In a post-panel chat, someone repeated a sentiment that I keep hearing, that this pandemic has been "a great equalizer".

This could not be fucking further from the truth. When I hear someone say it, I know immediately that they have a tremendous amount of unexamined privilege.

What the pandemic has done is to starkly highlight all the inequalities that exist *and deepen them*. Poor people and people of colour (which itself is a Venn diagram with too much overlap) are being infected more than white or affluent people because of systemic inequalities.

Disabled people are unable to access the services and medical care they rely on not just to stay independent, in cases where that was previously possible, but to stay *alive*.

People who do not own cars and rely on public transportation have exponentially increased risk of infection just when running errands. People who don't have the luxury of extra living space can't isolate from sick family members.

Families that don't have the luxury of a stay-at-home parent, or of working from home, are facing situations where they *can't* keep their kids out of group childcare, *can't* homeschool their kids. Not if they want to FEED those same kids.