The Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has created hardships in nearly every sector of society, but especially for black families and those who are financially fragile. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists African-Americans or minorities who, due to long-standing systemic health and social inequalities, are at an increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. Poverty due to lower wage jobs, lack of access to affordable health care used to detect and prevent illness, discrimination from various systems meant to protect well-being and provide housing, and where we live which determines which hospitals we get our care from and which schools our children attend.
The U.S. is in various stages of shut-down, openings, and re-openings because the country isn’t functioning cohesively. Each state and each county is in the middle of their own stage of opening or re-opening. Those in positions of power want “heroes” to go back to work and send your children back to school. Go back to places where there is a lack of standard mask usage, back to jobs that do not provide affordable healthcare and benefits, and back to schools and day care centers in a time where COVID-19 is attacking children who were once considered largely immune or unaffected.
Black families are in the position of choosing between the survival of their families and the life of each family member. When one is infected, everyone under that roof will possibly become infected because blacks with lower-incomes are less likely to afford to isolate in a different location than family. To deny going to work will mostly like result in the loss of that job. Without a job, black families face evictions from their landlords. Black families in poverty cannot afford to keep children at home and home-school them. Lower-income families are less likely to have reliable and stable internet and computer access to allow children to stay home and attend virtual classes. A cell phone is not a computer.
There are many predictions regarding the ways COVID-19 will progress or retreat in upcoming months. One thing I know for sure is that black people will survive this as we’ve done through every pandemic, epidemic, hurricane, flood, and slave system we as black society has had to fight through. Whatever decision you make, please keep yourself and your family safe as much as possible.