Reifying Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic Response.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how racism can be perpetuated in two of the areas discussed in Sabatello et al. research for identifying remedies and contact tracing, and how racism is a social system where the...
Abstract: This commentary discusses how racism can be perpetuated in two of the areas discussed in Sabatello et al: research for identifying remedies and contact tracing. Racism is a social system where the ...
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: The special issue as discussed by the authors reanimates iatrogenesis as a vital concept for the social sciences of medicine and calls for medicine to expand its engagement of the injustices that unfold from clinical processes, practices, and protocols into patient lifeworlds and subjectivities beyond the clinic.
Abstract: Drawing on the work of Ivan Illich, our special issue reanimates iatrogenesis as a vital concept for the social sciences of medicine. It calls for medicine to expand its engagement of the injustices that unfold from clinical processes, practices, and protocols into patient lifeworlds and subjectivities beyond the clinic. The capacious view of iatrogenesis revealed by this special issue collection affords fuller and more heterogeneous insights on iatrogenesis that does not limit it to medical explanations alone, nor locate harm in singular points in time. These papers attend to iatrogenesis' immediate and lingering presences in socialities and structures within and beyond medicine, and the ways it reflects or reproduces the racism, sexism, and ableism built into medical logics.
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors trace the range of narratives that have arisen in the context of explaining these disparities, in both the scientific literature and wider expert and public discourse, revealing contested and competing conceptions of the basis of these categories themselves.
Abstract: The slogan that 'the virus doesn't discriminate' has been belied by the emergence of stark and persistent disparities in rates of infection, hospitalisation, and death from Covid-19 between various social groups. I focus on two groups that have been disproportionately affected, and that have been constructed or designated as particularly 'at-risk' during the Covid-19 pandemic: racial or ethnic minorities and fat people. I trace the range of narratives that have arisen in the context of explaining these disparities, in both the scientific literature and wider expert and public discourse. I show that the scientific and public narratives around these groups have differed significantly, revealing contested and competing conceptions of the basis of these categories themselves. These different conceptions have important impacts on the kinds of interventions that become possible or desirable. I show that in the case of racial or ethnic disparities, genetic narratives have been combatted by a strong focus on structural racism as a driver of pandemic inequalities. However, in the case of fatness, individualising and stigmatising narratives have dominated discussions. I suggest that, given racial or ethnic differences in prevalence of fatness, and scholarship casting anti-fatness as historically racialised, the stigmatisation of fatness disproportionately affects racial or ethnic minorities in terms of placing individual blame or responsibility for the increased burden of Covid-19 on these groups. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the role of structural racism in driving racial inequalities in the burden of Covid-19, anti-obesity rhetoric and research provides a 'backdoor' to placing blame on individuals from racial minorities.
3 citations
TL;DR: Sabatello et al. as mentioned in this paper proposed the use of community engagement and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as pathways for promoting social just...
Abstract: In our target article (Sabatello et al. 2021), we proposed the use of community engagement and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as pathways for promoting social just...
TL;DR: The authors explored the magnifying lenses of the COVID-19 syndemic to highlight how people racialized as migrants and refugees have been-and continue to be-disproportionally harmed.
Abstract: This article explores the magnifying lenses of the COVID-19 syndemic to highlight how people racialized as migrants and refugees have been-and continue to be-disproportionally harmed. We use empirical evidence collected in our scholarly/activist work in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the United States to examine migrant injustice as being produced by a combination of power structures and relations working to maintain colonial global orders and inequalities. This is what has been defined as "border imperialism." Our data, complemented by evidence from transnational solidarity groups, show that border imperialism has further intersected with the hygienic-sanitary logics of social control at play during the COVID-19 period. This intersection has resulted in increasingly coercive methods of restraining people on the move, as well as in increased-and new-forms of degradation of their lives, that is, an overall multiplication of border violences. At the same time, however, COVID-19 has provided a unique opportunity for grassroot solidarity initiatives and resistance led by people on the move to be amplified and extended. We conclude by emphasizing the need for community psychologists to take a more vigorous stance against oppressive border imperialist regimes and the related forms of violence they re/enact.
TL;DR: The authors argue that Black athlete activism that centers their social reality and legitimizes Black Lives Matter for broader populations is one example of a punctuated equilibrium that work to achieve administrative state change.
Abstract: The start of the 2020s presents a broken American administrative system plagued by state ineptitude in a time of turmoil and government distrust. In their protests, marginalized citizens have seen their voices amplified by integral parts of their communities for whom they have cheered: Athletes. This Perspective draws attention to the idea of super citizens and their ability to influence policy. We argue that Black athlete activism that centers their social reality and legitimizes Black Lives Matter for broader populations is one example of a punctuated equilibrium that work to achieve administrative state change.
