​Headline: “People of Color Bear
the Brunt of Coronavirus… Why?”

And What I Learned About Racism From One Step Away

When I heard this in the news a few weeks ago, I could only think: “Are they living under a rock?” ​ People of color are more likely to live in poverty without adequate healthcare and to have preexisting conditions. And African Americans bear the emotional and physical trauma handed down over the last 400 years. There is no surprise that people of color are being disproportionately lost to this debilitating disease. People at the bottom always pay the highest price. 

I’ve been creating photo essays for the last six years. At the end of 2014, I began focusing on homelessness- I had never even spoken to a homeless person before. I met and photographed people on the streets of Philadelphia during the winter of 2014-2015. It wasn’t long before I met vendors from One Step Away, the publication that advocates for people experiencing homelessness and joblessness. One Step Away provides an opportunity for people to earn a meaningful income so they can take that one step to a more secure life. Over the years I’ve gotten to know the vendors as friends- people I care about and worry about in times like we are facing with the Coronavirus pandemic. I also got to know One Step Away Director Emily Taylor, and learned about her deep dedication to people who are experiencing poverty.

​Vendor Maria is a fixture on Market Street in Philadelphia. After ten years of homelessness, Maria has been selling One Step Away for seven years which enables her to be independent and to educate the public about homelessness and joblessness.

​Working with One Step Away made something painfully clear. African Americans make up a far greater proportion of people experiencing poverty than they do in the overall population, and it is evident in the vendor group- there are more African American vendors. This made me start thinking about racism, something I had never thought about before in any great depth. I grew up during the civil rights movement, but it never felt close to me until now.

I began to create photo essays about racism which were published on my website and in One Step Away to educate the public: “Homeless Narrative” (2016); “National Museum of African American History and Culture: A Vision of Freedom Made Real” (2016); “Hey-Hey; Ho-Ho: White Supremacy Has Got To GO!” (2017); “Racism: Personal Stories” (2017). But it was “Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney: Leadership from the Heart” (2019) that became my call to action.

Mayor Kenney has a palpable concern for the underserved population of his city, mostly African Americans: “People don’t want to hear this but the original sin of America is slavery that I don’t think we ever make up for; and the issue of equity for me is that the black people who are experiencing discord, discomfort, and poverty can trace that back to slavery and no one wants to hear it." (Mayor Kenney)

The result of meeting and writing about Mayor Kenney had a profound impact on me. I began to feel personal shame that the life I have stands on the shoulders of enslaved Africans and their descendants, and I feel the same when seeing so many African Americans experiencing poverty. This led me on a path to discover my own role in perpetuating white supremacy, as unwitting as it might be. I hope these efforts will help me better understand the pernicious nature of racism, and learn how I can contribute to eliminating white supremacy. I’m thankful to One Step Away for helping me see the ongoing injustice directed towards African Americans. Maybe someday the racial iniquities that lead to so much poverty and distress will end.

​Smiling vendors proudly show the ninth anniversary edition (December 2018) which launched One Step Away's new glossy magazine.

​For now I want to do whatever I can to support One Step Away vendors, wonderful people who have become so vulnerable during the Coronavirus pandemic. But alas, One Step Away which first published on December 15, 2009, has become a casualty of Coronavirus, at least temporarily. Vendors will now be at risk of taking that one step back from the security they built selling the magazine. 

And compounding this sadness, Kevin Roberts, the first editor of One Step Away and a true hero for the homeless, was just lost to cancer. Kevin was eulogized in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

https://www.inquirer.com/sports/kevin-roberts-sports-columnist-co-founder-homeless-newspaper-20200417.html

​Kevin Roberts speaks at a One Step Away fundraiser about the great need to eliminate homelessness (2015).

​During the pandemic crisis, the news is filled with voices that help as well as voices that hurt. When I’m overwhelmed by the negative, I’ll think of Kevin, Mayor Kenney, the people of One Step Away, and those who are forgotten in our society.

​Published April 22, 2020