Dear Friends,
A week ago, we wrote a draft of a newsletter introducing a series of newsletters about health disparity in the context of Covid-19. But in the last week, the context has evolved dramatically, and our country is literally and figuratively on fire over white supremacy, police brutality, and the value of black lives. Talking about health disparity is as relevant as ever, but we want to take some time to put it in context.
The news reports keep saying protests are over the murder George Floyd. This is like reporting, “Raindrop breaks the Dam.” Before George Floyd was killed by police, even just this month, there was Breonna Taylor was shot by police in her home. It’s been six years since Eric Garner couldn’t breathe. It’s been nearly 30 years since Rodney King was brutally beaten. There are so many names we don’t even know. People of color, and especially black folks, live under the constant threat of state-sanctioned violence. But they’re also dying in record numbers from the pandemic.
In the past month, The Guardian reported that black Americans are dying at three times the rate of white Americans, Navajo Nation has the highest infection rate in the country (though, worth mentioning, also one of the highest testing rates), and not long after these facts entered the public debate, it was actually white middle class Americans protesting to reopen— not working class people.
We know these things are related. This is a nation that, as a whole, devalues black and indigenous life. (And queer lives, poor lives, immigrant lives.) There is, and so rightfully, a wave of fury and discussion over police brutality right now—and we don’t want to detract from it.
But we do want to take a moment to show how the current health crisis is integrally related to the state-sanctioned violence, how health disparities are another arm of oppression. The conversation about “health” is often shallowly located in the arena of diet, exercise, and personal choice— we think these are a drop in the bucket compared to environmental racism, systems of oppression, and police violence. If you think that’s a stretch, this is a good moment to learn more. We recommend starting with “How Racism is Bad for Our Bodies.”
Current events open windows into our health system and its history— and it’s neither simple nor pretty. It takes time to explore why, for instance, even when controlling for factors like wealth and level of education, people of color have higher incidence at at-risk conditions than their white neighbors.
