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Election emerges as referendum on race relations in America

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An unprecedented convergence of three crises has disproportionately affect people of color — the coronavirus pandemic, joblessness and police brutality.
DETROIT — Every day feels like a raw wound for Omari Barksdale. His sister, Laneeka Barksdale, died of COVID-19 in late March in Detroit — and since then, so have more than 228,000 Americans. Many were Black Americans whose communities were disproportionately devastated by the virus. Barksdale watched with alarm as the toll of the country’s racial injustice mounted. People of color bore the brunt of pandemic-related job losses. Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her Kentucky home, and a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into George Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. The convergence of the pandemic, joblessness and police brutality has forced the U.S. to confront its legacy of systemic racism. For Barksdale and many other Black Americans, it’s turned next week’s presidential election into a referendum on race relations, an opportunity to move toward healing or the potential of a deeper divide. “For many years, we’ve had this commentary about how far we’ve come, but if you look at the landscape and dynamics right now of America, we’re back in the ’50s and ’60s,” said Barksdale, who began leading a team of volunteers canvassing Michigan voters after his sister’s death. “The reasons for protesting are the same now as they were then: for the protection of Black lives, the opportunity for Black lives and the understanding and value of Black lives.” Black voters will be decisive in the outcome. Democrat Joe Biden is relying on strong turnout among Black voters in cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee to tip critical swing states in his direction. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is focusing on appeals to his core base of white voters. “Another four years of Trump would completely set us back and the advancements that we’ve made towards equal rights, human rights and civil rights,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime civil rights leader. “It would take us 20 or 30 years, a generation, to get back what he would cement.

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