Taylor Run flows along the Chinquapin Park trail near T.C. Williams High School. It drains into larger bodies of water, including the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.

Only three hours after the end of the Trump boat parade on the Potomac River, the colorful, historic streets of Old Town are already again packed with diverse, lively faces. Vendors sit in tents, their clothes, paintings, and prints advertised for sale telling multicultural narratives. The sun reflects off of the upstairs windows of the two-story brick buildings which adorn signs proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” and American flags from their windows. The majority of people are wearing masks, and with some exceptions, maintaining social distancing as much as feasible. A few eat at the recently opened outdoor seating areas of local restaurants, pulling their masks beneath their noses and chatting casually amongst themselves. There are only glints of remaining paraphernalia from the event- a boy passing by with a confederate flag bandana wrapped tightly on his mouth and nose, a leather-clad, bearded man standing by his Harley Davidson, painted with stickers with such messages as “Don’t tread on me,” and “CoronaHoax.” A few paces away, a police officer smiles and greets the people walking by the stationery shop he guards, gun in holster. A single police car sits only a few paces away on King Street. Old Town is a few, almost invisible, steps away from normal.

I was handed a survey in one of my morning classes. Its title was “How Comfortable Am I?” and it asked the survey-taker about how comfortable they would be in social situations with supposedly differing people; people such as math tutors or exotic dancers.

America draws strength from its cultural diversity. Diversity has made our nation a more vibrant and open society, ablaze in ideas, perspectives, and innovations. But the full potential of our diverse, multicultural society cannot be realized until all Americans, including racial and ethnic minorities, gain access to quality health care that meets their needs. According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, racial and ethnic minorities have less access to mental health services than do Whites. They are also less likely to receive the care they need and if and when they do get it, it is more likely to be poor in quality. (DHHS, 1999) The American Psychiatric Association identified in 2015 that, among adults with any mental illness, 48% of Whites received mental health services, compared to 31% of Blacks and Hispanics, and 22% of Asians. (APA, 2017) Another major conclusion of the Supplement, Mental Health: A report of the Surgeon General, included that racial and ethnic minorities bear a greater burden from unmet mental health needs and thus suffer a greater loss to their overall health and productivity. While studies have not addressed this disability burden for minorities relative to Whites, key findings do show that most minority groups are less likely than Whites to use services, and they receive poorer quality mental health care, despite having similar community rates of mental disorders. (APA, 2011) Similar prevalence, combined with lower utilization and poorer quality of care, means that minority communities have a higher proportion of individuals with unmet mental health needs.

The birds in my yard love taco shells. And the crusts off of my brother’s toast. And Cheetos. But just like me, they do not really care for bell pepper. How do I know this? I know this because these are just a sampling of the food waste we put in our family’s compost pile, and from our kitchen window, we can see what discarded food excites the local wildlife. It takes bird watching to a new level, but that is not why we do it.