BIPOC students and longterm impact on their lives. If you care about student learning, you have to care about suspension rates that take them out of the classroom and how it is systemically racist. Read more on the African American Policy Forum about how suspension rates disproportionately impact Black students: https://aapf.org/school-to-prison-pipeline.
4. Eradicate standardized testing. Tests are also biased toward white students and not to mention, a huge use of time that might be better spent another way. Students from 3rd grade up take a state standardized test that can take over a month to complete. That’s a MONTH of learning time they lose each year to be able to take a test. My first graders took 6 benchmarks every trimester, which took them about 2-3 weeks to complete. This is 3x a year. By the way, the 3rd grade and up take these benchmarks, in addition to the state test. An immense amount of time is spent on testing! No amount of data is worth losing that much learning time. If you are worried about student learning, you need to be worried about how much time is spent testing students and what those scores mean for schools, tracking, expectation value, etc.
5. Fully fund STEAM in schools (science, technology, engineering, arts and math). I have worked in countless schools in low income areas that do not have funding for things like science and hands-on activities. These things are often paid for by the teachers themselves. Between 79% (USA Today, 2019) and 94% of teachers (Vox, 2019) spend their own money on classroom supplies. This is why places like Donors Choose exist. My last principal actually told the teachers, don’t worry about teaching social studies or science, these kids just need reading. I was told if I get 40% at grade level, that’s the target. The fallacy in this thinking is that by over focusing on literacy, students then lack the content knowledge and experiences to use as background knowledge for reading and writing. “Put simply, the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to read a text, understand it, and retain the information. Previous studies (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Schulze, 1994; Shapiro, 2004) have shown that background knowledge plays an enormous role in reading comprehension (Hirsch, 2003)” (Neuman, Kaefer, Pinkham). If you are worried about student learning, you need to be focused on all content areas and funding for STEAM in schools.
6. Early childhood education needs to be prioritized in our society and offered at no cost to families. This is the foundation of schooling and if only those who can afford preschool attend, they will be starting off Kinder with a leg up on everyone who wasn’t able to go to pre-school. If you’re worried about student learning, you have to know where the gap starts and address it.
7. After school programs should be free and widespread. If students are supposed to get a leg up, they need to build up experiences and background knowledge. They should be active in elective classes and sports. These need to be free and fully funded. If we want justice in our schools, we need to give all students the opportunity to follow their passions, not just those of families that can afford it. If you are worried about student learning, you need to be worried about opportunities to follow their interests outside of school.
8. Move schools to year-round schedules. Having time off in the summer disproportionately impacts the students that are most vulnerable. This infographic made by LoShiavo (2019) illustrates it best. Source: https://www.jaxpubliclibrary.org/ilovejpl/stellar-summer-reading-stats-2019 We are not farmers anymore. We can go to school year round with shorter breaks for students in between that don’t put them at risk of falling behind. If you are worried about student learning, you need to be worried about summer slide.
9. Focus on recruiting, retaining and supporting diverse educators, especially BIPOC teachers, without placing the burden to be the only ones teaching anti-racism. There is essentially no diversity in education, which is irresponsible. We need to recruit and retain diverse teachers. This starts with affordable teaching programs, paying student teachers (that’s right we had to work for half a year with no pay), eliminating the cost of examinations to become a teacher (the CBEST, CSETS and RICA probably cost me a $1,000 for both credentials). This also means that induction should be free (as it was) which is a program new teachers often have to pay out of pocket (depending on their district it’s $1-3k) to “clear” their credential. These systems keep the status quo in place of who can afford to become a teacher. This is called systemic racism. Recruit and retain professionals who are non-white because our world is diverse, and students (and staff) deserve and need to learn about diversity of thought and experience. The next step in retaining teachers is by training all teachers in anti-racist education. More on this subject by experts here: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/08/889112818/what-it-would-take-to-get-an-effective-anti-racist-education. If you’re worried about student learning, you have to care about how schools in the US are systemically racist against BIPOC students and do not retain diverse educators.
10. Fully fund classrooms, and pay teachers for all the time they work. Of course I think teachers deserve higher salaries, however, at the current moment they are not even being paid for the actual work it takes to teach. As a teacher, I’m given one 30 minute period per week when the students receive art, 1 hour after school on our short day (if our meeting doesn’t go over) and 10 minutes in the mornings from when I am supposed to arrive and when I have to pick up students. How then can I adequately plan and prepare lessons for my students, meet with families, address student needs outside of the classroom, hang student work, clean and sanitize materials, respond to office needs, collaborate and also be a human that uses the restroom and what not. I work 2-4 hours a day outside of my contracted time. If not a raise, fine, at least pay teachers for the time it actually takes to do the job. Retaining teachers is also a huge indicator in building relationships and establishing trust between staff and students. If you’re worried about students learning, you have to give students teachers that are treated as professionals. Number one this will give more time for teachers to work on improving their craft, creating more meaningful culturally responsive lessons and when the teacher isn’t frazzled or stressed, the classroom environment benefits from this positively.
While this is lengthy, this is only the tip of the iceberg as far as needs for schools to become just, anti-racist, and equitable places. I agree that distance learning and virtual teaching disadvantages certain populations of students at higher rates. I am not denying this or saying that it is permissible or justifiable. I am saying this, being IN school also has disadvantages for these same populations of students. You cannot address one without the other. If you are arguing that we need to go back to school to help close the opportunity gaps for our students, then you need to also fully advocate for and fund #1-10. Chances are, for the people who are already advocating for #1-10, they also advocate for schools to stay closed until it’s safe because they understand that the schools with less funding have fewer means to provide safe and healthy learning environments for their students. Going back to in-person learning will disproportionately expose the students who attend under funded schools that already struggle to keep classrooms clean and stocked with materials. I truly believe there is nothing that my fellow educators wouldn’t do for their students’ well-being but going back to school isn’t for students’ well-being… is it?
President Trump at the White House coronavirus briefing on Thursday.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times
With each passing day it becomes more obvious how unlucky we are that one of the worst crises in American history coincides with Donald Trump’s presidency. To get out of this crisis with the least loss of life and least damage to our economy, we need a president who can steer a science-based, nonpartisan debate through the hellish ethical, economic and environmental trade-offs we have to make.
We need a president who is a cross between F.D.R., Justice Brandeis and Jonas Salk. We got a president who is a cross between Dr. Phil, Dr. Strangelove and Dr. Seuss.
Sure, Trump isn’t the only one sowing division in our society, but as president he has a megaphone like no one else, so when he spews his politics of division, and suggests disinfectants as cures, he is not only eroding our society’s physical immunity to the coronavirus but also eroding what futurist Marina Gorbis calls our “cognitive immunity” — our ability to filter out science from quackery and facts from fabrications.
As a result, the Trump daily briefing has itself become a public health hazard.
If we don’t have a president who can harmonize our need to protect ourselves from the coronavirus and our need to get back to work — as well as harmonize our need to protect the planet’s ecosystems and our need for economic growth — we are doomed.
Because this virus was actually triggered by our polarization from the natural world. And it will destroy us — physically and economically — if we stay locked in a polarized, binary argument about lives versus livelihoods.
Here is why: When you listen to Trump, one of his consistent themes is that everything was just “perfect” with our economy until — out of nowhere — this black swan, called Covid-19, showed up from China and wrecked it all. It’s true, this virus did come out of Wuhan, China, but it was anything but a black swan that no one could have expected. It was actually “a black elephant.”
The term “black elephant” was coined by environmentalist Adam Sweidan. It’s a cross between “a black swan” — an unlikely, unexpected event with enormous ramifications — and the “elephant in the room” — a looming disaster that is visible to everyone, yet no one wants to address.
Covid-19 was a black elephant. It is the logical outcome of our increasingly destructive wars against nature.
As Johan Rockström, chief scientist at Conservation International, explains: “When you simultaneously hunt for wildlife and push development into natural ecosystems — destroying natural habitats — the natural balance of species collapses due to loss of top predators and other iconic species, leading to an abundance of more generalized species adapted to live in human dominated habitats. These are rats, bats and some primates — which together host 75 percent of all known zoonotic viruses to date, and who can survive and multiply in destroyed human dominated habitats.”
