By Jenny Niklaus, Chief Impact Officer (Class XXIV)
Last Friday I dropped off a prescription and groceries with my Mom. She has asthma so I am doing all her errands in an attempt to save her from contracting COVID-19. As we stood in her garage, 6-feet apart, she said “I miss you” and I promptly burst into tears. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs. It is not the first time I have cried like this since the shelter in place has begun. I did it the other night when I was walking my dog and realized how quiet downtown San Jose has become. No airplanes, no light rail. These sounds have been the background noise of my life since I moved into the Japantown area in 2007. I was overwhelmed by the quiet and all it represented: people not working and not traveling to work. The fear and anxiety were like a punch in the gut – a deep expression of grief and helplessness.
I see this grief bubbling in all my interactions. The friend who broke out in hives; the sadness and sheer exhaustion in people’s eyes on Zoom calls; the spontaneous tears. We are dealing with not just the personal losses of not being able to see, touch and love our family and friends but also in being confronted with the massive community losses of economic security, housing, and lives. For many of us, this grief is wrapped in a layer of absolute fury at the system that has been perpetuating inequities for years, the system we have been railing against, demanding justice from, that is now laid bare for all to see. Those of us that have been in the work have known it and the rage is exacerbated by those that are just now “seeing” it. Welcome, we need your help.
Our communities of color and those that are poor are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. This virus does not discriminate and it has landed into communities across the country rife with historical systematic and structural inequities. What that means is that those that are black and brown, immigrants, poor will experience the impact of this virus in a disproportionate way. For years we have not dealt with the growing economic divide between the haves and have nots, allowing that gap to widen and not addressing the root causes of these issues. We are now seeing the full impact of that model, and ignoring the warnings, expressed through COVID-19.
My anxiety is not only for the present but also for the future. It is like a never-ending hum of anxiety, loss, and fear for what is to come. Our nonprofits, artists, contract and service workers, small businesses, and restaurants will take years to recover from this. The immediate response we are seeing is amazing and critical AND we must be in it for the long haul. We need to commit to funding and support for the next several years so that we do not lose the communities and groups that service, educate, inspire, feed, enrich and care for our community.
We also need to recognize the growing mental health crisis that has not fully manifested itself in those that have overnight lost income, the front- line health care and social service workers who are working without all the PPE they need and all those working around the clock to stave off this crisis. The grief is real, delayed and/or pushed aside as many of us are not immediately able to take in the scope of what we have lost and will lose in the months ahead. There just isn’t time to take in the full measure as we rush and move to save what we can and get what is needed to those most impacted by the pandemic.
I have no easy answers, no sure-fire way to ensure that people get what they need and we don’t sink under the weight of all that is happening now and will come. I do feel blessed to be in community with amazing, innovative, steadfast, reasonable, scientifically driven, bad-ass leaders that are making good decisions and getting it done. And I have some hopes for what we will do with the learnings from this crisis moving forward:
I hope we will:
- Center equity and finally begin to address the root causes that lead to systematic injustice.
- Plan now for the mental health needs of front- line providers to best meet those needs as we move more deeply into the response to and recovery from this pandemic.
- Recognize how critical the work of nonprofits is to the overall health of our community and ensure that they remain healthy for years to come.
- Know deeply how essential art and artists are to what creates a rich and thriving space to live in and double down on our commitment to support art organizations and artists as the storytellers of our community.
- Learn from the innovations that COVID-19 has forced upon us and consider how those innovations can be iterated and scaled.
- Develop and maintain the critical networks of leaders that have stepped up to solve problems so that those networks can be engaged as thought leaders, advocates, and allies moving forward.
- More deeply understand the inter-connection we all have with each other and work to lessen the divides we have created through the creation of policies and processes that center equity first.
Lastly, I would say that my hope is for Silicon Valley Strong to be more than just an essential fund for support during this unprecedented time. I would like the phrase Silicon Valley Strong to become a symbol for the community we wish to create and become from the aftermath of COVID-19. This is our opportunity.
