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Neighbors, June 2: the false equivalence of COVID-19 and the egregiousness of George Floyd's death

Sharon McCutcheon (l) and Joseph Ngabo (r)/Unsplash

The COVID-19 pandemic is turning out to be a lot more complicated than we thought.

How to stay safe and how to keep other people safe are complicated by issues of what safety really means: having a job? Being able to open your business?

And in the midst of our grappling with public health information and economic concerns, the tragic death of George Floyd has thrown the dangers of being a person of color in this country into sharp relief.  The people and institutions many people thought they could trust are the same ones many other people knew they couldn't, and now that reality is almost inescapable.

So as 2020 continues, we're left wondering, "What are we supposed to do now?"

Lisa Johnson started her broadcast career anchoring the television news at her high school and spinning country music at KWWK/KOLM Radio in Rochester, Minnesota. She was a reporter and news anchor at KTHI in Fargo, ND (not to mention the host of a children's program called "Lisa's Lane") and a radio reporter and anchor in Moorhead, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fergus Falls.Since 1991, she has hosted Northland Morning on KUMD. One of the best parts of her job includes "paying it forward" by mentoring upcoming journalists and broadcasters on the student news team that helps produce Northland Morning. She also loves introducing the different people she meets in her job to one another, helping to forge new "community connections" and partnerships.Lisa has amassed a book collection weighing over two tons, and she enjoys reading, photography, volunteering with Animal Allies Humane Society and fantasizing about farmland. She goes to bed at 8pm, long before her daughter, two cats, or three dogs.
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