Coronavirus Isn’t Color Blind

COVID-19 has most of us locked down in our homes glued to our screens, either browsing social media or binge-watching Tiger King on Netflix to see what the fuss is all about. We listen to officials on the news constantly, many of them telling us that COVID-19 does not care about our class, religion, or race — the disease infects anybody it can. In theory, that is true; however, what I have seen and heard over the past couple of weeks shows that racial dynamics are not absent during this crisis. The virus may not care who you are, but society still does.

When I go out in Harvard Square, I see multiple individuals on the streets running in and out of Sweetgreen or Felipe’s to deliver food to customers who placed an order online. I also see homeless people outside the Coop unable to afford a home to stay in. Many individuals have to go out on the streets and into crowded locations like public transit to make sure they have enough to feed their families. For some sectors of society, social distancing is a privilege they do not have, leaving them more vulnerable to the virus than others.

Data shows that minorities are disproportionately affected by the virus in numerous parts of the country. As of April 8 in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, 42 out of 59 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 were people who were black or African American. Despite comprising only 27 percent of the county’s population, African Americans in Milwaukee make up 45 percent of the coronavirus cases and 71 percent of the deaths.

In New York City, data from the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development shows that the communities hit hardest by the pandemic are the communities where a higher percentage of the population is black or brown and where many residents work service industry jobs. In Philadelphia, the highest percentages of positive tests are coming from ZIP codes that have a large minority population. In Chicago, African Americans account for about 68 percent of total deaths but only make 30 percent of Chicago’s total population. Finally, right in Harvard’s backyard of Boston, high concentrations of COVID-19 cases are found in neighborhoods home to large black, Latino, and immigrant communities.

So what accounts for this inequity if the virus itself does not care who you are?

A dichotomy between people who must be on the streets and people who can continue their lives via screens during this pandemic is apparent. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “less than one in five black workers and roughly one in six Hispanic workers are able to work from home.” These minority groups are not afforded the privilege of working from home and must put themselves at risk as they perform jobs that keep our society functioning.

Online, my social media feed is full of screenshots of Zoom chats; in many instances, minorities are nowhere to be found. For example, a LinkedIn post made by the Associate Director of Talent Acquisition at Harvard exposes a lack of racial diversity in their “great team.”

We find the same lack of diversity in the professors who lead our now online classes from the safety of their homes. Only 8 percent of the roughly 1,000 tenured faculty at Harvard are underrepresented minorities, which includes people who are black, Latinx, and Native American. This faculty ratio is perhaps more closely representative of the demographics of those who can actually stay at home during this pandemic. Harvard is not immune to the social forces that are landing more minorities in the hospital, and might actually play a role in perpetuating them.

The truth is that many in the majority have the luxury to be shielded from the virus in their private homes. If you are sequestered in your vacation home in Nantucket, your familial home in the suburbs, or your penthouse overlooking the city, stop complaining about boredom and leftover food. Please stop admonishing those on the streets gasping for survival.

I unequivocally encourage everyone who can to stay home; however, I am painfully aware that this is not a possibility for everyone in this country. It is apparent that social distancing is a privilege, that the ability to follow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines is a privilege, and that this pandemic has shed a light, once again, on the widespread inequality in American society. The inequitable distribution of opportunities to minorities at institutions like Harvard is proof of the dynamics that perpetuate this system.

And if nothing changes, minority communities will keep on being patsies to the current and future pandemics in the home of the free, where many are slaves to the biases of the past in our supposedly à la mode twenty-first-century society.

Let this pandemic, which is as capricious as it is implacable, be a catalyst towards an equitable society and an equitable Harvard.

Raman Solanki is an ALM degree candidate at the Harvard University Extension School.