Clear and Present Disparities exist all through Black America that we can blame for why COVID-19 has its foot so aggressively on our necks. BY PARIS GILES
T
he saying goes that when white America catches a cold, Black America catches the flu. Or is it when white America catches the flu, Black America gets pneumonia? Either way, the point is that centuries of institutional racism have bred a system that has left our community weak against environmental threats. Whether they come in economic form – Black unemployment consistently hovers well above the national average – or, as is the case today, a global pandemic. A pattern started to emerge as we continued to monitor the behavior of this novel coronavirus. Black people were getting seriously sick and dying from COVID-19 at an alarmingly higher rate than other groups. The Associated Press recently analyzed the data available from state and local governments, and it shows that nearly one-third of those who have died in the U.S. are Black, in a country where only 13% of its residents are. In Michigan, 41% of those who’ve died are Black; African Americans make up only 14% of our state’s population. It would seem that to be Black in America is itself a preexisting condition. This pandemic has exposed cracks in America’s foundation that we knew were there, but in early April, Donald Trump stood in front of reporters and acknowledged the disparity but said he doesn’t understand why and that this is a problem for which we need to “find the reasons.” We can save you the time of putting together a task force, Mr. President. Because racism. Because our ability to fight off any illness or disease depends largely on social determinants like health care, our access to fresh food, our physical environment and, of course, wealth – all factors impinged upon by structural racism. PARIS GILES IS BLAC DETROIT’S SENIOR EDITOR.
22 BLAC • MAY 2020 • BLACdetroit.com
