"Communities of color need action now."
 | By Kristin Lin Opinion Editing Fellow |
Over the summer, as a wave of coronavirus cases hit states like Arizona, California and Texas, I edited an Op-Ed by a high school student named Isaac Lozano. He's from one of the most infected ZIP codes in San Diego County, where Latinos make up 34 percent of the population but a much higher percentage of the area's Covid-19 victims. |
Isaac's essay put faces to these numbers: He wrote about navigating remote schooling in a crowded apartment, learning that his uncle had died of the virus and constantly fearing that his parents might catch it. His story is emblematic of a pandemic that has disproportionately affected Latinos and Black Americans. |
In an Op-Ed this weekend, Abdullah Shihipar, a public health researcher at Brown, elaborates: "In Los Angeles County, deaths among Latinx people have increased more than 1,000 percent since November, nearly triple the rate for white residents. Native Americans have been nearly twice as likely as white people to die from Covid-19. The virus has killed a disproportionate number of Filipino nurses." |
He makes a compelling case for the first step the federal government should take to address these disparities: Declare racism a public health emergency. |
This would have symbolic significance, to be sure. But Shihipar also offers insight into its material consequences. The federal government would be able to allocate more staff and funds to hard-hit communities "to establish vaccination clinics, engage in door-to-door outreach, and offer free testing." Governors could reassign health department staff to disproportionately affected regions. And additional funding through the Public Health Emergency Fund could allow state and local governments to secure hotel rooms for people to use as quarantine housing. |
When I spoke to Isaac about Shihipar's Op-Ed, he told me how these additional resources and increased outreach efforts could benefit people he knew, some of whom are elderly, live alone, don't speak English and so might find the vaccination process to be opaque. "When you don't actively reach out to underserved communities, then of course we see disparities," he said. |
That much is clear. And, as Shihipar writes: "Studies and recommendations are good, but communities of color need action now." |
In 2020, the Times's award-winning Op-Docs series showcased independent short films from around the world that went beyond the news to immerse viewers in the personal stories and histories behind the headlines. In a film executive produced by Ava DuVernay, a Black composer and his grandfather traced their family's journey from Jim Crow Florida to Hollywood success. In a work The New Yorker's Richard Brody calls "an extraordinary look at a case of Freudian gaslighting," a filmmaker inspired by the #MeToo movement re-examined the psychiatrist's only major case study on a female patient, reimagining her as a young woman today.
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| Watch two of the 10 films shortlisted by the Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Short Subject category. | | | |
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