COVID-19 has changed everything, halting life as we know it in its tracks.

To respond to this global pandemic and to adapt to this new way of life,

we're doing things a bit more DIY than usual.

We're not in the studio and we're dispersed all over the country,

but we did want to respond to the urgent need

for information, bringing to you the voices of some of the leading experts to help us grapple

with the new and not so new dimensions of this crisis. It's in this vein that we're calling

the series Under the Black Light to uncover the conditions that pre-existed the virus and the

cracks in our social structure that the virus can now exploit to wreak maximum havoc.

In the coming weeks, we'll be producing live conversations that bring together artists,

activists, thought leaders, scholars, service providers, and others on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.

Each Wednesday will bring you a virtual conversation over Zoom, which will then be released as an episode of intersectionality matters in the following week.

Our hearts will never be the same after hearing a man beg for his life,

calling out in desperation for his dead mother, and finally succumbing to the weight of American

law enforcement. This brazen eight-minute and 46 seconds snuffing out of George Floyd's life embodies the utter expendability of black life.

The outpouring of anger and grief over the vicious murder of George Floyd was heightened by the bloodletting that preceded it.

The police killing of EMT Brianna Taylor shot eight

times in the dead of night by home invaders licensed by a badge to kill with impunity.

Taylor's death was not captured for the world to see, nor was it elevated by the national media.

Her life was taken on March 13th,

but her death was nearly forgotten until activists insisted that we all say her name in the uprisings that swept the nation. All of this, the targeted lethality of white supremacy, coupled and manifested with the disproportionate effects of the virus that's already claimed over 100,000 lives, marks this as the red summer of 2020.

A summer of death and destruction.

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