How Covid has shone a light on the ugly face of Australian antisemitism

‘The increased prominence of antisemitic incidents during the COVID pandemic may leave you wondering: has antisemitism always been part of the Australian social fabric, or are we facing a new, sinister trend? Members of Melbourne’s Jewish community have been subjected to a surge of antisemitic abuse in recent weeks, following breaches of public health orders by ultra-Orthodox Jewish worshippers.

‘And Victoria’s proposed law to ban Nazi symbols — a first for any state or territory — further reinforces how antisemitism is becoming an increasingly visible problem in Australia.’

Read here (The Conversation, Sept 22, 2021)

The racism that undergirds global public health

‘With his thin volume (143 pages of text, with 46 pages of notes) Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health, Eugene Richardson takes to task the discipline of epidemiology, and with it, global public health. Utilizing the West Africa Ebola epidemic of 2013-2016 as his canvas, Richardson paints a picture that highlights the racism that undergirds the conventional medical and public health perspectives.

‘Richardson is an infectious disease specialist and an anthropologist. He has extensive experience responding to health crises around the globe, including joining Partners in Health to care for those suffering from Ebola in Port Loko, Sierra Leone.’

Read here (Counterpunch, Jan 5, 2021)

Winning trust for a vaccine means confronting medical racism

‘Just about every minority group residing in the United States can point to what feels like a reasonable basis for suspicion. For African Americans, there is not only the notorious Tuskegee study, which withheld syphilis treatment from rural Black men, but also experiments that used enslaved women to perfect surgical techniques and studies that tested new drugs in poor neighbourhoods without adequate consent. The Latino community can point to a syphilis study in Guatemala that was even more unethical than the Tuskegee one, and to pharma companies basing tests of the first versions of birth control pills, which caused significant side effects, in Puerto Rico (and also in Haiti). Attempting to pass smallpox to Native Americans via contaminated blankets is an infamous episode in Colonial-era history, and the US government has underfunded the Indian Health Service since its 1955 founding, depriving reservation dwellers of what should have been guaranteed medical care.’

Read here (Wired, Nov 2, 2020)

Johns Hopkins calls for papers on Covid-19 and systemic racism

‘The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security’s journal, Health Security, issued a call for papers for an upcoming Special Feature on systemic racism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (scheduled for May/June 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on health, economies, and social structures have disproportionately impacted racially marginalized populations. Racial and ethnic minority communities are experiencing elevated COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, stemming in part from ineffective response efforts and longstanding barriers to accessing healthcare and public health programs and services. Evidence-based and peer-reviewed research is urgently needed to examine the root causes and impacts of systemic and pervasive racial and ethnic inequities in the context of COVID-19 as well as how systemic racism manifests in the practice of health security, including in preparedness for, response to, and recovery from COVID-19. The journal is actively encouraging submissions from women, underrepresented minority scholars in health security, and scholars with disabilities.’

Read here (Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Oct 23, 2020)

Merck CEO Ken Frazier discusses a Covid cure, racism, and why leaders need to walk the talk

‘As chairman and CEO of the leading vaccine producer in the world, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Ken Frazier has one of the highest-profile positions in global business.

‘But Frazier, who is leading one of the firms on a charge to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, is unique in another way: He is just one of four Black CEOs leading a Fortune 500 company. Frazier is also outspoken, having resigned from President Trump’s American Manufacturing Council to make a clear statement against “hatred, bigotry and group supremacy” that surfaced in protests at Charlottesville, Virginia.

‘In the video [with transcript] below, Frazier provides insights into this turbulent period of American history with Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal), the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Topics ranged from corporate America’s role in hiring more African Americans to the experience of being raised just one generation away from slavery.’

View/read here (Harvard Business School, July 13, 2020)

To understand who’s dying of Covid-19, look to social factors like race more than preexisting diseases

‘The Sutter and MIT studies cast doubt on whether individual risk factors are as important as social determinants of health in affecting someone’s chances of contracting severe and even fatal Covid-19. “It should cause us to ask a different set of questions about what puts you at risk of hospitalization or death,” Schwalbe said.

