Do you think the pandemic helped the Black community?
Well, I think yes and no. Yes, in that, COVID-19 exposed what I called COVID-1619 when we were first forced and brought here [to America]. Over 400 years of systemic oppression, from enslavement to Jim and Jane Crow segregation, which was legalized oppression. Now you’ve had less than 50 years of actually being able to vote, and they’re even taking that away. COVID-19 exposed to a lot of people who weren’t woke that this thing is bad and systemic. For me, that was a good thing. It was also a good thing because one of the things about Black people is that the most resourceful, creative people you’ll find anywhere are Black. Some of us had done better during the pandemic than we did before the pandemic because we became resourceful.
How are you using technology to push the initiative forward?
[Technology] is a blessing or a curse, depending on how you use it. It can be a blessing. You’ve got to use it with that kind of intent. We are blessed at Friendship-West to have a team of young people, Generation Z, millennials; all they do is technology [and] social media. They are the ones who have used social media to get the word out and to make sure that we calculate how well we are doing.
