Together we can Speak Up. Open Up. Show Up.

Thank You Dr. Reverend Starsky Wilson!
Together we can Speak Up. Open Up. Show Up.
 
We are so grateful for the powerful session we had with Dr. Wilson. He poignantly outlined the work St. Louis has done, the gaps that still exist, when examining the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the community’s Black population, and the necessary steps toward racial equity in St. Louis and beyond. The black mortality rate is 3.7X the white mortality rate of COVID-19, a dichotomy that stems from social determinants of health. These are the very things the Ferguson Report has been wrestling with since the death of Michael Brown.
 
Dr. Wilson suggested that this trying time could create an opportunity for us, as a nation, to reset… for people to rethink the kind of America in which we want to be a part.
 
He asked Forum women, lovers of humanity, with the means to speak up and speak out to: 

• Use your voice to amplify and ensure a “just recovery” … ask about the people who have been marginalized (children and women).
• Advocate for public policy with “political imagination”…  think about things that you used to think were impossible. Think in new deal proportions.
• Be remarkably courageous about centering racial equity.

 
Dr. Wilson proposed the following call to action: 

• Speak Up. Open Up. Show Up.
• Raise things, put things on the table.
• Be open to learning.
• Bring somebody with you -- someone who can hold you and the room accountable.
• Find a place to get involved where you are NOT in the majority and stick with it for at least a year.

 
For additional information, he recommends you check out the following must-reads! 

• The Broken Heart of America by Water Johnson
• Begin Again:  James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie Glaude
• How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
• Eloquent Rage:  A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper