Racial Equity, COVID-19, and Public Policy: The Triple Pandemic focuses on the health, economic, and justice impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial equity. The book does not simply document the problems made worse by the pandemic, but it provides historical context for issues that rose to the surface in new ways, the existing inequities revealed during COVID-19, as well as policy responses to those issues. The volume is distinguished in its focus on the implications for racial equity through an examination of both existing public policy and new ideas for change. The chapters in this volume demonstrate the ways in which this period of American history and politics is unique, most notably in the convergence of major threats to public health, economic livelihood, and access to justice. This “triple pandemic” will be felt in the coming years and will continue to unfold, depending upon the adequacy of the contemporary response. This edited volume is designed to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of issues including policing, housing, business, disaster response, education, immigration, vaccine distribution, reentry of justice-involved individuals, and the responses to public protests—all with a unifying focus on racial inequities and social justice concerns that elevated these issues to broader public attention and political response. This coalescing emphasis on public policy as both a cause and effect to address these issues makes the book a unique contribution to the public policy literature. This book responds to audiences seeking a better understanding of the events that occurred, the conditions that set the stage for their eruption into wider public view, and what might be done to prevent social and racial inequities in the future.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. “That's just how they are” or “there's really no excuse”: we've all heard those not so subtle digs. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. We haven't known how much the country will gain by properly valuing homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts in Black neighborhoods. And we need to know. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Bringing his own personal story of growing up in Black-majority Wilkinsburg, Perry also spotlights five others where he has deep connections: Detroit, Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He provides an intimate look at the assets that should be of greater value to residents—and that can be if they demand it. Perry provides a new means of determining the value of Black communities. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives of the past and present, it gives fresh insights on the historical effects of racism and provides a new value paradigm to limit them in the future. Know Your Price demonstrates the worth of Black people's intrinsic personal strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. These assets are a means of empowerment and, as Perry argues in this provocative and very personal book, are what we need to know and understand to build Black prosperity.

This volume offers a critical, cross-disciplinary, and international overview of emerging scholarship addressing the dynamic relationship between race and markets. Chapters are engaging and accessible, with timely and thought-provoking insights that different audiences can engage with and learn from. Each chapter provides a unique journey into a specific marketplace setting and its sociopolitical particularities including, among others, corner stores in the United States, whitening cream in Nigeria and India, video blogs in Great Britain, and hospitals in France. By providing a cohesive collection of cutting-edge work, Race in the Marketplace contributes to the creation of a robust stream of research that directly informs critical scholarship, business practices, activism, and public policy in promoting racial equity.

What can we learn from successes and failures in the pursuit of racial justice in the UK and elsewhere in the Global North? A dominant view of racial justice has long been linked to a ‘cruel optimism’ which normalises social and political outcomes that sustain racial injustice, despite successive governments wielding the means to address it. Researchers, activists and minoritised groups continually identify the drivers of these outcomes, but have grown accustomed to persevering despite strong resistance to change. Looking at numerous examples across anti-racist movements and key developments in nationhood/nationalism, institutional racism, migration, white supremacy and the disparities of COVID-19, Nasar Meer argues for the need to move on from perpetual crisis in racial justice to a turning point that might herald a change to deep-seated systems of racism.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

This groundbreaking volume is the first to concentrate specifically on the experiences, challenges, and triumphs of immigrant-origin community college students. Drawing on data from the Research on Immigrants in Community College Study (RICC), chapters highlight the unique needs of these students, the role of classrooms and campus settings, out-of-class time spent on campus, the importance of relationships, expectations versus outcomes, and key recommendations for policy and practice. The text integrates an array of important topics, including developmental challenges, language learning, the undocumented student experience, microaggressions, counseling center use, and academic engagement. Above all, this book looks at what community colleges can do to better help this growing population of new Americans succeed. “This book is a gift of hope and possibility to all of us who know that community colleges are the pathway to educational opportunity and equity for the students who, in the not too distant future, will be the face of America.” —Estela Mara Bensimon, director of the Center for Urban Education, USC Rossier School of Education “Offers detailed analysis and concrete recommendations on how community colleges could better serve students from immigrant backgrounds. It is a must-read for policymakers and practitioners in the field.” —Randy Capps, Migration Policy Institute Contributors: Cynthia M. Alcantar, Stacey Alicea, Saskias Casanova, Janet Cerda, Natacha Cesar-Davis, Monique Corral, Tasha Darbes, Sandra I. Dias, Edwin Hernández, Heather Herrera, Juliana Karras Jean-Gilles, Dalal Katsiaficas, Guadalupe López-Hernández, Margary Martin, Alfredo Novoa, Olivia Osei-Twumasi, McKenna Parnes, Sarah Schwartz, Sukhmani Singh, Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, Carola Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Robert Teranishi