As we humans have become more numerous and concentrated in cities, and as deforestation has brought these generalized species closer to us — and as countries like China, Vietnam and others in central Africa tolerated wet markets where these virus-laden species were mixed with domesticated meats — we’re seeing ever more zoonotic diseases spreading from animals to people. Their names are SARS, MERS, Ebola, bird flu, and swine flu — and Covid-19.
China, in particular, has a lot to answer for. It banned wet markets in one province after SARS in 2003, but then allowed them to reopen after SARS passed — and that apparently brought us Covid-19 out of Wuhan. (Shamefully, China reportedly still has not shut down wet markets selling wildlife.)
Add globalization to this and you have the perfect ingredients for more pandemics. We need to find a much more harmonious balance between economic growth and our ecosystems.
The same kind of harmonic approach has to be brought to our current debate about reopening the economy. One way to get there was proposed by Graham Allison, a national security expert at Harvard.
Allison wrote that we’re having this important debate about our health and economic future in an incredibly uncoordinated way. Instead, we should have federal government experts on one team offering their approach — and a Team B of independent medical, economic, public health, data and strategic analysts offering an alternative approach. And then go for the best synthesis.
For instance, Allison observed: “If we concluded that an identified group of a quarter of the population face an unacceptable risk of death from coronavirus, but that for the other 75 percent, with appropriate precautions like social distancing and masks, face no greater risk than other risks of death we accepted before coronavirus, would it be possible to design a response that protected the most vulnerable while simultaneously reopening most of the economy for others?”
As an example of Team B thinking, Graham cited the work of Dr. David Katz, a public health expert who helped kick off the debate about how to harmonize protecting the most vulnerable and opening the economy to those least at risk in an essay he wrote in The New York Times on March 20 — and in a follow-up interview we did together.
Five weeks later — and fresh off three days as a volunteer emergency room doctor in the Bronx — Katz still believes that is possible. He explained to me why, starting with what he found in the emergency ward.
“You might think that health professionals are at one extreme of opinion, concerned only about the virus and favoring locking everything down, but that was not the view I encountered,” said Katz. “The view was far more centrist: respect for the infection, but equal respect for the high cost of closing down everything — to their patients, of course, but also to themselves and their families. Many were acutely concerned about layoffs, unemployment, and real desperation affecting siblings or close friends.”
That is why, Katz insists, we have to avoid minimizing the degree to which mass unemployment, poverty, hunger and despair will devastate people if the economy remains virtually shut down. At the same time, we can’t just submit to protesters demanding their governors open everything back up indiscriminately, without data or a comprehensive health strategy,
“The moment you stop respecting this virus, it will kill someone you love,” he said.
The best strategy, argues Katz, starts with what the numbers are telling us: “More and more data are telling us that Covid-19 is two completely different diseases in different populations. It is severe and potentially lethal to the old, the chronically ill and those with pre-existing conditions. It is, however, rarely life-threatening, often mild — and often even asymptomatic — among those under 50 or 60 in generally good health.”
While we still don’t yet have a perfect understanding of how the virus works — and we need to corroborate the patterns we’re seeing through more random sampling of the U.S. population both for infection and immunity — if these patterns are confirmed, then the proper strategy, argued Katz, is one of “total harm minimization” that saves the most lives and health through “vertical interdiction.”
“That means sheltering the vulnerable, while allowing those who can return to the world most safely to do so — thereby restoring the economy, supply chains, and services, while cultivating the collective protection of herd immunity that leads to the ‘all clear,’” said Katz. “That’s how we get our lives back without waiting on the long and uncertain timeline of vaccine development.”
Of course, we’ll need an army of public health workers to keep doing testing and contact tracing so we can adapt to new data, limit breakouts and protect those most likely to die or be badly harmed from Covid-19.
The bottom line is that Mother Nature has been telling us something huge in this crisis: “You let everything get out of balance and go to extremes. You ravaged my ecosystems and unleashed this virus. You let political extremism ravage your body politic. You need to get back into balance, and that starts with using the immune system that I endowed you with.”
Herd immunity, which kicks in after about 60 percent of the population is exposed to and recovers from the virus, concluded Katz, “has historically been nature’s way of ending pandemics. We need to bend with her forces, while concentrating our health services and social services on protecting those most vulnerable who need to stay sheltered until there is a vaccine.”
