As Americans look to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to navigate the country out of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1,000 employees at the CDC have penned a letter documenting “ongoing and recurring acts of racism and discrimination” against Black employees, according to NPR.
The letter reportedly addresses the CDC director Robert Redfield and is dated June 30. Among issues outlined in the letter were the CDC’s handling of the pandemic’s disproportionately adverse effects of Black and Latinx Americans, a lack of diversity among senior leadership, as well as the recent slayings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks. The letter’s authors said that the nationwide calls to address systemic racism in the U.S. have prompted them to raise concerns over the agency’s treatment of people of color.
