Page 12 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2021

FEATURE
Jacquelyn Chacona, Esq. and Gilberte Pierre, Esq.
COVID Shines
Bright Light on Racial Inequities
Food insecurity and housing stability, and the benefits of a tenant’s right to counsel
In recent memory, you can easily recall Hurricanes Floyd, Katrina, Maria, and Super Storm Sandy. We see flooding, tornadoes and wildfires destroy different parts of our country, and we mourn the losses created by those events for a while. The death and destruction that natural disasters leave in their wake is tragic, but often quickly forgotten by those not directly affected.
10 DELAWARE LAWYER FALL 2020
Today, people are dying and suffer- ing because of the pandemic and everyone agrees that we need to focus on finding a way to end this hor- ror. The COVID pandemic cannot be as easily pushed out of our minds and forgotten as other tragic events, be- cause we are all living through it. It affects all of us directly, but we are not all affected equally. COVID has high- lighted and heightened a longstanding problem: racial inequity. There is a part of our society — many who are people of color — that lives on the edge of survival every day, and when a crisis occurs, they are quickly pushed over the precipice. This occurs in Delaware
and throughout the country.
There is inequity in our society that
is not caused by natural disasters or pandemics. Even when there is no cri- sis, there are racial inequities with un- employment, and access to affordable, adequate medical coverage, affordable housing, and affordable, nutritious food. Racial inequity is always present. When this inequity exists in our daily lives during the best of times, how is anyone surprised that those inequities cause even more pronounced imbal- ances during times of crisis? Racial in- equities and their effects have indeed become more pronounced during the pandemic. We need to look at what we