The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
Seeking Racial Equity is Not Just About More Money
I read that Wisconsin had received some funds to help marginalized populations get their rightfully owed unemployment benefits. I’m thinking that “marginalized” really means Black folks. My initial reaction was why does the state need $10 million for government workers to do their jobs? Then I start thinking reparations.
Early this summer, the Labor Department allocated $3 million to the state’s Department of Workforce Development for the main purpose of processing unemployment claims by an overwhelmed system. The DOL added nearly $7 million more to reach people of color, people with disabilities, workers in rural areas and those who face language obstacles. The funds are to hire additional staff, create culturally sensitive literature, and do some overhauling of the system.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office cited blatant racial disparities in the way that Wisconsin was dishing out money during the height of the pandemic. Black people were half as likely to receive benefits as their white counterparts. This is not about more staffing, especially if racial bias prevents them from believing that Black people have the same legitimate rights to apply for the benefits as whites. Black people were often not connected to other services they may have been eligible for, further denying them of the resources desperately needed to thrive.
I know it is not only Black folks who suffer from the systems of racial oppression. Wisconsin is home to Hmong, Mandarin, Somali and Native American tribes. The state is also grappling with poverty in its rural areas. I do know that it is always a challenge for African Americans to get their basic needs met by the current system and that once their boat is lifted, all others rise too.
That’s why I thought about the demand for reparations, which picked up momentum after the George Floyd murder by Minnesota police. More states are being made to seriously discuss this issue. Reparations are about both individual and collective harm, so people of African descent are fighting for both. There are white people who oppose giving Black people anything because slavery was then and this is now. They don’t even care to understand that the system that extracted free labor from enslaved people is the same system that balks at paying unemployment benefits. That maintains racial disparities in health care, housing, and education. The same system — only more sophisticated in disguising white supremacy and patriarchy.
There has been lots of money thrown at the states in the last years due to COVID-19. The dollars are band-aids over gaping lacerations if there are no substantive changes in the overall system. Nonprofits like United Migrant Opportunity Services have been hired to do the short-term work. I always fear that in the trickle-down process, the people with the most needs only get the leftovers after everyone else gets their share. The long-term outcome will be that nothing changes.
Equity and fairness will never come from a system that incentivizes racism, maleness, and heterosexism. Wisconsin must use a profoundly different lens to look at how its services and resources are distributed-— and to whom — if a transformative system of care is to be achieved.