In retaliation to a day celebrating the world’s best-known colonizer, the infamous Christopher Columbus, on October 11th, Indigenous People’s Day highlights the culture, struggles, and history of America’s indigenous population. A silent struggle, however, persists: disease.
Native Health Disparities in COVID
The early 1600s brought to America the infamous two Gs—guns and germs—the latter proving the most deadly as bouts of influenza took a toll on Native American populations across what is now the United States. In the age of modern medicine, it comes as a surprise that disease still wreaks havoc on America’s indigenous population. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.
This vast gap is a reflection of poor medical and public health services for Native Americans. Health disparities that plague the Native population include diabetes, heart disease, and rates of addiction to harmful substances. These follow a similar pattern of COVID-19 with Natives being more likely to experience these chronic conditions compared to all other racial categories. These disparities could potentially be alleviated by greater equity in access to medical and public health services, but a fundamental issue in providing this care lies in Native sovereignty. As determined by Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, Native American land, or reservations, are considered sovereign land. While at face value this seems to be a win empowering Natives and acknowledging their right to the land that was once theirs, it creates a vacuum of public services.
Encapsulated by possessors of what was once their land, Native health and well-being are bound by the constraints of the state. A lack of widespread taxes, natural resources, and human resources leaves the reservations reliant upon the ‘external’ state of America for support and sustenance. Most money generated on reservations largely consists of gambling and casino money—practices usually outlawed in the surrounding states. This money only goes so far in providing for the tribe as money often stays within certain families, leaving the rest of the reservation in high rates of poverty. Thus, the main provider of health care for nearly 2.2 million members of the tribal communities, the Indian Health Service, is funded by American tax dollars. And yet, the IHS’s hospital system is severely underfunded and understaffed. The main mechanism created to fight disease seems designed to fail. In this sense, disease continues to persist as a remnant of colonialism, which directly violates the fundamental human rights to accessible health care and to acceptable standards of living.
Unsplash
Vaccination Rates on the Reservation
The only light at the end of the tunnel is the rapid rate of Native American vaccination against COVID-19. While co-morbidities and co-mortalities make it such that if COVID is contracted, Natives will be more susceptible to death, the COVID-19 vaccine acts as an equalizer. Once vaccinated, the likelihood of death by COVID-19 significantly decreases.
Native American tribes have been able to boast proud levels of herd immunity with large tribes like the Navajo Nation at roughly 70% fully vaccinated as of May 2021. This commendable statistic is a result of rallied community effort. Cultural values of supporting the elderly and a strong sense of family and allegiance to the tribe—values typically highlighted in Indigenous People’s Day—worked in favor of creating a climate in strong support of vaccination and vaccine acquisition.
Unsplash
Looking Ahead
While the tide has turned in favor of Native Americans, preventing them from being labelled as another health disparity statistic in COVID-19, it is important to remember and to look towards long-term health care equity and solutions for Natives. While increasing funding for the IHS is certainly a good starting point, robust public health interventions and funding for community programs is necessary. Funding dollars from the top could in theory trickle down, but grassroot rallying and support for public health interventions in a community where cultural values of togetherness and unity already exist could prove to be the needed impetus for transforming not only health care access and quality for the Native American population but also general standard of living that leads to health baselines which are robust to disease.
Source: Yahoo Images; People experiencing homelessness sleeping under a bridge
The homeless population in America tends to be neglected by the society they live in. They are among the most vulnerable, belonging to already marginalized communities that struggle to meet their day to day needs. As a result, the unhoused have little to no power or influence on social norms and affairs. As someone who has experienced homelessness both in India and in America, I have come to distinguish some of the common misconceptions society holds about the unhoused population. There are a lot of stereotypes and social stigma that surrounds the discussions around homelessness, which often blames the victims of systemic issues, instead of restructuring the conversation around how we as society can best help these marginalized groups realize their basic human rights to shelter. In order to do so, we must first understand what it really means to be homeless in America.
History of Homelessness in America
Homelessness is not an issue unique to the United States, as it can be found in countries all over the world. While homelessness in America can be found as early as the colonial times, modern homelessness rose as a response to the Great Depression, where people experienced high levels of unemployment and poverty. Especially interesting is the relationship between the growth of urban cities and the rise in homelessness. Coupled with low-wages and higher costs of living, people found it more expensive to find places to live in urban centers, such as New York and California. The aftermath of the Great Depression put a lot of people in desperate need of employment, and as the economy took to the service industry, more and more undereducated, impoverished people had no other choice but to turn to these low-income jobs. The country’s shift to a service economy meant that laborers were now being paid lower wages, leaving service industry employees unable to afford the rising costs of housing. Coupled with higher housing costs and lower wages, when people turned to social welfare programs, they found these programs to be lacking in funds as well.
Additionally, there was a campaign to “Deinstitutionalize” people held in mental asylums. While the campaign itself was well-intended, its applications were lacking in structure, and instead of providing patients with proper access to mental health resources, people with mental disabilities were released to fend for themselves. The neglect of these institutions led to the increasing numbers of mental health patients facing housing insecurity. To make matters worse, gentrification policies (made to bring in wealthy real-estate investors and high-income residents to underdeveloped parts of the city) led to the displacement of many low-income families, putting them out of their homes. These policies disproportionately affect people of color, something that has forced many marginalized communities to fall prey to an endless cycle of poverty and degradation.
Unfortunately, one of the most concerning additions to the homeless population is the disproportionate number of youths that identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community. According to a recent study conducted by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, LGBTQ+ youth had a 120% higher risk of experiencing homelessness. These members who already belong to an ostracized community can become more vulnerable to harassment, violence and hate crimes.
Additionally, unable to find jobs after returning home from military service, many veterans end up homeless with nowhere else to go. Although places do exist to support veterans who experience homelessness, many are either unaware of the resources at hand, or too ashamed to use these resources. As a result of the social stigma surrounding the topic, people experiencing homelessness often become withdrawn from society.
Society’s Attitudes Toward the Homeless
Source: Yahoo Images; An example of hostile architecture that prevents the unhoused from sleeping on benches
Homelessness is received with wildly different attitudes among different cultures. America is a very diverse country, with people that share hundreds of different cultures and traditions, and these cultural attitudes can carry over in the way they respond to contemporary social issues. Different cultures share a varying definition of what a “home” means, and even more distinctions in their approach toward people experiencing homelessness. What the dominant White culture might consider to be a home, (an individual unit of space for nuclear families), might not be what someone who belongs to the Indigenous population believes. They might argue that a home is where you can interact with your community, a place to feel safe and share with friends and family. Even the attitudes toward helping people who are unhoused have strict cultural implications. As described in Islam, it is part of the every-day religious ritual of a Muslim to give alms and help the poor in their community. In Hinduism, while helping the poor with food and shelter is allowed, certain castes are not allowed to eat alongside with or sit beside people of lower castes. People experiencing homelessness have their own unique culture, where certain skills or strategies for survival on the streets are shared amongst each other.
Along with all these complexities, the unhoused also undergo various types of stigmas, including social stigma, and cultural stigma. Social stigma can be discrimination and harassment directed toward the homeless population by the institutions, systems and people that make up society. Cultural stigma can refer to the stigma expressed by friends and family members or other religious or cultural institutions that may shame and blame the victims for being homeless.
Unhoused people also have a hard time finding employment. This is partly due to the fact that the job application requires a home address for the application process to be completed. As a result, people who are dispossessed also experience difficulties when finding housing. The applications for apartments include a proof of income/employment section and applying for government housing takes months to be processed and reviewed. Many states have long and complicated application processes, and even then, it is not a guaranteed housing option. Nevertheless, applicants can be denied, and they would still need a place to stay while awaiting their application to be approved.
Adding to these difficulties, people in the homeless community are constantly harassed with wild stares or abuse, (both verbal and physical), from members of society. The law enforcement agency, an institution designed to serve and protect people of the community, may make matters worse by deteriorating the situation further. Without proper training, police approach the homeless defensively, ready to attack at the slightest “abnormal” reactions. What they haven’t been trained to realize is that many people experiencing homelessness are also at high-risk of developing mental health issues due to the stress and realities of being homeless. These altercations can turn deadly, and unfortunately, many people of the homeless community have either been locked up or even killed by officers of the law. Many of these instances were even caught on camera, yet these officers faced little to no accountability or legal punishment.
