New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that his wife, Chirlane McCray, will co-chair a coronavirus Task Force on Racial Inclusion and Equity as the city plans its eventual reopening.
“The economic and racial disparities that have been made so clear by this crisis, we knew about them before,” said de Blasio. “A powerful, painful exclamation point has been put on them by this crisis.”
De Blasio said he formed the task force to ensure New York’s most vulnerable aren’t left behind in the recovery.
COVID-19 is ravaging one of the richest Black counties in the U.S.
“We’re seeing a really disturbing disparity where people of African descent are being hit very hard by this disease, disproportionately hard,” he said on the New York Amsterdam News podcast. “And it goes back to a lot of things we all know too well, it goes back to massive disparities in health care predating this crisis.”
“The primary function of this task force cannot be to engage in a long, protracted process of deliberation and study, dwelling on how we got here,” said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in a statement. “We know this disparity was created by a long history of systemic inequities and injustices. Additional delays waste time that the people being devastated by this crisis– those who are deemed essential but treated as expendable– just don’t have. Ultimately, we need results, not a report, and the work of this task force must have a voice in and be supported by the city’s budget.”
Meanwhile, city lawmakers on both sides are giving the side-eye over the appointment of McCray, most especially amid the controversy over of her billion-dollar mental health program, ThriveNYC.