‘More and more evidence is pointing to social determinants of risk, which puts the role of underlying health conditions in a new light. “Comorbidities are still used to blame people for how hard they are hit by Covid-19,” said Philip Alberti, senior director for health equity research at the AAMC. To reduce the U.S. death toll now that many states are seeing a new surge in cases, he said, “our response to this disease” must look beyond the strictly medical.’

Read here (STAT News, June 15, 2020)

Understanding Covid-19 risks and vulnerabilities among black communities in America: The lethal force of syndemics

‘Black communities in the United States are bearing the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic and the underlying conditions that exacerbate its negative consequences. Syndemic theory provides a useful framework for understanding how such interacting epidemics develop under conditions of health and social disparity. Multiple historical and present-day factors have created the syndemic conditions within which black Americans experience the lethal force of Covid-19. These factors include racism and its manifestations (e.g., chattel slavery, mortgage redlining, political gerrymandering, lack of Medicaid expansion, employment discrimination, and health care provider bias). Improving racial disparities in Covid-19 will require that we implement policies that address structural racism at the root of these disparities.’

Read here (Annals of Epidemiology, Volume 47, July 2020, Pages 1-3, via Science Direct)

Protesting racism versus risking Covid-19: ‘I wouldn't weigh these crises separately’

‘...But the risks of congregating during a global pandemic shouldn't keep people from protesting racism, according to dozens of public health and disease experts who signed an open letter in support of the protests. "White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19," the letter said...

Dr Elaine Nsoesie, an assistant professor of global health at Boston University: "Data is showing that blacks and Latinos have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in many states," said Nsoesie, who was not among the letter's signatories when NPR contacted her. "Racism is one of the reasons this disparity exists." She continued, "Racism is a social determinant of health. It affects the physical and mental health of blacks in the U.S. So I wouldn't weigh these crises separately."

Read here (NPS, June 1, 2020)

Coronavirus: the mask of white Australia drops in racist media coverage

Key points: Victims of racism say headlines can incite hate, fear and anger. More needs to be done to stop racism before it happens through education or a more responsible press.

‘Inquiry and curiosity are the best ways to surmount racism, as well-known racism academic and author of US bestseller White Fragility Robin DiAngelo tells me... As DiAngelo says to me: “The default of society is the reproduction of racial inequality, it is the norm. It is not an aberration. It is the default that all our institutions have set up, intentionally, to reproduce racial inequality for the benefit of white people. It was literally coded in law in both our [US and Australia] countries”. I just hope DiAngelo will be completely wrong one day.‘

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 30, 2020)

The coronavirus was an emergency until Trump found out who was dying

‘This is a very old and recognizable story—political and financial elites displaying a callous disregard for the workers of any race who make their lives of comfort possible. But in America, where labor and race are so often intertwined, the racial contract has enabled the wealthy to dismiss workers as both undeserving and expendable. White Americans are also suffering, but the perception that the coronavirus is largely a black and brown problem licenses elites to dismiss its impact. In America, the racial contract has shaped the terms of class war for centuries; the COVID contract shapes it here.’

Read here (The Atlantic, May 8, 2020)

In The NYTimes, only white leaders stand out

‘The New York Times recently published a list of “true leaders” in the fight against COVID-19. They spend exactly one sentence on Asia and the rest on white leaders that mostly did worse than Iran. The structural racism is mind-boggling, and it’s getting people killed.

‘According to the NYTimes, Iran Completely and Utterly Botched Its Response to the Coronavirus, but countries with higher mortality rates like Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark are listed as true leaders. It makes no sense. It’s just racism, so structural that the Editorial Board can’t even see it. It’s built into the edifice of the paper itself.’

Read here (Medium, May 4, 2020)

Coronavirus spreads anti-Chinese feeling in Southeast Asia, but the prejudice goes back centuries

‘The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment throughout Southeast Asia, with some businesses refusing to accept Chinese customers and authorities conducting surprise health checks on foreign workers. Islamic State affiliates in Indonesia are using the coronavirus to stoke resentment towards Chinese Indonesians, while in Bukittinggi, on the island of Sumatra, several hundred people marched to a Novotel hotel to demand that Chinese tourists return home. In the Philippines, Adamson University in Manila openly called for its “Chinese” students to stop attending classes.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, April 29, 2020)