A Pandemic Within a Pandemic: COVID-19 Spreads Within Racism

By Rev. Dr. Tim Ahrens

A pandemic is “a disease prevalent over a whole country or the world.” Racism is “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.” Racism is a pandemic in the United States of America. It is a social disease that is prevalent across our entire nation, touching all 50 states.

Like the plague or AIDS or COVID-19, Racism has been with us for over 400 years. Racism is imbedded in the cellular structure of white Americans since its arrival on our shores in August 1619 in its nascent viral form of white men selling “20 and odd Negroes” from the slave ship White Lion to colonists at Point Comfort, Virginia.

Like every pandemic, Racism started small.

Primarily found in the southern states on plantations with slaves doing the agricultural work for White families, Racism could not be contained. The pandemic of Racism spread like wildfire across the Americas. Books were written, myths created and lies were established as truths to undergird and validate the disease. Little was done to stop its spread. This pandemic found receptors in every hamlet, town and city across our land. It spread from south to north, from east to west. In its most virulent form, this pandemic led White people to beat, cheat, lynch and assassinate African-Americans who seemed strong and healthy. The Racism virus caused White people to crush Black and Brown people from embryo to grave. When in full fevered form, it would bring the slaughter of hundreds of black children, women and men in the most heinous and hateful ways.

Racism is a powerful, dreadful and evil disease. All White people are carriers of Racism. Those who have carried the worst form of Racism for the most generations, cannot see it. They cannot acknowledge they are sick. They cannot name Racism’s existence within their bodies, their families and their communities. They never seek treatment. Their toxic behaviors spread the disease to the next generation. They act out in conscious and subconscious ways against people of color to destroy them individually and collectively.

Those who carry less invasive forms of the disease refer to others as “the bad apples” and “those people.” They point to the problems “on the left and on the right” in other White, Black and Brown people. They live in denial. They use the language of judgment. But, for the most part, they cannot see they are carriers and spreaders of the disease. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote of these “moderate” carriers of Racism in 1963:

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, King went on to criticize white moderates. He said that a white moderate is someone “who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” Such a person is, according to King, someone “who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”

Again, all white people are carriers of Racism in this Pandemic. Through 400 years, we have tested and tried many vaccines to inoculate people from the social virus of Racism. I have found only a few treatments work.

First, a White Person and anyone else afflicted with Racism must admit that they have the disease. Nothing can be done to stop the pandemic of Racism until we admit that it is real and we are carriers of the virus. As a white person, I have to admit that I am a Racist before I can begin to be treated for the disease. So, here I go. I am a racist. I have been trying – one-day-at-a-time – to recover from Racism for the last 52 years of my life. Some days are better than others. Every day, I wake and confess to God my sins from the affliction of this disease. I seek God’s forgiveness and grace. It happens one-dayat-a-time.

Second, meaningful and loving relationships must form between the Racist and men, women and children of color who are affected every day by Racism. The vaccine of meaningful and loving relationships matters most of all. I cannot care for someone I do not seek to know. I cannot love in theory. By the way, this part of ending the pandemic goes two ways. If I reach out to you and you are not honest and genuine, the vaccine fails. It fails each of us in different ways. But it fails.

Third, we need Repentance and Reparations for 400 years of the spread of this pandemic of Racism. We need a national season of Repentance. White people and anyone who has benefited from privileges afforded white America must confess our sins against every Black and Brown person who has been and still is affected by Racism. That would be anyone with DNA that connects them to the original sin of America.

After Repentance comes Reparations. We need to right this wrong beginning now. We need free pre-natal care for all women of color carrying babies. We need free health care which works for every minority person and family in America. We need Head Start infused with billions of new dollars and the best teachers to raise this new generation with the best possible educational start. We need public education from grades K-12 that gives every Black and Brown child an equal opportunity to rise and thrive throughout their formative years. We need college and technical trade schools completely paid for all people of color – of all ages. We need jobs that pay a fair, working wage. We need housing for all people as a basic human right. We need to change the criminal justice system. We need police, judges, and prisons which reflect the end of the scourge of Racism. We need to release hundreds of thousands of prisoners – especially Black men – who have been imprisoned unjustly and are no threat at all to our society. Rather, they are a great asset we need to celebrate. We need to level the political playing field and get rid of corporate campaign dollars which support racist candidates and thus keep the pandemic alive in systems of inequality. This will hopefully cost our nation hundreds of trillions of dollars over generations to come. But, in order to end Racism, we have to invest in reversing the Pandemic.

I said this was a Pandemic within a Pandemic. The pandemic of COVID-19 continues to devastate this nation. It particularly devastates families and communities of color. If we address our first and longest spreading pandemic of Racism, that will go a long way toward changing behaviors and shifting the devastation of COVID-19. Let us end the pandemic of Racism now. As we do this, we will demonstrate that we are together. Together, we can do anything – even terminate the Coronavirus COVID-19.

Rev. Dr. Tim Ahrens is the Senior Minister of First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in downtown Columbus. A church known for its witness to social justice since its birth as an abolitionist congregation in 1852. Rev. Ahrens is the fifth consecutive senior minister from Yale Divinity School and is a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ.