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Kayle Duarte
PROFESSOR Wright
ENGL 102
Spring 2022
How Covid-19 Impacted, Black, Asian & Other Minority Ethnic Groups
The Covid-19 pandemic took the world by a storm in 2020 when it started to spread excessively, infecting billions of people across thousands of countries. For more than a year was, the Covid-19 almost unmanageable for many countries and research shows that certain countries or even certain ethnic groups were having a more challenging time managing it than others. This essay will discuss how Covid-19 impacted the lives of black people, Asians, and people from other minority groups.
Though this is a vast topic because of how widespread Covid-19 was, this paper will focus on the inequality and racism that surrounded minority groups during the pandemic. The lack of resources, medicine, and money created the idea that Covid-19 affected and killed some more than it did others, and because of this, it became racialized.
Thus, the following research paper will discuss how Covid-19 impacted the lives of black people, Asians, and people from other minority groups. More specifically, it will discuss, the racialization of the illness, the specific effects it had on the Asian community, and lastly, how inequality created health boundaries across the world. Covid-19 has affected everyone’s lives like one could not have imagined, so how is it that it could have racialized at all?
Racializing Covid-19
Racism has been something that has plagued the world since the beginning of time, and during the pandemic, racism was an almost immediate response when it came to the rise in infection rate. Many people claimed that it mainly affected black people, Asians, and other people of color, resulting in these various communities losing their jobs affecting their socio-economic situation, and making them even more vulnerable to the deadly virus.
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People have also stated that because minority groups often live in overly crowded houses due to lower income, they are more likely to spread the Covid-19 virus; however, this was quickly countered as research showed the houses of Caucasian people were also often over-crowded, and there has not been any overly high infection rate.
Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups (BAME) in the United States have faced more wage and salary cuts than Caucasians that reside in the United States. For example, a black American family of four shared that both the parents of the family experienced a 10% salary drop during the pandemic, while a white family they were well associated with and did not experience the shame salary drop despite working for the same company.
Socio-economic situations also played a role in the spread of the virus, as there were many cases in which poor areas had higher rates of the Covid-19 infection leading people to believe that BAME groups are more likely to get the virus to spread. However, due to the salary cuts and job loss BAME groups were facing, they were not in the financial position to buy themselves medication and hospitalization or to find a suitable place to isolate themselves.
Covid-19 affected minority groups more than it did Caucasians as they were more likely to be discriminated against and were less prioritized when in a seriously ill state as healthcare in the United States is incredibly expensive. Doctors of the black, Asian and other minority communities even showed higher death rates than Caucasian doctors due to the lack of healthcare for BAME group doctors. Overall, racism acted as the second pandemic within the one caused by Covid-19 purely because black, Asian, and other minority groups were unfairly discriminated against during a time when the world needed to work together.
Asian Discrimination
Of all the minority groups in the United States, Asian groups were the most discriminated against because the Covid-19 virus originated in China. Thus, because of the origin of the virus, all Asians experienced unfair amounts of racism in the streets of the United States. Using racial slurs, verbal abuse, and physical abuse, Asian people faced a lot of bullying. This was not only in the United States, as Asian people from across the world all experienced discrimination.
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Many Asian businesses, like restaurants and retail stores, were put in a position where they either had to close because they lacked the resources and money they needed to remain afloat during the pandemic. Some also had to close to avoid cases of vandalism, looting, and other safety-related reasons. Asian businesses became victims of racist crimes, having a business that they have spent years establishing be destroyed because of racism.
The Asian community that resides in the United States could not even go to the government for protection against the racial attacks they faced as many of the government leaders supported the hate crimes they have become victim to. Government leaders did not discourage or reprimand the anti-Asian violence that was present within the United States; instead, Asians were given a negative reputation and discriminated against and verbally abused by the media, political figures, and on social media.
Throughout the world, Asian people have become victims of derogatory language and have been accused of carrying and spreading the virus. The was no protection provided for Asian immigrants, and in many countries did, they seek out and detained Asian and other refugee workers to prevent the virus from spreading, but statistically detaining people from minority groups and did not assist the country with their fight against the virus.
Covid-19 was referred to as the Chinese virus by many well-known public figures encouraging the idea that the Asian community should be blamed for the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This nickname for the virus increased the attacks that were faced by Asian people, and since the start of the pandemic, over a hundred different attacks against Asian people have been reported. However, it was not only Asian people that experienced massive amounts of discrimination but also Muslims and Africans.
Mass Inequality
African people were forcibly tested for Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, and they were also forced out of their homes and refused service but many businesses. Even though African people did not have any hand in the origin of the virus, they were severely discriminated against. Many African countries still have no access to the Covid-19 vaccine a year after it has been distributed throughout most Caucasian countries of the world.
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Many poor countries have yet to receive a single dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and do not have the resource to produce their vaccine. These countries have struggled to cope with the high levels of hospitalization and lack of medication to keep their countries of mass infection rates. Most of the countries that struggled were African countries, along with India and other parts of Asia. This shows the levels of inequality there is throughout the world.
African countries like South Africa and Nigeria received billions of vaccines that were donated by first-world countries, but this is because these countries, amongst other assisted African countries, were the ones that were directly involved in providing goods and services to first-world counties. For example, the United States often imports fruits and alcohol from South Africa, leading them to be one of the first African countries to receive the vaccine.
During the research process for the Covid-19 vaccine or a way to combat the virus, there were not many people of color or BAME group communities involved in understanding the virus. The BAME group health workers that were actively involved in Covid-19 research that got infected later died, and research has shown that this is because of social inequality and lack of better medication and health care.
The various healthcare systems that were in place for many countries were exposed as being unfair to the citizens of the countries. People in lower socio-economic situations could not afford healthcare and were turned away from hospitals when they were suffering from the virus and needed to be hospitalized. BAME patients did not receive the necessary healthcare that was necessary to ensure their recovery.
Overall, though this virus has nothing to do with race or wealth, somehow inequality and racism never fail to make themselves known to humans. Covid-19 has affected all countries in terrible ways, yet BAME group members are still suffering by being blamed, segregated, and accused of spreading the Covid-19 virus. The BAME group member should have been more actively involved in fighting the Covid-19 virus, and the pandemic has exposed to the world the unfair levels of inequality it faces. Thus, the above research paper discusses how Covid-19 impacted the lives of black people, Asians, and people from other minority groups. More specifically, it discusses, the racialization of the illness, the specific effects it had on the Asian community, and lastly, how inequality created health boundaries across the world.
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Work Cited
Department of Health Bhatia, Mrigesh: COVID-19 and BAME Group in the United Kingdom June 25, 2020. (article)
England, Public Health: Beyond the Data: Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 on BAME Groups. ( Pg.13) July 1st, 2020 (article)
House of Commons, Unequal impact? Coronavirus and BAME people (Pg.36) December 2020 (academic journal/book)
Man-Yee, Kan: The impacts of COVID-19 and its related measures. September 2021 (Article)
Morgan, Emily: ‘Discrimination’ on the frontline of coronavirus outbreak may be a factor in disproportionate BAME deaths among NHS staff May 2020 (source of your own)
News, BBC: BBC Video: BAME coronavirus deaths: What’s the risk for ethnic minorities June 2020 (electronic source)
Syal, Rajeev: Structural Racism led to worse Covid impact on BAME groups