Two days ago, the paper got an email from bronxtenantsunited@gmail.com, detailing a day of action going on today, April 1st, at the corner of Willis Avenue and East 139th Street in the Bronx. At 2pm, the tenants in the South Bronx will converge to demand rent freezes as well as better living conditions during this international pandemic.
Throughout this whole ordeal, I’ve been shocked by how much casual indifference there has by on the parts of so many to this crisis based on the belief that it “only” affects other people. Many have expressed the desire to continue about their daily lives or semester without interruption, even if that endangers the lives of many in their communities. The navel-gazing is not exclusive to Gen Z and millennials, as many on twitter and the in the media have suggest. Brueghel’s and Auden’s works are testaments that these attitudes have been common throughout history, whether it be eighty or five hundred years ago.
Well ladies and gentlemen, and those who do not identify with either gender, we’ve reached the apex of hell. The rest of the semester will be conducted from the privacy and loneliness of our respective homes. I’m not happy about it, you’re probably not happy about it, but nonetheless this is the situation we’ve found ourselves in. My heart truly goes out to the seniors, both those in high school and those at Fordham who are really getting screwed over by this. We love and appreciate you, and we wish you the best. That being said, we’ve got to get to the meat of the issue.
I don’t think anyone is able to put into words exactly how they feel, because they’ve never felt exactly this way before. But I’m going to do my best. Because I have to.
As the coronavirus has spread around the globe into a major pandemic, so too has a global panic surrounding the potential ramifications of the virus, from personal implications to the deleterious effects it could have on the economy. Goldman Sachs has projected zero growth for the American economy in the second quarter and, until recently, Chinese manufacturing was at a near-standstill. Economic effects are being felt especially hard in the manufacturing, travel, and services sectors.
Recently, the phrase ‘history repeats itself’ has become all the more powerful; fascism has returned with new hatred, WWIII looms ominously on the horizon, the Jonas Brothers are back together, and we are currently facing a new epidemic.
