By Pat Bryant
Some of us are seriously depressed. The world we knew is seriously compromised if not collapsed. The captains of industry and government don’t seem to know or care about our situations. More than 60 million people are unemployed. About half particularly gig workers -but many others- have no income, rental and mortgage assistance, or healthcare.
But fear not. We will overcome. God has not forsaken us. He knows and He cares. He has put his loving arms of protection around us. And we must work and fight with God. For 401 years African Americans prayed and fought to end slavery and its afterlife. God continues to intervene for us. But like Israel when we crossed our Red Sea, and made some progress, and we got distracted.
Too often we chose drunkenness and pleasure rather than community uplift. Our community needs economic development, clean and safe housing, jobs with living wages including vacation, paid sick leave, and health benefits.
BRAVE NEW WORLD
Look around. We have new opportunities due to universal concern for COVID and the systemic stress on our healthcare system. Additionally, the economic downturn with more than 60 million out of work coupled with cop killings, and let’s not forget a climate crisis creates a sense of chaos. In my 74 years I have never seen such economic collapse in the U S. This has created a new sense of racial solidarity. Blacks and whites marching together in the streets of America. Trump and the billionaires are scared to death at the sight of this.
Please know that Trump and the billionaires cannot safely reopen the economy. Look at Florida and Texas, fruits of corporate greed, racism and ignorance. Businesses and Trump forced the economy to reopen before it was safe. More people are getting sick now. Coronavirus has no respect of race, sex, class or business interests. People will stop going out to work while it is dangerous.
We have to stay home and take care of the people getting evicted and foreclosed upon. We must feed the hungry. The homeless need our help. Love and care will lift us. We must fight the billionaires for healthcare, housing and other social needs. Keep our schools closed until it is safe. This must be done.
With God, the rock of ages on our side, we can free ourselves. Be not afraid of the future. The merchants of greed are falling on their swords. We must unite and save ourselves. We have to lay down racism, self-hate and destruction the byproducts of greed and corruption.
Don’t be depressed.
We will save us. And, ironically we will be saved by COVID as it forces people to stay home and our nation to bail out the unemployed, hungry, homeless, and sick.
This can be done. It has been done in Europe and the Caribbean.
You stay home and protect yourself.
Peace.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu