We Can’t Open Schools, but the Alternative Is Worse for Black Children

Thanks to the digital divide, remote learning threatens to jeopardize a generation of at-risk youth

Photo: FG Trade/Getty Images

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I’m a glass-is-always-half-full kind of guy. Always have been. My whole life, I’ve accepted a challenge just so I could find its solution. When fear rears its head, I acknowledge the feeling but try not to allow it to take root; instead, I keep pushing forward. But right now, there is a fear that I can’t shake. An anxiety that is wrestling my spirit. As parents and politicians debate sending students back to school this fall, I know that under no circumstance should our nation’s children return to the physical classroom.

This has rocked me to my core. Having spent a good part of my professional life advocating for Black boys, it feels hypocritical taking a stance that in many ways places them at even more of a disadvantage than their white counterparts.

With this issue, at least, my glass is looking pretty half-empty.

My dilemma isn’t based on fear but data. I’m thinking about the intergenerational households that are so much more prevalent in non-White communities; as of 2018, 26% of Black Americans live with multiple other generations as opposed to 16% of White Americans. I’m thinking about the Black community that has been hit disproportionately hard by unemployment and is often on the frontlines as part of the essential workforce. While mom and dad leave the house to go to (or find) work, another relative — a grandparent, an uncle — may be called in to assist with childcare. And I’m thinking about recent data, based on a study of 65,000 people in South Korea, suggesting that children over the age of 10 can carry the virus at least as efficiently as adults.

Covid-19’s mortality rate is already higher in the Black community; at every age group, the Brookings Institute recently found, Black Americans die at a rate equal to White patients a decade older. The underlying socioeconomic factors within the Black community — whether worse dietary habits, the environmental factors that have driven disproportionate…