The State of Things

When comparing the current climate of the United States to the way it was before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the differences are undeniable. So much has changed regarding medicine, science, public opinion, culture, and we even have a new president. As the pandemic has progressed, it has become impossible to avoid the systemic inequalities that plague our nation.

But even before the pandemic began, inequalities were already present in our society. Compared to their white counterparts, ethnic and racial minorities have been historically disadvantaged since the conception of this nation. Just one example of these obstructions are the differences in homeownership between black Americans and white ones. According to a 2019 article by the Center for American Progress, “Just 41 percent of Black households own their own home, compared with more than 73 percent of white households… College educated Black people are less likely to own their own homes than white people who never finished high school,” (Solomon, et al. 19). Upon first glance, this statistics may seem unrelated to the effects of the pandemic. However, when the US job market saw up to 14.8% unemployment at its peak, not owning a home meant not being able to make one’s rent payments if they lost their job (Falk, et al.). Even though the federal government has paused evictions, this does not relieve the stress of knowing that one will have to make up the money that they own the landlord. This is also an issue that the pandemic has exacerbated because, “Today, the typical white household has 10 times more wealth than the typical Black household,” (Solomon, et al. 19). In essence, the situation becomes a continuous downward spiral that produces elevated levels of stress on the individual and society as a whole. In this example, race, and in turn home ownership, becomes the determining factor of societal prosperity.

While the government was urging its citizens to remain home to prevent the spread of the virus, it seemed like our lives came to a stand still. It was during this period of time, when the world was shutting down, that we had opportunities to turn our attention to new places. Social media became one of the only ways to communicate with others in a safe way. As a result, when the news of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests made headlines, the entire world was watching. If it wasn’t for the coronavirus pandemic and therefore the availability of news, the world may have not seen a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement. For this reason, due to the ever-present camera lenses that point at our law enforcement officers, the public holds them accountable for their wrongdoings. The people are watching, and their pressure is keeping police in check.

In the 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, the unfinished manuscripts of James Baldwin in come to life to contrast race relations and injustice from the Civil Rights movement to present day. Specifically, police brutality plays a significant role in the inequalities shown throughout the movie. Baldwin’s writings, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, are powerful in their own right, but when read over images and videos of black Americans suffering from oppression, the movie comes to define life in the US during the pandemic. Baldwin asserts that the American society, “is the formula for a nation or a kingdom decline. For no kingdom can maintain itself by force alone… To look around the United States Today is enough to make prophets and angels weep. This is not the land of the free” (Negro 1:16:00-1:20:00).

To speak of freedom is to speak of liberation from oppression, and the topic of government overreach has been a result of pressure from the pandemic, as well. Those who opposed state-sanctioned lockdowns voiced their anger at what they viewed to be authoritarian forms of government, and those known as “anti-maskers” threatened public safety by refusing to obey mask protocols. These individuals cried that they demanded freedom from all of the social unrest, and some even declared that the pandemic was a hoax. This paranoia came to a climax at the January 6th Capitol Hill riots, when armed protesters stormed the Capitol with aims to halt the Senate confirmation vote of the election results. At this point in history, the pressure of the pandemic had pushed enough people to a state where they decided to organize and express their opinions on the nature of this country via violence and chaos.

This plays into a larger theme, one of political polarization in the US, to the point where mania and finger pointing have been confused for fact and truth. Even as Congress investigates the causes of the riots and the failures of law enforcement to prevent them, we are learning that the pandemic is causing our political and social systems to crack under pressure. Fraudulent claims of widespread voter fraud and other conspiracy theories have become weaponized by political parties and have rotted the brains of our elected officials. When figures like Senator Ted Cruz vacation to Cancun when his state is fighting widespread power outages, it comes as no shock to know that the pandemic has exposed widespread misuse of power in our society.

COVID-19 has claimed over 500,000 lives in the United States and impacted millions of others (CDC). Despite this, COVID-19 cannot claim our sense of humanity. I am hopeful that as society moves forward, we can credit the atrocities of the pandemic as being the driving force behind real, authentic, change in our communities.

Works Cited

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “CDC COVID Data

Tracker.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, 2020, covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home.

Falk, Gene, et al. “Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic: In Brief.” Congressional Research Service, 12 Jan. 2021.

“George Floyd Protest.” Fortune.com, Fortune.com, 18 June 2020,

fortune.com/2020/06/18/u-s-television-consumption-demand george-floyd-protests/.

Kelly, Andrew. “Man with Coronavirus Sign.” Weforum.org, Reuters, 19 Mar. 2020, www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-and-corporate-social-innovation/.

“Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, James Baldwin.” Pbs.org, Pbs.org, 10 Jan. 2018, www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/i-am-not-your-negro-filmmakers-reopen-james-baldwins-house/.

Peck, Raoul, director. I Am Not Your Negro. Netflix, Magnolia Pictures, 2017, www.netflix.com/watch/80144402trackId=14170286&tctx=2%2C0%2Cb3ec7024-b8b-4df4-8540-10f270590c01556783727%2Ccaaa1092-fc97-4da4-9bf0-088ce477aad4_1750461X3XX1614226660731%2C%2C.

Solomon, Danyelle, et al. “Systemic Inequality: Displacement, Exclusion, and Segregation.” Center for American Progress, Center for American Progress, 7 Aug. 2019, 7:00 AM, www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/472617/systemic-inequality-displacement-exclusion-segregation/.

Urquhart, Jim. “Capitol Hill Rioters.” Dw.com, Reuters, 7 Jan. 2021,

www.dw.com/en/capitol-hill-riots-are-western-democracies-under-attack/a-56163820.