Examining the Impact of Racial Capitalism on COVID-19 Inequities

This essay examines the role of racial capitalism in perpetuating socioeconomic inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting how the system derives value from non-white individuals, leading to disparities in health outcomes. It argues that racial capitalism increases physical separation and restricts access to resources, exacerbating the impact of the disease on marginalized communities. The essay points out that Black and Latino Americans face disproportionate rates of infection and death due to their living and working conditions, including front-line jobs, reliance on public transportation, and crowded housing. It cautions against attributing these disparities to biological factors or individual responsibility, emphasizing the need to address systemic issues like lack of access to healthy food and healthcare. Ultimately, the essay calls for acknowledging and addressing these racial disparities to mitigate health inequities and promote social justice.

Racial capitalism is the process of deriving social and economic value from another
person of a different racial identity, predominantly the derivation of value from those of a
nonwhite identity. The fundamental cause of these racial and socioeconomic inequities in the
COVID-19 pandemic are primarily due to the influence of multiple outcomes of this disease,
how the disease’s outcome affects multiple risk factors, how it involves access to flexible
resources that are used to be minimize both risks and consequences, and how it is reproduced
overtime through continual replacement of intervening mechanisms. Racial capitalism increases
physical separation of groups into residential contexts that are patterned by race, where those
groups are forced to live near physically and mentally harmful environments. Therefore,
restricting information and knowledge, along with wealth and social connections of all are which
resources can alleviate consequences of disease. By increasing public sanitation and health
education, we can mitigate health inequities, and in time perpetuate racial and socioeconomic
injustice, such as gentrification and housing instability for minorities. The disproportionate rates
of infection and death among Black and Latino Americans due to COVID-19 are because of their
living circumstances. Many of them have front-line jobs that keep them from working at home;
rely on public transportation; or live in cramped apartments or multigenerational homes, making
social distancing physically impossible. At least 43% of Black and Latino workers are employed
in service or production jobs that for the most part can’t be done remotely. And not working is
not an option. They have to pay rent, pay for their utilities, and have to keep working. The
discrepancies in how people of different races, ethnicities and socioeconomic statuses live and
work may be even more pronounced outside of urban centers than they are in big cities. But
there’s no doubt that underlying health problems -- often caused by factors that are out of our

control, such as lack of access to healthy food and health care -- play a major role in COVID-19
deaths. We must acknowledge the existence of these racial disparities without explaining their
cause could itself encourage racist beliefs. There are three destructive tendencies--the problem is
biological--but that’s not the case. Then, the disparity figures encourage people to assume that
due to their own responsibility, but aren’t we all guilty? And finally, by emphasizing disparity
figures without context, we encourage false impression that it is only the concern of the supposed
minority groups. But I think it’s been made clear that the real issue at hand is that we have no
clue what’s going on.