Everyone should have known that the coronavirus would come for African Americans ferociously. In this country, black people dwell at the top of the list of everything that is harmful and at the bottom of nearly all that is good.
That’s the American way.
The coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on African Americans across the country. In Chicago, blacks comprise 30% of the population, but account for 52% of the cases and more than 68% of the deaths as of this writing.
When it came to this deadly virus, the playing field was never even. From the start, we were warned that everyone’s individual health history would determine who recovered from COVID-19 and who succumbed to it.
Those with chronic health conditions would be singled out and shoved to the front of the line of those most likely to die. The lineup had long been determined, so by the time the pandemic hit, it was too late for anyone to alter their fate.
African Americans are most likely to suffer from the underlying health issues on which the coronavirus preys the hardest. Blacks rank at or near the top of the list for heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, diabetes and high blood pressure — all contributing factors in how severely COVID-19 attacks the body.
In this country, African Americans have long been more likely than whites to die from heart diseases, stroke, cancer, asthma, influenza, pneumonia, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. It was inevitable that the coronavirus would be just as fatal.
How naive it was to consider COVID-19 to be the one thing that equalized us as a human race. We talked about it as if all Americans were in this together — as though each of us had an equal stake in ridding the nation of this unseen enemy that threatened to eviscerate life, as we once knew it.
We missed the “good life” that existed before the pandemic took hold, and we have been antsy for things to return to “normal.” What has gotten most of us through this crisis is our faith that it would end soon — that we would again gather together again, smell the flowers in our neighborhoods and enjoy all that our communities have to offer.
How selfish we have been.
For many African Americans, getting back to normal means returning to the very things that made them more susceptible to the coronavirus to begin with. In some neighborhoods, normality means a return to vulnerability.
It is common knowledge that African Americans have less access to quality health care. Many poor blacks have no medical coverage at all. Those who have Medicaid are limited in choosing doctors and specialists who are top in their fields. For many low-income African Americans, hospitalization is not an option.
We also know that poverty breeds illnesses. In many of the Chicago ZIP codes that have been hardest hit by COVID-19, residents can’t drop by a grocery story on the way home and pick up fresh vegetables for dinner.
They don’t have the luxury of deciding whether to shop at Whole Foods or Mariano’s. Often the only choice is the tiny market on the corner, where the shelves are stocked with less healthy options than grocery stores offer.
That’s assuming, too, that everyone has enough money to buy food. In the booming economy that President Donald Trump and others have been boasting about, many African Americans were left behind. Even some who benefited were never able to lift themselves out of poverty because they were in too deep to begin with.
Poor food choices lead to obesity and other health impairments, which have a direct link to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic illnesses. Environmental issues lead to respiratory diseases, such as asthma.
African Americans are nearly three times more likely to die from asthma-related causes than white people. Again, it’s partly because black people are more likely to live in poverty. That means higher exposure to triggers such as cockroaches, mold and air pollution in industrial neighborhoods, as well as gas and other chemical fumes.
It is one thing to simply order Americans to stay at home, and to advise them to remain 6 feet apart when in public. There is no evidence that African Americans are failing to abide by the orders any more than whites.
There are, however, extenuating circumstances that could make it more difficult to stop the spread of the virus. Black workers are severely underrepresented compared with whites in high-salary jobs in technology, engineering and business. They are most likely to work in blue-collar or low-wage service jobs.
So what about extended families who are packed into one home, sleeping three or four to a bed? What about families where the primary wage earner is a store clerk, who spends all day interacting with people who may have the virus? And what about that elderly grandmother who has to take the bus to the grocery store or the medical clinic because she has no other way to get there?
The coronavirus was never colorblind. Racial equity, in any form, has never existed in America, and there’s a good chance it never will.
The greatest threat to African Americans is that white people will begin to feel less threatened and the country will return to normal too soon, having rendered the coronavirus just another health condition that kills black people.
For as long as we live, normal will never mean the same thing for every American. If we did not realize it before, the coronavirus has taught us.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Dahleen Glanton is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
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