References
More filters
TL;DR: A SARS-CoV-2 variant carrying the Spike protein amino acid change D614G has become the most prevalent form in the global pandemic, and it is found that the G614 variant grows to higher titer as pseudotyped virions.
3,302 citations
TL;DR: An overview of the evidence linking the primary domains of racism-structural racism, cultural racism, and individual-level discrimination-to mental and physical health outcomes is provided.
Abstract: In recent decades, there has been remarkable growth in scientific research examining the multiple ways in which racism can adversely affect health. This interest has been driven in part by the stri...
962 citations
TL;DR: The current dominant structural variant of SARS-CoV-2 appears to have evolved from the ancestral form and enhances transmissibility, and the mutation renders the new virus variant more susceptible to neutralizing antisera without altering the efficacy of vaccine candidates currently under development.
Abstract: The spike aspartic acid–614 to glycine (D614G) substitution is prevalent in global severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) strains, but its effects on viral pathogenesis and transmissibility remain unclear. We engineered a SARS-CoV-2 variant containing this substitution. The variant exhibits more efficient infection, replication, and competitive fitness in primary human airway epithelial cells but maintains similar morphology and in vitro neutralization properties, compared with the ancestral wild-type virus. Infection of human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) transgenic mice and Syrian hamsters with both viruses resulted in similar viral titers in respiratory tissues and pulmonary disease. However, the D614G variant transmits significantly faster and displayed increased competitive fitness than the wild-type virus in hamsters. These data show that the D614G substitution enhances SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, competitive fitness, and transmission in primary human cells and animal models.
742 citations
Book•
17 Jun 2019
TL;DR: The notion of technological neutrality has received increasing pushback in recent years as mentioned in this paper, as technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous and troubling tech incidents grow in number (like Google Photo labeling Black people as gorillas), more people are questioning the exalted status of technology in society.
Abstract: The myth of technological neutrality—the idea that technology and tech creators are neutral actors free of implicit ethical dimensions and values—has received increasing pushback in recent years. As technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous and troubling tech incidents grow in number (like Google Photo labeling Black people as gorillas), more people are questioning the exalted status of technology in society. However, these incidents are still frequently perceived as ‘one-offs’ rather than symptoms of an underlying malaise. This blinkered analysis is precisely what Ruha Benjamin critiques in her 2019 Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. The book lays bare the ways in which modern technology creates, supports, and amplifies racism and white supremacy. Offering a wide-ranging examination of how racism in its many forms is manifested in modern technology, the work journeys through predictive policing systems, AI-judged beauty contests, genetic and biometric testing, robot labour, pop culture, virtual reality, and other modern inventions. The book opens by establishing a broad foundation for understanding technology, race, and what happens when they collide, effectively setting up Benjamin’s later chapters by cracking open default assumptions about technology and specifically challenging the idea of technological neutrality. Benjamin productively broadens the definition of ‘code’ away from narrow considerations of computer instructions to understanding the way names and race are themselves code and are coded with important information. We are then asked to think of race itself as a technology; a techne, a way of doing things and structuring society. With this eye to the intertwined nature of race and technology, she defines her central idea of the ‘New Jim Code’ as “the employment of new technologies that reflect and reproduce existing inequities but that are promoted and perceived as more objective or progressive than the discriminatory systems of a previous era” (p. 3, italics original). Building on Michelle Alexander’s 2012 book The New Jim Crow, which highlights how the façade of modern ‘colourblindness’ masks and justifies the disproportionate incarceration of Black people, Benjamin compares historical and contemporary technologies to show how racism via technology has changed forms rather than disappeared. Each of the 5 chapters examines a specific aspect of the New Jim Code: Engineered Inequality, Default Discrimination, Coded Exposure, Technological Benevolence, and Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice. They read largely independently of each other; the book’s argument is less a sequential development of ideas than an exploration of theme. Benjamin herself frames the book as a “field guide” (p. 4) and acknowledges that “in writing this book I have admittedly been more interested in connections rather Science & Technology Studies 34(2) Book review
598 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Fatal Invention documents the emergence of a new biopolitics in the United States that relies on re-inventing race in biological terms using cutting-edge genomic science and biotechnologies as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Fatal Invention documents the emergence of a new biopolitics in the United States that relies on re-inventing race in biological terms using cutting-edge genomic science and biotechnologies. Some scientists are defining race as a biological category written in our genes, while the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries convert the new racial science into race-based products, such as race-specific medicines, ancestry tests, and DNA forensics, that incorporate false assumptions of racial difference at the genetic level. The genetic understanding of race calls for technological responses to racial disparities while masking the continuing impact of racism in a supposedly post-racial society. Instead, I call for affirming our common humanity by working to end social inequities supported by the political system of race.
459 citations