Racism is a public health crisis! Black Power in the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The article argues the covid-19 pandemic – including its laws and representations – has produced a context in which normalized crisis has become both abnormal and unacceptable. By examining a series of circulated images, this article highlights how the ordinances of the pandemic brought about a break in the racialized and racist normalcy of Black death and response. In doing so, it argues that racism and colonial violence are essential to white sovereignty and underscores the role of cultural studies in theorizing Black Power and decolonization. It calls for a critical (re)turn to these concepts to solidify a popular praxis for social justice and equity.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• white sovereignty
• colonial violence
• Black Power
• decolonization

Disclosure statement

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

Further information

This Special Issue article has been comprehensively reviewed by the Special Issue editors, Associate Professor Ted Striphas and Professor John Nguyet Erni.

Notes

1 For a discussion on the normalization of crises, see Calvente and Smicker (2019) and Grossberg (2018).

2 For a discussion of colonial and racial performativity, see Bhabha (1994).

3 For a discussion on informal channels of communication, see Hall et al. (1978).

4 For historical examples of parallel communicative networks, see Scott (1990); see also Mills (2007) and Delgado (2009). For examples of contemporary black politics that parallel politics proper, see Iton (2008) and Spence (2013); see also Brock (2020).

5 For national news coverage of both the Wright assault and the Texas park ranger assault, see World News Tonight with David Muir, May 4, 2020, Season 11, Episode 123. Last accessed: July 13, 2020. Available from: https://abc.com/shows/world-news-tonight/episode-guide/2020-05/04-monday-may-4-2020

6 Black and Brown bodies who are exposed more to pollution than their white counterparts in part because of redlining strategies and additional informal and formal segregation laws of the not too distant past are also dying at a faster rate (Villarosa 2020). Black Americans and Latinx/os/as make up a majority of the front-line workers in part because they have been streamlined into particular occupations. Majority minority is the case across healthcare, public transportation, and janitorial services in addition to even policing in cities like New York. Additionally, over ‘60% of warehouse and delivery workers in most cities are people of color’ (NBC Associated Press 2020, p. 1) Simultaneously, Black and Brown workers are also facing higher unemployment rates than their white counterparts with Black and Latinx women facing the greatest risk of unemployment (Gould and Wilson 2020, Kochhar 2020). Indigenous peoples have also faced an exponential death toll and, while tribes received relief, they had to sue to get it (Ackee 2020, Goden 2020).

7 In the 2016 Presidential election, approximately 6.1 million voters were ineligible to vote due to felony disenfranchisement and Black Americans are disenfranchised at a rate four times greater than non-Blacks (Uggen, Larson, and Shannon 2016). Latinas/os are also disproportionately impacted by felony disenfranchisement though generally not greater than Black Americans; however, the proportion varies throughout the states and there is an undercounting of incarcerated Latinos due to the continued reliance of racial categories in prisons rather than ethnicity (Demeo and Ochoa 2003). Additionally, millions of Americans cannot vote for the president because they live in Guam, the Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico unless they move to the mainland (Murriel 2016).

8 In the 11th Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx argues, ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’ (Marx 1888); Barnor Hesse uses this same text to critique Afropessimism in his twitter account, Blues and Abstract Truth; he writes: ‘Lessons from 2020: A footnote to Marx’s 11th thesis on Feuerbach: Afropessimists have hitherto only interpreted the anti-Black world in one way; their point is not to change it’ (Hesse 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa B. Y. Calvente

Lisa B. Y. Calvente is a Communication and Black Studies scholar. Her interests lie in the critical interrogation of anti-black and brown racism and the experiences, representations and theories of the Black Diaspora and coloniality. She is co-editor of Imprints of Revolution: Visual Representations of Resistance (Roman & Littlefield International 2016) and contributor to journals and multi-author volumes in her field