Racism has been evident in the domestic reaction to coronavirus, too, as seen in
widely shared images juxtaposing police officers calmly handing out masks to white people sitting in a public park, while violently arresting black and Latinx people in other parts of the city. “What types of populations, identities, and phenotypes are deemed safe enough to be entitled to their liberation or not, for the purpose, ostensibly of social safety?” asked Tsai.
Racial bias also played a negative role in how basic health measures like wearing a mask were perceived early on. Americans “have always viewed the face masks as something that others do, that nonwhite people do and nonwhite countries do,” said Bridges.
The spread of coronavirus in the U.S. has deeply hurt black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, highlighting endemic racism in health care, the labor market, income, housing, and more. The danger that the virus itself will be racialized poses a direct threat to those communities and everyone else in the country, Bridges said.
“My fear is that if people come to associate Covid-19 with nonwhite death, if it comes to be associated with black people’s deaths, any will that the U.S. had to competently and humanely manage the pandemic will just be lost.”