There’s another NC group that could be protesting, but won’t. We should listen to them instead.
As the General Assembly returns this week for the first time under a global pandemic and the resulting social-distancing order, there will be at least one benefit for Republican lawmakers: There will be no protesters in or around the Legislative Building clamoring for Medicaid expansion, a higher minimum wage or protections of voting rights.
North Carolina NAACP President Anthony Spearman and the Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and the former leader of the Moral Monday protests that disrupted the legislature in past years, have urged people to abide by the governor’s stay-at-home order.
That restraint is a powerful demonstration in its own right.
Those most affected, many who are black and low income, and many who are still working on the front lines of the pandemic., would seem to have the greatest reason to protest over low wages, no paid sick time and the state’s failure to expand Medicaid to provide them insurance.
But they, unlike the hundreds who have turned out in Raleigh for ReOpenNC rallies, are protecting themselves and others by not demonstrating.
During a virtual news conference last week, Barber described how as a pastor he has consoled people who have lost multiple family members to COVID-19. “This is serious business,” he said, “And do not believe these folk who are lying and saying we are ready to go back. It is an invitation to death. It is an invitation to infection.”
But many of those at highest risk can’t stay home. They are janitors, home health aides, nursing home workers, bus and taxi drivers, grocery store stockers and cashiers, sanitation and maintenance workers. Their vulnerability to illness as they serve others during the pandemic heightens the outrage over Republican legislative leaders still standing firm against Medicaid expansion.
Spearman said, “We have turned to calling those who are out there on the front lines ‘essential workers’ yet governmental officials’ refusal to expand Medicaid proves those workers have yet to become essential human beings.”
Spearman, Barber and other civil rights leaders and advocates for the poor want lawmakers to respond to the disproportionate toll COVID-19 is taking.
“We need North Carolina’s leadership to prepare a recovery plan that places those most affected at the center of our policies,” Spearman said. “Without these investments and restructuring, we will leave the most impacted triply burdened in the wake of this pandemic.”
They are asking the legislature to give essential workers a higher minimum wage, expand Medicaid, protect jail and prison inmates from the coronavirus and adopt changes that will make it safe to vote during a pandemic.
Also speaking at the news conference was William Darity of Duke’s Center for Social Equity. Citing state statistics, he said blacks represent 22 percent of the state population, but account for 32 percent of confirmed COVID-19 infections and 37 percent of COVID-19 deaths. “There is an immense disparity in both the incidence and the mortality from the disease in the state of North Carolina,” he said.
Barber said tolerating inequities in the past has led to more deaths during the COVID-19 crisis. “A lot of the things should have been done,” he said. “Now the question is – will we do what must be done?” he said. “We cannot allow people in power to be comfortable with other people’s deaths. We just can’t allow that anymore.”
The working poor and their advocates won’t be protesting this week, but lawmakers still should respond to the struggles of those who are risking their lives to serve the greater good.