The Injustice of COVID-19
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2020
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
On the surface, COVID-19 may seem to be a great leveller. Princes and Prime Ministers, musicians and Hollywood A-listers, N.B.A. players, and other prominent people have made headlines for contracting the virus. But looking more closely at the numbers of illnesses and fatalities, we see that the virus—far from an equalizer—exacerbates the inequality of the American health-care system. Minorities, and particularly African-Americans, account for a greatly disproportionate number of deaths in places around the country. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a contributor to The New Yorker and an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, describes to David Remnick the circumstances that give rise to this stratification. Even the basic preventative measures urged on Americans by the C.D.C. are less accessible in black communities. To shelter in place, she points out, “you need to have safe, sound, and comfortable housing . . . [and] only nineteen per cent of black people have the ability to work at home, because of the types of jobs that they are employed in. . . . African-Americans in New York city still must get on the subway to get to work.” Even access to clean water, she points out—essential to frequent hand washing—is not universally available.
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| 0:48.2 | This is the Politics and More podcast. I'm David Remnick. |
| 0:52.9 | On first glance, COVID-19 seems to be indifferent to who we are. |
| 0:58.5 | Princes and prime ministers, musicians and Hollywood A-listers, NBA players, all sorts of prominent |
| 1:04.5 | people, have made headlines for contracting the virus. But when we look at the numbers of illnesses and fatalities, we see something else distinct emerge. |
| 1:15.4 | We see the inequality that's part of the American health care system. |
| 1:19.2 | We find the kinds of disparities that cause worse outcomes in many different ways for people |
| 1:24.8 | who are disadvantaged. |
| 1:27.1 | Kiyanga Yamada Taylor has written for many publications, including the New Yorker, about racial inequality. |
| 1:33.3 | She's an assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton and the author of Race for |
| 1:38.3 | Profit. I reached her last week. |
| 1:41.3 | Now, Professor Taylor, there are some really alarming numbers coming in from all over the |
| 1:46.5 | country which show that minorities, particularly African Americans, are succumbing to COVID-19 |
| 1:52.2 | at absolutely staggering rates. In Louisiana, African-Americans are 33% of the population, |
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