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The #COVID19 pandemic painfully illustrates the ways in which race denotes *process* (verb), not *people* (noun).
TL;DR: Race *is* what race *does*. Racial logic is covert. To detect it, we must interpret race with the same fluidity used in its strategic deployment
TL;DR: Race *is* what race *does*. Racial logic is covert. To detect it, we must interpret race with the same fluidity used in its strategic deployment
To begin, that race implicates process, not people, is not new. As one of my doctoral supervisors Kendall Thomas writes: âwe are âracedâ through a constellation of practices that construct and control racial subjectivities.â So how does #COVID19 illustrate these racial processes?
Trump has insisted on labelling #COVID19 the âChinese Virusâ. Why? To scapegoat a racial other and distract from his administrationâs mismanagement. How? By not only linking Chinese people to #COVID19, but racializing the (âChineseâ) virus itself. That racialization is process. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1240243188708839424
And before anyone repeats Trumpâs âwe always racialize diseaseâ rhetoricâpause to critically reflect.
Racism thrives on plausible deniability. And we preserve that deniability when we limit our analysis to textual explanation, rather than subtextual motivation. https://twitter.com/andraydomise/status/1240546546854305793
Racism thrives on plausible deniability. And we preserve that deniability when we limit our analysis to textual explanation, rather than subtextual motivation. https://twitter.com/andraydomise/status/1240546546854305793
Indeed, Trump often called #COVID19 the âChinese Virusâ, until he truncated it to a stateless âVirusâ when tweeting about protecting Asian Americans. Why drop the âChineseâ qualifier, if not because, as is clear, Trump is spitting on the fire he himself set ablaze. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1242202290393677829
This racial process has consequences. For example, a man in Texas stabbed an Asian-American family âbecause he thought the family was Chinese, and infecting people with the coronavirus.â Racism, thus, transformed a *health* fear into a *race* fear. https://globalnews.ca/news/6769462/asian-family-attacked-coronavirus-hate-crime/
Also, this racial process is intentional. A white manâs incompetence has been tactically replaced with Asian-Americansâ collective burden. He deployed racial logic to reallocate blame. He is storytelling. And, due to racism, race stories captivate. Process. https://www.salon.com/2020/03/20/donald-trump-crossed-out-coronavirus-and-replaced-it-with-chinese-virus-before-speaking-to-press/
The disparate impact of #COVID19, likewise, illustrates the process of race. As @nhannahjones explains, this *health* crisis is, more specifically, a *race* crisisâone that overwhelmingly and disparately harms Black people. https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1247176506452905986
Indeed, @DrIbram explains how it is critical to obtain racial data on #COVID19. But doesnât this show how race is about people, not process? No. It shows how we make (process)âand remake (process)âthe races we collectively imagine. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-exposing-our-racial-divides/609526/
Black people are disproportionately impacted by #COVID19 because of the string of intentional social, political, and economic policiesâ*processes*âthat guarantee their vulnerability to the pandemic. In other words, Black people were *made* at risk. https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1247590702667743237
Further, this disproportionate impact *remakes* Black people; it profiles them as threats, not only through violent crime, but further, as agents of infection. These are, fundamentally, *fluid* processes, not *static* people. https://twitter.com/move_over/status/1247523161316438016
Cultural norms surrounding #COVID19 mitigation, too, reflect racial processes. Oneâs ability to socially distance is informed by various vectors of privilege. In turn, those less capable of socially distancing are cast as negligent, or worse, criminals. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/opinion/coronavirus-social-distancing.html
That racial processes undermine Black participation in #COVID19 mitigation is not speculation. Black men are all too familiar with the ways in which our aestheticâexacerbated by maskingâfeeds public narratives of criminality. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/05/opinion/why-i-dont-feel-safe-wearing-face-mask/
As such, #COVID19 unveils racial incoherence. A Black man is a criminal, whether with a mask (robber), or without (infector). This incoherence arises because we arenât *really* discussing stable Black people; we are discussing fluid racial processes that relentlessly vilify them.
This discussion isnât playing the race card, as some claim 
Rather, itâs illustrating how, to the contrary, #COVID19 is, quite clearly, a racial moment, and specifically, a Black moment. The evidence is mounting, and yet, some still insist on erasing race as a pivotal factor. https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/1247296091223199749
Rather, itâs illustrating how, to the contrary, #COVID19 is, quite clearly, a racial moment, and specifically, a Black moment. The evidence is mounting, and yet, some still insist on erasing race as a pivotal factor. https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/1247296091223199749
Worse, others want it both ways; raising race when it advances racism (blaming Chinese people), yet rejecting race when it undermines racism (resisting race data collection). This is the incoherence of racial logicâor rather, its intentional illogic that sustains white supremacy. https://twitter.com/dineshdsouza/status/1246494464396402689
Given the above, two points:
First, confront those who deny the persisting role race plays in shaping our world. Race is a malleable process that reifies hierarchy. And, without careful scrutiny, that malleability licences the deployment of racism to perniciousâeven fatalâends.
First, confront those who deny the persisting role race plays in shaping our world. Race is a malleable process that reifies hierarchy. And, without careful scrutiny, that malleability licences the deployment of racism to perniciousâeven fatalâends.
Second, monitor your sympathies. Causes have constituents. And if the causes you championâif the things you care most aboutâsystematically disregard racialized communities, interrogate the extent to which those sympathies have been filtered through the sieve of white supremacy. https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1247854526792699904
#COVID19 threatens everyone. But its most tangible consequences are unevenly distributed, and specifically, disproportionately affect Black people. A âcolourblindâ response is not fair, or evidence-based; itâs a form of racial injustice, and a perpetuation of systemic racism.
