Read on Twitter
So I tried to lay out race and the Coronavirus to my students yesterday and figured it might be helpful for some people to hear. It's imperfect but here goes: 1/18
The year is 1950. There are two Black families. Family A lives in Alabama. Family B lives in MS. Racism, lynchings, lack of access to jobs, force the two families to flee to the north to find safety and hopes of opportunity. Family A moves to Newark. Family B moves to Harlem, NY.
A few years later Family A has a daughter named Anne. Family A can't find housing in Newark as they are denied loans and even applications to rent. They're forced to live near a toxic waste site. As a result, Anne develops chronic asthma, needing inhalers for the rest of her life
Family B has five kids - one being John, who was also born around 1960. After struggling with employment, John's father is overcome by drug addiction and disappears. John's mother raises the five kids alone.
Food stamps become a critical method of survival for Family B. To make the food stretch John's mother has to buy food high in sodium, low in nutritional value. The family misses meals throughout John's childhood but he still grows up obese and suffers from hypertension & diabetes
Later in life, John and Anne meet through a friend of a friend. They fall in love. They get married. Anne is a teacher, working so she can retire in five years. John is working odd jobs to make it. They have a modest apartment in The Bronx.
Covid-19 comes.
Anne is home while school is out, but she is struggling to do digital teaching. Their internet is spotty in that all-Black neighborhood. She also struggles to understand this thing called Zoom. Many of her 5th graders live in nearby section 8 housing.
Anne is home while school is out, but she is struggling to do digital teaching. Their internet is spotty in that all-Black neighborhood. She also struggles to understand this thing called Zoom. Many of her 5th graders live in nearby section 8 housing.
Many are unable to get their lessons. Only half of the students turn in work. She's lost contact with 9 of them.
John found a job at an Amazon warehouse a few years back. He doesn't have paid time off and can't miss a day of work. So he gets on a crowded subway train every morning, people cough all around him. He gets back on that train at 5. The same. He can't move without bumping someone.
John develops a cough and doesn't feel quite right for a couple of days, but he doesn't develop a fever right away. Anne seems fine, too. He continues to go to work, because the family has $400 in savings and can't afford a missed paycheck. He's gone to work sicker than this
After five days, Anne develops a fever. She has chills so bad her teeth chattering keeps her up at night. She tried to get a test but the hospital is overloaded. John starts to feel symptoms too. He has a fever so bad he has a hallucination of his mother who passed 20 years ago.
He finally stays home from work. He stops answering his boss' calls. He figures his job is lost.
One morning, he hears and thud and sees that Anne has collapsed. She can't breathe. She's rushed to the hospital. John can't go with her. Those are the new rules.
One morning, he hears and thud and sees that Anne has collapsed. She can't breathe. She's rushed to the hospital. John can't go with her. Those are the new rules.
For two days he doesn't hear from Anne or anyone at the hospital who can tell him where she is. Then he feels it, too. He can't say two words without feeling faint. He calls an ambulance. He's at the hospital too.
Same hospital as his wife. But he doesn't know where she is. He's attached to a ventilator. He's in and out of consciousness. He remembers the doctor telling him that his diabetes makes him higher risk. His wife's asthma makes her high risk too.
They're both in the same building fighting for their lives. Breathing. Barely. Not knowing they'll ever see each other again.
"In Chicago, a city where black people account for less than 30 percent of the population, 70 percent of the people who have died from Covid-19 are black."
"In Michigan, black people account for about 14 percent of the population, but are 35 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases and 40 percent of the deaths."
In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, black people account for 26 percent of the population, nearly half of its coronavirus cases and 81 percent of its deaths."
