This Contract with Black America strikes at the heart of racism and presents a blueprint to achieve racial economic justice. It was written in the backdrop of the killing of George Floyd, which set off a wave of protests not seen since the Civil Rights Era of the 1950’s and ’60’s, and a global pandemic in which the Black mortality rate is more than double the White rate and in which 45% (nearly half) of Black-owned businesses closed. That the impact of something presumably random, such as a pandemic, however catastrophic, can be so linked to one’s racial identity is highly problematic – and further evidence that, as a nation, we are failing miserably. This links to a larger political and economic vulnerability, whether we’re in a pandemic or not: the immoral devaluation of Black lives has been ingrained in America’s political economy and is long overdue for a reckoning.
