Abstract
Racial capitalism is a fundamental cause of the racial and socioeconomic inequities within the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in the United States. The overrepresentation of Black death reported in Detroit, Michigan is a case study for this argument. Racism and capitalism mutually construct harmful social conditions that fundamentally shape COVID-19 disease inequities because they (a) shape multiple diseases that interact with COVID-19 to influence poor health outcomes; (b) affect disease outcomes through increasing multiple risk factors for poor, people of color, including racial residential segregation, homelessness, and medical bias; (c) shape access to flexible resources, such as medical knowledge and freedom, which can be used to minimize both risks and the consequences of disease; and (d) replicate historical patterns of inequities within pandemics, despite newer intervening mechanisms thought to ameliorate health consequences. Interventions should address social inequality to achieve health equity across pandemics.
Highlights
Racial capitalism is a fundamental cause of disease in the world and will be a root cause of the racial and socioeconomic inequities in COVID-19 that we will be left to sort out when the dust settles
Pulido (2016) argues that racial capitalism is at the very core of the Flint, Michigan lead water crisis: The people of Flint are so devalued that their lives are subordinated to the goals of municipal fiscal solvency . . . this devaluation is based on both their blackness and their surplus status, with the two being mutually constituted. (p. 1)
Travel just 70 miles down I-75 from Flint to Detroit, Michigan, and we are able to witness in real time the way racial capitalism is shaping COVID-19 health inequities
Summary
The people of Detroit already endure multiple health problems, such as high rates of diabetes (National Medical Association, 2015). An early report from Italy found that a large majority of COVID-19 fatalities occurred in those who had comorbidities, or additional illnesses like diabetes and asthma, that amplified COVID-19’s wear on the body (Ebhardt et al, 2020). To be clear, these racial differences in illnesses are not the result of biological or even behavioral differences in race but a result of racist, capitalist systems that structure people’s lives
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