Covid-19: The Inextricable Link between Health and Social Justice

With all the information out there regarding Covid-19 I feel like this platform can be most useful for (1) reporting on the under-reported stories and (2) point readers to what I find are the best resources amidst the crisis.  

In that spirit. Here is what I’m following. 

Impact in Low Resource Settings: The Washington Post has been a leader in putting these issues out in front. Great article here on impact in developing countries. Coverage of slums, refugee camps, and other informal temporary, but high density settings where predominantly poor people live, has been getting a bit lost in the crush of domestic coverage. Times like these, isolationist folks might ask “Why should we care what is going on in those other countries, we need to pay attention to our own.” It is true we have plenty to worry about here, but as the virus tears through already unstable countries, the ensuing chaos has a way of spreading across borders and affecting us all. In a crisis, desperate refugees are not stopped by national boarders, and we already know viruses and germs are not either. One of my favorite writers, Fareed Zakaria writes about the coming cascade of global crises: “Expect political turmoil, refugees, even revolutions, on a scale we have not seen for decades — not since . . . the Soviet Union collapsed . . . Without some assistance and coordinated effort, countries such as Iraq and Nigeria will explode, which will likely mean the spread of refugees, disease and terrorism beyond their borders.” Full article here.

More than ever, we’re all in this together, whether we admit it or not.

Racial Inequalities: This article relays how hospitals are trying to come up with unbiased decision trees that provide guidance on rationing care amid overwhelming demand. While it is crucial and admirable that medical professionals are doing what they can to eliminate racial bias, the sad truth is, at the individual level they won’t be able to. This is because we already know that underlying health issues, comorbidities such as hypertension, asthma, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. . . already are over represented in the poor and especially communities of color. This is one of those prime examples where making decisions on the microlevel do not account for the upstream, macro trends that put people of color at higher risk for disease in the first place. That comes as a result of structural racism reinforced by racist polices and the racist legacy in the US. Already we are seeing troubling examples of how African American’s are already overrepresented in Covid-19 cases link here and here. NPR provides a story on how long standing biases in care are still cropping up and compounding suffering for communities. While anecdotal evidence can be limited in its broad applications, in my own life, of the 13 people within one “degree” of separation from me who have tested positive for Covid-19, 12 of them are black. The Data Research Center has released research connecting the higher death rate from Covid-19 in New Orleans to the complicating factors of poverty and ethnicity.

The take home: social inequalities are drivers of disease. Preexisting injustices which already contribute to health and wealth disparities—suffering for people of color—will contribute and complicate the spread of Covid-19. The fight against “isms” racism, sexism, ableism, is also a fight for the health and thriving of us all.

Comorbidity: Building off the above point, as we learned in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the other under reported phenomenon right now is the interaction of two or more conditions with Covid-19. In regions of Africa it will be how Covid-19 and Ebola, Covid-19 and malaria, and/or HIV/AIDS interact and complicate the mitigation and treatment picture. Add to this social marginalization and even migration if major areas become unstable due to social unrest, the secondary and tertiary effects will be significant.  

Be kind. Wash your hands. Wear a DIY face mask. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Racial and Anti-LGBTQ Violence in America is REAL despite what the Jussie Smollett case might reveal.

Even though this post refers to the strange Jussie Smollett case unfolding in Chicago, I’ve opted to include a picture from the Equal Justice Initiative’s Lynching Museum in Birmingham Alabama as a reminder, that whether it turns out Smollett did indeed stage his attack, hate crimes and violence against people of color and LGBTQ in the US are real. Below I’m including an excerpt from an article by John McWhorter contributing editor at The Atlantic and professor at Columbia University, making commentary on Smollett’s case.[1]

It's a challenging but thoughtful article. McWhorter has recently done some great, balanced writing on the issue of the Covington Catholic teens at the Lincoln Memorial harassing a Native American activist. On Smollett, McWhorter writes (emphasis added):

"Racial politics today have become a kind of religion in which whites grapple with the original sin of privilege, converts tar questioners of the orthodoxy as ‘problematic’ blasphemers, and everyone looks forward to a judgment day when America “comes to terms” with race. Smollett—if he really did stage the attack—would have been acting out the black-American component in this eschatological configuration, the role of victim as a form of status. We are, within this hierarchy, persecuted prophets, ever attesting to the harm that white racism does to us and pointing to a future context in which our persecutors will be redeemed of the sin of having leveled that harm upon us. We are noble in our suffering. . . Only in an America in which matters of race are not as utterly irredeemable as we are often told could things get to the point that someone would pretend to be tortured in this way, acting oppression rather than suffering it, seeking to play a prophet out of a sense that playing a singer on television is not as glamorous as getting beaten up by white guys. That anyone could feel this way and act on it in the public sphere is, in a twisted way, a kind of privilege, and a sign that we have come further on race than we are often comfortable admitting."

This is nuanced stuff, but for me, I think McWhorter is calling out a very real phenomenon of overplaying the role of victim. While it DOES NOT negate the suffering and oppression marginalized groups experience, it’s exceptional stories like Smollett's that defensive people of privilege point to first when confronted with issues of race or discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. I know as someone who feels called to reach out to white folks, people of privilege, and anti-LGBTQ folks, I'm already anticipating having to counter the way this phenomenon and this case in particular will be overemphasized and used as an example to discredit legitimate examples of violence and oppression.

Not to say McWhorter is wrong, my instinct is that he is right and calling out an over-correction that truly does happen. But these over-corrections are not representative of the overall work. As advocates I believe we need to read his excellent piece and be ready for folks pointing to this incident and this phenomenon as reasons to discredit legitimate voices.

The work continues.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/jussie-smollett-story-shows-rise-victimhood-culture/583099/