Page 65 - My FlipBook 1

As a resident advisor, I had to again. My senior year ended THE FUNERAL
come back to campus after abruptly, and what I learned was
spring break to pack up and help to never take for granted the DIRECTOR
out the dorm. Most of my friends time you have for people. STEPHEN KEMP
were gone. I cried on my last day, A lot of us come from unstable OWNER, KEMP FUNERAL HOME &
when I moved out, because I was homes. So the difficult part was CREMATION SERVICES
like, I can’t say goodbye to my finding somewhere that’s stable Southfield, Michigan
friends. This is the last time I will so we could finish out the school
AFRICAN-AMERICANS MAKE UP:
ever see this campus as a stu- year. Some of my peers are liv-
14 percent of Michigan’s population
dent. I won’t get this chance ever ing in one-bedroom apartments,
41 percent of its coronavirus-related deaths
and they go into the bathroom
for class. Or people don’t have
Kemp at his funeral
the Internet. Some are homeless home, outside
right now. Detroit, with a
refrigerated truck
I’m starting at JPMorgan in the
storing the remains of
fall. I’ll be in Plano, Texas, with the people waiting for
global finance and business cremation. County
authorities have
management analysis program.
been overwhelmed,
I’m not really concerned about which has delayed
whether I’ll still get hired. I’m the issuance of death
certificates.
wondering, When will I be able
to start? —As told to J. K.
Reeves didn’t get to
say goodbye in FUNERAL DIRECTORS ARE community peo-
person to many of his 2 0 L I V E S ,
friends, shown here ple. We’ve always been that way, especially in the
before the pandemic. 2 0 P E R S P E C T I V E S African-American community. I always say the lead-
ers in the community are the doctor, the lawyer, the
minister, and the funeral director.
IT SEEMS SO impersonal now that we can’t see
each other, we can’t touch one another, we can’t
W H A T hug each other. We can’t even have a church ser-
vice. If we do, there’s only ten people, and they’ve
got to sit apart. You know, I’m afraid that if people
W E ’ R E get used to this, when their loved one dies, they’ll
say, “Oh, just cremate them and we’ll call you later.”
I tell families: Whether it be in your backyard or at
the bar or at the funeral home—anywhere—celebrate
LEARNING their life in some way.

RIGHT NOW THE political environment that we
have—us versus them, and it’s happening to them
so it won’t happen to us—has to change. I mean all
EACH OTHER. A LOT MORE over the world. I’m not trying to be profound here.
I’m just trying to be real. My issues are your issues;
IF WE KNOW OUR NEIGHBOR.” your issues are my issues, especially when it comes
to communicable disease.
YESTERDAY, THERE WAS a big protest in Lan-
sing against Governor Whitmer by people who
said that she’d taken away their freedoms. “Don’t
tread on me” and all this kind of thing. They have
One of my big concerns is the When people are afraid for absolutely necessary to one no conception of my community, our lives in the
potential for the abuse of power their own health and that of their another. A life in which your city. All they know is “I live out here on five acres,
by authoritarians that rises in
family members, we tend not to
physical health is guaranteed
RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS/ZUMA PRESS (KEMP) SOURCES FOR DATA POINTS: CENSUS BUREAU, NAT’L. ASSOC. OF COLLEGES AND EMPLOYERS, PBS, CBS NEWS. Historically, when a nation cisely the sort of imbalance that —As told to Gabrielle Bruney in one house. How do you tell somebody they’ve
and I can’t mow it. You’re stepping on my free-
but every other right has been
parallel with the pandemic
balance that immediate fear
dom!” Meanwhile, our people are dying because
with the long-term harm to our
taken away—that would be
under the guise of responding
they have no choice. There may be ten members
freedoms and rights. That’s pre-
to a global health crisis.
meaningless.
got to self-isolate when there’s multiple family
many states are counting on
augments its arsenal of emer-
right now—that individuals will
gency powers, it’s very hard to
members in one house?
give up the idea that there is a
put them back in the box. So
WE MUST TALK to each other instead of being
there is grave danger that this
realm of privacy that is rightly
so separated, but that’s the political environment
repurposing isn’t short-term,
theirs, that individuals will give
DON’T MISS THE TWENTIETH
we’re in. We don’t even know our own neighbor,
away the most intimate of their
and that the costs are going to
PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT WE’RE
so we can’t detect if he or she is sick. Or you never
LEARNING: THAT OF EUGENIO
be extremely high on funda-
health and biometric data to the
MESA, AN ENVIRONMENTAL-
noticed that they’re not out of the house. I think we
government.
mental rights, like the freedom
SERVICES WORKER AT ONE OF
of movement, speech, assem-
There isn’t a tension between
NEW YORK CITY’S BUSIEST
They’re
rights and security.
bly, participation in elections.
saved if we know our neighbor. —As told to D. H.
HOSPITALS. TURN TO PAGE 4.
65 SUMMER 2020 need to get back to that. A lot more lives will be