The U.S. president’s comments prompted doctors and the makers of household disinfectants to issue statements urging people not to ingest or inject cleaning products.
It’s a weird time we’re living through, when a trip the grocery store is about our only opportunity to go someplace different than hour house, and every grocery trip feels a bit like entering the arena of The Hunger Games.
Our grocery store workers are certainly underpaid heroes of the coronavirus era. Every day, they go to work to make sure we all have food to eat, putting their own health at risk to do so. And unfortunately, the stress and strain of pandemic panic and economic uncertainty have led some people to treat these heroes with far less respect than they deserve.
A grocery store manager (unnamed in this post, but perhaps originally Jason Baldwin) shared a 20-point list of things we need to know when we’re venturing out to the grocery store right now. The post, republished by Roy Allen Stagg, has been shared more than 580,000 times because it contains blunt truths we all need to hear.
It reads:
I manage a grocery store.
Here’s some things everyone should know:
1. I don’t have toilet paper
2. I don’t have sanitizer
3. I run out of milk, eggs and meat daily
4. I promise if it’s out on the shelf … it’s not in a hidden corner of our back room
Those are the predictable ones, now for the real stuff:
5. I have been doing this for 25 years I did not forget how to order product
6. I did not cause the warehouse to be out of product
7. I schedule as much help as I have, including many TMs working TONS of overtime to help YOU
8. I am sorry there are lines at the check-out lanes
Now for the really important stuff:
9. My team puts themselves in harm’s way every day so you can buy groceries
10. My team works tirelessly to get product on the floor for you to buy
11. My team is exhausted
12. My team is scared of getting sick
13. My team is human and do not possess an antivirus… they are in just as much danger as you are. (Arguably more) But they show up to work everyday just so you can buy groceries
14. My team is tired
15. My team is very underappreciated
16. My team is exposed to more people who are potentially infected in one hour than most of you will in a week (medical community excluded, thank you for all that you do!)
17. My team is abused all day by customers who have no idea how ignorant they are
18. My team disinfects every surface possible, everyday, just so you can come in grab a wipe from the dispenser, wipe the handle and throw the used wipe in the cart or on the ground and leave it there… so my team can throw it in the trash for you later
19. My team wonders if you wash your re-usable bags, that you force us to touch, that are clearly dirty and have more germs on them than our shopping carts do
20. My team more than earns their breaks, lunches and days off. And if that means you wait longer I am sorry.
The last thing I will say is this:
“The next time you are in a grocery store, please pause and think about what you are saying and how you are treating the people you encounter. They are the reason you are able to buy toilet paper, sanitizer, milk, eggs and meat.”
“If the store you go to is out of an item.. maybe find the neighbor or friend that bought enough for a year … there are hundreds of them… and ask them to spare 1 or 2. They caused the problem to begin with…”
“And lastly, please THANK the people who helped you. They don’t have to come to work!”
We owe our grocery store workers a huge debt of gratitude and an enormous amount of respect. If this pandemic is teaching us anything, it’s that we rely far more on people in these positions than we’ve probably ever thought about, so we should absolutely be treating them with dignity—at the very least. If you think you’re stressed, imagine how these workers feel. If you feel frustrated, imagine how these workers feel. If you’re afraid you might get sick, imagine how these workers feel.
Care and compassion go a long way. Let’s give our grocery store workers an extra measure of love and kindness, as our ability to keep living our lives at home literally depends on them.
A new pay subscription based youtube channel is exactly what you need! Wy does this offer more & better than others?
The Story Teller is a way to escape into the other worldly horizon of what if…as well as love & real life stories of today.
It’s a collection of short stories, novellas, novel chapters, & poetry from some very talented visually impaired & blind writers.
Every story, chapter, or poem read is copyrighted by the individual author and is read by their permission.
Some stories will have explicit scenes of sex, violence, and language, not gratuitous but integral to the story. A warning at the beginning of every story containing these items will be announced.
If you enjoy romance, sci-fi, westerns, war, and the innumerable other topics…then this is perfect for you!
A sample of poems, to be read can be heard with an interview (hint hint)
Subscription is $1.99 per month. The URL to subscribe is:
My Black Lab 