People experiencing homelessness are also easy targets to getting their possessions robbed, and many times, police will raid their camps and confiscate what few belongings they might acquire, including sleeping tents and toiletries. Society also treats the homeless population as a burden and blames them for being “lazy” or “druggies” or “criminals/suspicious,” without any provocation from the homeless community. It can be especially insulting for the people experiencing homelessness to be judged for their situation while society simultaneously fails to criticize the state’s inability to protect peoples’ fundamental human rights to food, shelter, and other basic needs.
The Legal Response to Homelessness in America
Source: Yahoo Images; An example of hostile architecture to deter the homeless from sleeping under bridges
The legal response to the homelessness crisis in America has not been a heartwarming one either. Urban cities all over the United States have put in place anti-homelessness measures, otherwise known as hostile architecture. These include slanted benches, benches divided by armrests, spiked and rocky pavements to prevent people from sleeping there, and even boulders under bridges. Not only are these measures inhumane, they also cost the tax-payers a lot of money. These atrocious tactics are put in place to discourage homelessness, attempting to connect rising numbers of homelessness to increased crime rates. As recently as July of this year, Los Angeles even went so far as to make homelessness downright illegal, restricting homeless encampments in majority of the city. The city has even prohibited the homeless from sitting, sleeping, or laying in public. Due to the fact that homelessness overwhelmingly affects people who belong to already marginalized communities, a rights-based approach is necessary, one that addresses the existing systemic issues which need to be fixed first.
Covid-19 and How it Continues to Impact the Homeless Population
Source: Yahoo Images; Homeless shelters can be crowded, without proper social distancing measures in place
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact many different communities in a variety of ways. The pandemic hit especially hard among the homeless population, where access to hygienic products are often slim, if not non-existent. People experiencing homelessness may not have the ability to continuously wash and sanitize their hands, with limited access to clean water and soap products. They also been experience complications with social distancing measures, forced to be in crowded spaces like homeless shelters, which has only increased their risks of getting infected. Furthermore, even when infected, or exposed to the disease, the homeless population has very limited ability to quarantine, further allowing the spread of the disease to others in close proximity. The unhoused population has limited access to healthcare and medicinal treatments, and many are already immunocompromised or have pre-existing conditions, which increases their vulnerability of catching the disease. Stereotypes geared toward the homeless population labeling them as “junkies” or “druggies” has influenced the care they receive, leading to many cases of misdiagnoses or mistreatment as a result of biases held by healthcare professionals and others in the health care industry. Due to the rise in unemployment numbers during the economic shutdown as a response to the pandemic, millions of people who did not qualify for unemployment benefits, and could not make ends meet, also became homeless as a result.
Some Successful Approaches to Ending Homelessness
source: yahoo images; An unhoused person advocating against hostile architecture
There have been some successful attempts at ending homelessness in America as well as in other nations. Utah attempted to decrease its rates of homelessness back in 2015, which successfully reduced its homelessness by 91%. They executed a policy known as “Housing First,” which gave their chronically homeless populations free housing, a decision that cost the state less money than alternative anti-homelessness measures. This program unfortunately has not been a complete success, as people experiencing homelessness in other states have been migrating to Utah, making it too expensive for Utah alone to pay for the country’s increasing homelessness crisis. A national policy, on the other hand, that could implement the Housing First approach taken by Utah, may be the easiest, and essentially cheapest option to ending the homelessness crisis in America. This is essentially what Finland did. In 2019, Finland approached the homelessness issue with the most obvious of answers, by providing housing for all those who are unhoused. Like Utah, they applied the “Housing First” policy, (which came with no strings attached), recognizing that housing is an essential human right that should be protected and promoted. They also understand that in the long run, providing the homeless population with housing is the cheaper option to society. Also, as examined earlier, if applied in America, this Housing First policy will inevitably save more lives, with fewer interactions between the homeless and the police.
While homelessness is not something people are normally born into, the unhoused face discrimination, stigmatization, and marginalization from society just as much as any other group. Although people’s socioeconomic status is a major factor in determining who is most vulnerable to experiencing homelessness, as we’ve seen in the case of the LGBTQ+ youth, and older veterans as well, homelessness can impact people of any and all races, at various age levels, and at any given time. The pandemic itself has expanded the homeless population as people are unable to pay their backed-up rent or mortgage payments. While alternative approaches can assist to eradicate levels of homelessness in our society as implemented in Finland and Utah, it is crucial that we also continue to destigmatize being homeless in American society and take a rights-based approach to finding long-term solutions to end their suffering.
