{"id":46102,"date":"2020-06-14T09:02:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T13:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=46102"},"modified":"2020-06-14T09:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T13:03:03","slug":"continuing-the-conversation-about-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=46102","title":{"rendered":"Continuing the conversation about race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Like it or not, we need to keep talking about race.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the killing of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back, the rising level of anger over racism has been growing for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Donald Trump\u2019s election, those who hate on the basis of skin color seem to feel like they have been given a green light to openly express their racism. That\u2019s meant years of abusive comments, bullying and in general, butthead behavior by a small percentage of the population locally.<\/span><\/p>\n

It impacted me personally: when the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Board of Education sat mute when it became increasingly evident that some white students were harassing Asian-American students in the wake of Trump\u2019s election, I was angry enough that I found I could no longer fairly cover the board\u2019s meetings and had to hire someone else to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

As someone who is an outspoken advocate of education and public schools \u2013 I am a former President of the Unionville-Chadds Ford Education Foundation \u2014 the failure to even put out the mildest rebuke of such racism was a bridge too far for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although ultimately the digital ad apocalypse caused me to decide to stop all meeting coverage, a slight upturn in revenue has me considering what to add back come September. Are we, as a community, better served by spending limited coverage dollars on the Coatesville Area School District rather than Unionville-Chadds Ford?<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s an emerging story \u2014 some decades in the making \u2014 of the racial aspect of the public schools haves, such as Unionville, and have nots such as Coatesville. And keep in mind, Coatesville is a rich district in comparison to many of the all or mostly minority school districts in urban areas in this state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is the better, more relevant story for these times, writing about rich people fighting over taxes and patting themselves on the back, or a school district trying to figure out how to survive, pay its staff and educate its kids, many of whom come from challenging backgrounds?<\/span><\/p>\n

And maybe it is the latter story that tells the story of racial equality in Chester County. Maybe we\u2019ve made progress, but not nearly enough and not nearly quickly enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a story we need to tell better. <\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of hard to draw any other conclusion: Pennsylvania\u2019s Republican legislators seem to despise average people and small business owners. <\/span><\/p>\n

A vote they took this week proves they don\u2019t care if you lose your home, your unemployment insurance (and if, not, making scores of small businesses have to pay for unemployed workers again) \u2014 in essence, they want to you to return to work for big business and if you get sick and die from COVID-19, oh well. <\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re good. They can count on a sweet gig in the private sector even if they lose their seats.<\/span><\/p>\n

You? Collateral damage. That\u2019s cool, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

These lovely people voted to terminate Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s Emergency declaration this week \u2014 Wolf vetoed it and the fight will go to the courts, which means there won\u2019t be a ruling until likely after Wolf ends the emergency sometime this summer.<\/span><\/p>\n

While there\u2019s dozens of bad outcomes from ending the emergency declaration \u2014 loss of help with utilities for those hurt financially, loss of meals for school-age kids in need, blocking the ability of hospitals to expand as needed to handle COVID-19, issues with professional licenses that could not be renewed during the shutdown, ending bans of evictions and foreclosures and well, lots more bad outcomes, including a loss of federal emergency funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, it\u2019s stupid, it\u2019s cruel and completely ill-advised.<\/span><\/p>\n

These clowns don\u2019t think COVID-19 is a thing \u2014 sure, 2 million Americans have contracted the disease and 115,000 have died \u2014 including about 300 in Chester County.<\/span><\/p>\n

They won\u2019t wear masks and actually mock people who do as one of our county’s legislators pointed out not long ago on Twitter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Today, I went to a committee meeting, chaired by @RepMetcalfe<\/a> where not only did everyone sit elbow to elbow, most Republicans not wearing masks, but he continuously ridiculed those of us who did wear masks, on \ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffb the\ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffb record \ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffb<\/p>\n

— Danielle Friel Otten (@Danielle_4PA) June 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n