Achieving racial equity in Silicon Valley and the nation will take more than protests and some changes in legislative bodies. It’s going to take deep, systemic and hard-fought change.
That’s according to a diverse panel of five experts who discussed race and equity in a virtual forum hosted by San José Spotlight and moderated by Rick Callender, vice president of the California/Hawaii NAACP and a board member of this news organization.
Callender asked the panelists what equity looks like right now and what work needs to happen to reach racial equity.
“Equity is going to require a lot of work,” Zahra Billoo said. “What I’m perplexed by on a daily basis is how entrenched the inequity is.”
Police shootings and brutality against Black people — from George Floyd in Minneapolis in May to Jacob Blake in Wisconsin — have sparked protests across the country. Communities of color are also facing disproportionate numbers of cases and death rates from COVID-19.