In the past year, there has been a drastic rise in hate crimes against Asians across the globe. This was fueled by inflammatory language and anti-Asian rhetoric surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent hate crimes and acts of discrimination against people of Asian descent are not isolated to the past year. Anti-Asian language and rhetoric is beginning to garner widespread media attention in light of the Atlanta shootings during which six Asian women were killed. It’s incredibly sad and concerning that it took this instance to gain media attention for the injustices that have been plaguing Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Asian American communities face a unique reality regarding racism and racial violence that’s not often seen in other racialized communities. On one hand, Asians are praised and encouraged to be the perfect minority, and on the other they are still placed in the racial hierarchy that seeks to oppress them via harmful stereotypes and nationalist ideals.
While some of the hate crimes are due to overt racist attitudes, others are due covert cultural stereotypes about Asian Americans that are reinforced in the media and pop culture. These stereotypes present Asians as submissive and hardworking. “People don’t think that Asians will fight back” so they are more easily targeted by others who don’t fear the consequences. As a result, the elders in the Asian community have had to bear this burden of violence. Asian American stereotypes are a direct result of this community being portrayed as the model minority.
What Is the Model Minority Myth?
Japanese Internment Campus During World War II. Sources: Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive
The model minority term was coined by William Petersen in 1966, a white male who argued that Japanese Americans could not experience racism because they were capitalistically and socially performing better than other groups of color. This is incredibly ironic because of the Japanese concentration camps that were built by the US government during World War II. This model minority myth stereotypes Asians as studious, successful, hardworking, and smart. It is this population that despite being a minority has challenged the odds and accomplished the “American Dream.” Even though this stereotype has seemingly positive overtones, it is especially damaging for Asian Americans and other minorities. The model minority myth pits minorities against each other, while also simultaneous ignoring the systemic racism that plagues Asian Americans. It also takes a huge toll on the mental health of Asian populations, because of this burden to succeed and compete against other minorities in a distinctly white dominated country. Asian Americans that don’t fit this model minority mold, who are of lower socioeconomic status, and work in low-wage industries are more susceptible to experiencing hate crimes and racial violence. Asian women encounter even more difficult odds. Asian women are fetishized, sexualized, and marginalized. Asian women are also in an extremely precarious position and vulnerable to facing violence.
Source: Doonsbury Comic Strips
Gregg Orton, national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, says that there is a narrative that says we are alright, that we don’t have problems and so we should not complain. Rewriting the challenge of this narrative speaks for itself, especially since it emphasizes the type of work that needs to be done to combat this notion and these harmful stereotypes. While not every act of discrimination or crime that takes places against Asian Americans is a hate crime or racially motivated, these repetitive and familiar acts of violence and complacency are certainly something to address.
The model minority myth contributes to the oppression Olympics and damages the unified front that people of color are attempting to uphold against individual and systemic acts of racism. This myth has been weaponized against the Black community and against Asian forms of resistance. Illustrating Asian Americans as the epitome of the “American Dream” damages the lives of Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, and Southeast Asian Americans. Their needs, struggles, and harms they face are made invisible. This does not mean that Asian Americans do not benefit from the oppressive nature of the model minority narrative. This is not an excuse to discount the racial violence and discrimination that the AAPI community faces every day. To move beyond this myth and fight it, there needs to be solidarity between AAPI groups and other marginalized communities. We have already seen this in action in light of the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer and especially this past month.
Every significant economic market in the world has a large reliance on the global supply chain, or globalization. These supply chains rely on canals to connect one side of the world to the other, including the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. On Tuesday March 22nd, one ship single handedly disrupted the entire global supply chain. The Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, ran aground in the middle of the Suez Canal. This event blocked any other container ships from crossing the Suez Canal in either direction, effectively cutting off a major link between Asian markets and European markets.
The blockage created by the Ever Given as of March 21, 2021. Source: European Space Agency. Creative Commons.
According to an analysis by Bloomberg, the Suez Canal blockage created by the Ever Given is holding up $9.6 billion of goods. Some blocked ships are carrying oil, others are carrying items from electronics to clothes. Should the blockade in the Canal last for two weeks, nearly one-fourth of the container ships that would normally be in European ports will be blocked. Normally, approximately 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal. Every day, the canal is able to move about 106 large shipping containers between Asia and Europe. To put this in perspective, before it was released, it is estimated that the Ever Given was holding up about $400 million an hour.
