Who’s checkin’ for Black girls and women in the “pandemic within a pandemic”? COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and educational implications

ABSTRACT

While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt widely, for Black communities – particularly in the US and Britain – it was felt more severely. This was compounded by another deadly pandemic that was devastating Black communities and evidenced by the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd. Parallels can be drawn between the deadly COVID-19 virus and the anti-Black systemic racism fuelling the existence of the Black Lives Matter movement – which both disproportionately kill Black people. Therefore, many within these communities are living in a “pandemic within a pandemic”. Still, the focus on Black boys and men continued the parallels between both pandemics, failing to include the plight of Black girls and women who are also enduring the same impact as their Black male counterparts. This paper draws upon previous doctoral research about the educational journeys and experiences of Black British women graduates in light of the educational implications of the “pandemic within a pandemic” for this group. Framed by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (BTP) within the context of Black Feminist Epistemology (BFE), it highlights that Black women and girls have to bear an unfair “burden of care” not only for themselves but for others too. Lastly, it will argue that now more than ever, due to the “pandemic within a pandemic”, as a society we all need to be checkin’ for Black girls and women as they have been silently suffering, navigating and overcoming for far too long.

KEYWORDS:

• Black girls
• Black women
• COVID-19
• Black lives matter
• intersectionality
• anti-Black racism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ‘b' in ‘Black’ has purposely been capitalised throughout the paper (but not in quoted work). This is to acknowledge “Black as both an affiliation and an identity” (Gourley, 1975, p. 181).

2 Spearheaded by a Black woman, Yvonne Field.

3 Bourdieu (1986) defines cultural capital as forms of knowledge, communication and values; social capital as connections and resources which are accrued from membership into certain social networks; and symbolic capital as power and status. Although different from economic capital, these intangible capitals can lead to the gaining of tangible economic capital.

4 The focus on the English education system rather than Britain or the United Kingdom was to uphold a level of consistency in the educational accounts shared by participants because of the differences in education systems between the countries of the UK.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J50001X/1].