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USA/Global: Racial Pandemic and Viral Pandemic
AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 8, 2020 (2020-06-08)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
The twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus are colliding, in reality and in metaphor. Anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes in the Atlantic of “the racial pandemic within the viral pandemic.” And the meme of “America's two deadly viruses” has gone viral on Twitter. But while one is a literal (and new) virus and the other an endemic condition that has persisted over centuries, the scope of each spans the range from local communities to the entire planet.
In January this year, Imani Countess and I began an essay series entitled “Beyond Eurocentrism and U.S. Exceptionalism: Starting Points for a Paradigm Shift from Foreign Policy to Global Policy.” We knew that this year would be a critical opportunity for rethinking given the critical presidential election. But, like others, we had no clue that the urgency and the opportunity for rethinking would be heightened so powerfully by the Covid-19 pandemic and then by the wave of anti-racist organizing following the death of George Floyd.
Our latest short commentary below reflects on the convergence of racism and coronavirus and argues that the implications and the solutions required are not limited to the United States, but also global.
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Racial Pandemic and Viral Pandemic: USA Is an Epicenter, but Both Pandemics Are Global
by Imani Countess and William Minter*
* William Minter is the editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin. Imani Countess is an Open Society Fellow focusing on economic inequality. This essay is part of a multipart series that began in January 2020. Thanks to Catherine Sunshine for editing the essays in this series.
The twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus are colliding, in reality and in metaphor. Anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes in the Atlantic of “the racial pandemic within the viral pandemic.” And the meme of “America's two deadly viruses” has gone viral on Twitter. But while one is a literal (and new) virus and the other an endemic condition that has persisted over centuries, the scope of each spans the range from local communities to the entire planet.
The footprint of these intersecting pandemics differs by geography and by the distribution of vulnerability along many lines of inequality. Actions of resistance also vary from place to place and over time. But there are, nonetheless, common threads in the global response, eloquently summed up in an online monologue by Trevor Noah, the South African comedian who has become one of the most incisive media commentators on American society. His comments were entitled “George Floyd and the Dominos of Racial Injustice.”
“You know what's really interesting about what's happening in America rights now is that a lot of people don't seem to realize how dominoes connect, how one piece knocks another piece that knocks another piece, and in the end creates a giant wave.”
Each story seems completely unrelated and yet at the same time I feel that everything that happens in the world connects to something else in some way, shape, or form.
While everyone is facing the battle against coronavirus, Black people in America are still facing racism and coronavirus.”
In June 2020, the United States is an epicenter of both pandemics. The outcomes here will have deep effects not only on this country but around the world. Demonstrators in many countries are mobilizing in solidarity with the US-based Black Lives Matter movement. On June 2, 105 African writers expressed this global solidarity in an open letter:
“As African writers without borders who are connected beyond geography with those who live in the United States of America and other parts of the African diaspora, we state that we condemn the acts of violence on Black people in the United States of America.”
The letter went on to cite the names of those killed most recently, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, followed by a long list of others; it also acknowledged the many unnamed. The writers added:
“We note in dismay that what Malcolm X said in Ghana in 1964 that 'for the twenty million of us in America who are of African descent, it's not an American dream; it's an American nightmare' remains true for 37 million in 2020.”
This global response is not only a matter of empathy, spurred by
the explicit video of George Floyd's murder, which was viewed
worldwide. It is also a recognition that anti-Black racism is
global, not confined to any one country. This racism shows itself
in the treatment of Africans and Afro-descendants in a wide range
of countries, even those without large Black populations, such as
China. It is reflected in the position of the African continent in
the global hierarchy, and in the racial hierarchy within the global
institutions that make up the postwar order.
Around the world, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic within
each country intersects with that country's specific structural
inequalities. In countries that are relatively homogeneous in
racial terms, such as most African countries and many Asian
countries, the most salient division may not be race. But in every
country, sickness and death from the virus, as well as income
losses and medical costs, have inflicted disproportionate suffering
on the most vulnerable. Each society’s response in turn reveals the
weaknesses or strengths of its governmental institutions.
A few countries across the political spectrum have managed the
viral threat with relative success: Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam,
New Zealand, Cuba, Norway, and Senegal, among others. Among those
that have failed most spectacularly are the United States and
Brazil, two countries with vast racial and other social
inequalities linked to a history of conquest and slavery. In the
United States, the Trump administration has refused to respond
constructively to the pandemic even as it undermines global
institutions, such as the World Health Organization, that are
attempting to do so.
But all countries face or soon will face the cumulative impact of
global recession as well as the continued threat of a virus that is
not going away any time soon. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for
effective action to curb the coming apocalypse of climate change.
All of us—in local communities, popular organizations and
movements, national governments, and multilateral institutions—must
think deeply and imaginatively about the destructive institutions
inherited from previous generations. Institutions at all levels
must decide whether to fund state violence or public health and,
more broadly, whether or not to curb private greed for public good.
Corporations and governments must choose whether to destroy the
planet with fossil fuels or speed a transition to renewable energy.
Returning to the previous status quo is not an option. We can
increase the damage by resisting structural change, or we can move
decisively toward new inclusive and sustainable societies.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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