There has been a great response in the black community from local churches and volunteers with testing sites in several parts of the city. As a result these folks make up only 8 percent of the coronavirus cases here.
But according to Channel 9 News, Hispanics are 68 percent of local cases, even though there are fewer Hispanics than black or white.
I think the reasons are obvious. Hispanics may be fearful of being deported. If undocumented, they didn't qualify for unemployment or the $1,200 bonus that most of us got. As a result many had no choice but to continue working if the jobs were available. In some cases multi family groups are living in single family houses. They are a tight group of people who usually live in close proximity to others from their countries. All these factors has led to an unusually high percentage of the virus in their communities.
Regardless what your feelings are about immigration, there needs to be a concerted effort to reach out to the Hispanics in our city. When I look into the dark brown eyes of a 4 or 5 year old Hispanic child I see a beautiful child at great risk or a serious illness or even death through no fault of her own.
Where is the news coverage of the lack of concern for these people? Where are the pastors of Chattanooga who have been so active in setting up test sites for other citizens?
We must take action now to assist this overlooked part of our people.
This is primarily an inner city problem. If you children attend inner city schools, you know that most of the schools will have a fair number of Hispanic children there. Please don't wait until the school year starts to point out that they didn't get the same testing as everybody else. Let's all go colorblind and test everybody now. No police, no ICE agents, no problems.
Harry Presley