Black-People’s Peculiar Vulnerability. Covid-19 Response. Report from within today’s Africa. April 8th 2020. (original) (raw)
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COVID-19 and the Black and African Diaspora
Covid-19: Urgent Responses, 2020
The virus doesn’t discriminate. It’s the great equalizer. We’re all in this together. These are refrains that can be heard around the world as a chorus of government leaders, health practitioners, celebrities, and social media influencers construct a mainstream discourse around COVID-19. With every corner of the globe experiencing the health and economic effects of the virus, and affluent and powerful people like Tom Hanks and Boris Johnson among those unfortunate enough to contract it, there is certainly an unparalleled shared experience that will be a defining feature of this time in global history. This elusive and volatile virus has also served as a common enemy, inspiring incredible feats of solidarity and collaboration across national, cultural, class, disciplinary, and political boundaries. These are indeed important stories to tell. However, the sociopolitical cleavages of our pre-COVID world are still quite visible through this veil of social change and good will. In fact, there is good reason to believe that these societal distinctions will become further entrenched and increasingly divisive in the time of extreme uncertainty, scarcity, and paranoia that we are currently in. Time, experience and research will tell how these dynamics will ultimately unfold. In the meantime, however, it is important that researchers keep an eye to the ground and begin to ask questions about how COVID-19 is being experienced by different communities – particularly racialized and marginalized groups. When we look closely at the Black and African diaspora in North America , we begin to see how the intersections of factors such as race, migration, economics, and structural environment are creating a unique set of challenges that these communities are both confronting and responding to.
From vaccine to visa apartheid, how anti-Blackness persists in global health
PLOS Global Public Health
Global health evolved from colonial medicine and hence deeply rooted in the white supremacy mindset [1]. Anti-Blackness is an inescapable consequence. Definitions of anti-Blackness revolve around the positioning of Black people, their cultural practices and knowledge as inferior, the conscious and unconscious dehumanization and discrimination of Black bodies, a disdain for Black people and their lived experiences, the disenfranchisement of Black people, but above all, a system of beliefs and practices that erode their humanity. In a recent event held in Nairobi, Kenya, we discussed what anti-Blackness in global health means, why it matters, and what needs to be done to counter anti-Blackness in global health and development [2].
The Racism That Undergirds Global Public Health
CounterPunch, 2021
With Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health, Eugene Richardson takes to task the discipline of epidemiology, and with it, global public health. Utilizing the West Africa Ebola epidemic of 2013-2016 as his canvas, Richardson paints a picture that highlights the racism that undergirds the conventional medical and public health perspectives. As Black Lives Matter is to white supremacy, Epidemic Illusions is to epidemiology. It shows us how global public health is itself fraught with white supremacy and colonial assumptions. It is a book for our times.
How have income inequalities and household discriminations associated withstructural and systemic racism among the Black community in the UK led them tobeing one of the most at-risk groups to COVID-19? , 2021
This essay will evaluate how income inequalities and household discrimination associated withstructural racism have led the Black community in the United Kingdom (UK) to being one ofthe most at-risk groups to COVID-19. Black people have differentially been put at risk, but alsoprejudice and discrimination might operate in hindering optimal healthcare delivery to thiscommunity against the virus.I aim to argue that the divide between biomedicine and culture has failed to provide optimaland safe healthcare to the Black community in the UK against the virus. This paper will invitethe reader to question the existence of race on a biological level, and to recognise it as a socialconstruct that holds significant implications for the perceptible experience and health outcomesof Black individuals and communities. While this essay explores social inequities and injustices generated by structural racism and how it affected Black people’s right to access safe, reliable and optimal healthcare during the pandemic, it will also include general contributions that canbe made by anthropologists to bridge these discriminations. Specifically, an alliance betweenbiomedicine and culture will be highlighted with the hope to encourage novel visions andsolutions that positively assist the health outcomes of Black people in UK healthcare systems.
The South African Pandemic of Racial Capitalism
Monthly Review, 2021
South Africa's COVID-19 responses could well be seen as paradoxical if official statistics were to be confirmed. As of September 2021, the country has recorded over 84,000 COVID-19-related fatalities with fears of a fourth pandemic wave looming. 1 Juxtaposed to the global Western epicenters of the pandemic, such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy, this number seems disproportionately miniscule. Per capita fatalities from COVID-19 are less for South Africa than for all of the G-7 countries except Japan and Canada. However, viewed in the context of the African continent, in which South Africa engages in a colonial-informed discourse emphasizing the country's exceptionalism, what stands out is that the country has the highest number of COVID-19-related fatalities (and the highest number of deaths per capita after Tunisia). Why is it that a country that boasts one of the most sophisticated health systems on the African continent also accounts for the highest number of COVID-19 deaths? The answer is that South Africa's COVID-19 pandemic is one of racial capitalism, entangled with histories of imperial state formation, settler colonialism, and a hierarchical global-neoliberal public policy architecture. Although South African political economist Patrick Bond's analysis concluded that South Africa's post-apartheid settlement shifted from racial to class apartheid, such an observation is in many ways deficient, as the diabolical effects of a hierarchical, racialized political economy persist into the present. The South African political scientist Thiven Reddy argues that, in a colonized society such as South Africa, settled by large numbers of Europeans, the tensions and contradictions emanate primarily from the imposition of racial capitalist relations. 2 Black Studies scholar Charisse Burden-Stelly defines racial capitalism as a hierarchical political economy constituted by war, militarism, im
Colonial Virus COVID-19,and,Racialised,Risk,Narratives,in,South,Africa,Ghana,and,Kenya.pdf
2020
This project sought to identify how racialised assumptions about COVID-19 risk and prevention narratives, particularly the Black immunity myth which appeared to emanate mainly from China and Global North media narratives, impacted on the practical and political risk narratives for preventing infection in Ghana, South Africa and Kenya. Between the end of May and end of July 2020, at the height of the first wave of the global pandemic, this research project remotely gathered and analysed data (mainly from social media) on the influence of this myth on risk narratives for preventing COVID-19 infection in these three African countries.