COVID-19 Health Disparities Produced by Structural Racism

 

Structural racism can be interlinked to the past history of white colonization of the Native American tribes people. The list of grievances and violence against the Indigenous Americans is long and complicated riddled with years of ancestral disadvantages. One of the many disadvantages from this forceful colonization was the tribes' lack of evolutionary immunity to resist the new deadly diseases brought from overseas. Today's COVID-19 pandemic is another repeat of a disproportionate infection rate amongst these marginalized communities. One example of this was the high rates of Corona Virus within the Navajo community, making their percentage rates higher than largely affected states like New York or New Jersey. Though far away from densely populated cities,  reservations were greatly affected by the global pandemic as a result or lack of quality health resources, preventive disease information and inherited group poverty.

It is not surprising that Hispanics shared the same fate of Native Americans regarding higher infection rates of COVID-19 in comparison to other ethnic and social economic groups. Both these groups share an ethnic majority of Indigenous heritage and have been largely victimized by the effects of structural racism within American capitalist society.  

Job and wealth insecurity are the major contributing factors to Hispanic's suffering and dying from the Corona virus. While their rich, and often white counterparts, safely worked from home, Hispanics were still keeping America running. Though they continued to operate as the essential workers they were and still are, they were not compensated as others were and had a higher risk of getting sick while continuously working. This idea that a Person of Color's hard work matters less than a white or rich person's work is a good example of what Dr. Tricia Rose classifies as part of the racist structural system operating in our society.  

Disease and subsequent deaths are also relational to the wealth gap that separates socio-economic groups and ethnicity. This can be evident in both Native American and Hispanic/Latinx communities. Access to affordable or free health care is limited and the desperate need to provide for a family leaves no time for education or healthier life choices. Most of their localities suffer from food desert situations or do not have the resources to feed their family preventive nutrition that their more well-off counterparts enjoy. This in turn causes high cases of diabetes and obesity, both considered dangerous risk factors against COVID infections.

Structural racism has sometimes placed these two communities at the bottom of society's totem pole. It is no wonder that when COVID hit the hardest they were forgotten and ill-prepared to combat this mighty foe. These two groups have been legitimately marginalized and left unprotected because of their perceived unimportance. This is far from the truth. Listening to Native American's longer history of combating wildfires would have helped us save lives and our much needed harvests. Immigrant Hispanics are an integral hearty part of our nation's production machine and provide us with the sustenance we need to thrive as Americans. In order to survive this human pandemic, we must educate each other and advocate for an equitable chance at surviving. We must leave old practices of wealth and resource divisions and share our knowledge equitably to prepare all of our future generations accordingly.