The world has recently been relying on markets that reduce the need for stockpiling items and instead provide products “just in time.” The internet and the current system of global shipping allow companies and consumers to buy and receive products right when they need them, instead of stockpiling. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a fantastic example of how “just in time” manufacturing has major flaws. From toilet paper to essential medical protective gear, certain products were in very high demand around the world. There was the assumption that these products could be delivered quickly and dependently to those who needed them at the start of the pandemic. However, this calculation was severely flawed and the high demand from all corners of the world for the same products caused months of delays in manufacturing leading to deadly consequences.
The Suez Canal. Source: David Reid, Creative Commons.
The Suez Canal runs through Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. The canal was initially owned by French investors when it was conceived in the mid-1800s. The construction of the canal began in 1859 and took 10 years and 1.5 million workers. These workers were drafted from Egyptian peasants, approximately 20,000 peasants every 10 months, for extremely difficult work that was very poorly compensated. Many of these workers died of various diseases, including cholera, during their time working on the canal. Throughout the World Wars, Britain controlled the canal. However in 1956, British powers withdrew after many years of negotiating with Egypt. At that point, the Egyptian government led by President Gamal Abdel Nasser had control of the canal. The Suez Crisis began in 1956. Nasser had decided to nationalize the canal once the British forces departed. Israeli, British, and French forces decided to stage a military intervention after deciding the Egyptian response to the canal could be seen as a security threat. The crisis ended in 1957 due to the first-ever United Nations’ peacekeeping force.
The Suez Canal blockage created by the Ever Given has brought to light how much the world relies on cargo ships. 90% of the global trade is carried out within maritime supply chains. As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, thousands of workers on ships have been stranded due to COVID-19 restrictions, unable to return to home countries and unable to be relieved. This has become a humanitarian crisis. Seafarers are the ones providing the world with food, essential supplies, and any other items purchased by consumers. However, they have been unable to leave their ships and go home to their families.
Cargo Ship. Source: Pedro Szekely, Creative Commons.
Crews on the ships are supposed to rotate on and off the vessels every 11 months. However due to the pandemic, many seafarers have long surpassed this 11 month marker and still have no notice as to when they can return home. Even before the pandemic, seafaring is a difficult job. The shifts are long, sleeping quarters are tight, and there is very little contact with those off of the ship. At the beginning of the pandemic, the situation was even described as bordering on forced labor. A major problem is the growing levels of fatigue experienced by the crew on ships. The number of reported suicides within this population has doubled, with this statistic not including the cases that were deemed accidents or missing at sea.
While the blockage of the Suez Canal by the massive ship, the Ever Given, has prompted memes and jokes around the world, it has brought more attention to the world’s reliance on shipping industries and to the lack of welfare experienced by seafarers. The Ever Given rendered the Suez Canal virtually useless for many days and the ramifications of this will fall primarily on the backs of shipping industry workers. It is important to recognize how COVID-19 has impacted the global economy as well as seafarers and to work towards achieving fair rights for these workers.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic which originated in China, xenophobic attitudes towards Asian Americans have spiked and resulted in a communal fear among Asian Americans. The STOP AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Hate reporting center formed in San Francisco on March 19, 2020, in hopes of keeping a record for hate crimes towards Asian Americans. Since last spring, Stop AAPI Hate has reported more than 2,800 incidents, ranging from “verbal abuse and workplace discrimination to storefront vandalism and physical violence,” several of which have been fueled by xenophobic sentiment. The sentiment seeks to scapegoat Asian Americans for coronavirus, and the sentiment has only propelled further by former President Donald Trump’s use of racist terms to describe the virus.
Some examples of this anti-Asian sentiment include violence towards elderly members of the AAPI community. In San Francisco, 84-year old Vicha Ratanapakdee died after getting shoved to the ground. A 91-year old in Oakland, CA, was brutally pushed from behind. In San Jose, a 64-year old woman was robbed in the middle of the afternoon. These attacks have had devastating impacts, as Cynthia Choi, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, said in a press call. She elaborated that the AAPI community is “fearful of being in public alone, simply going for a walk and living our daily lives.” Activists have been trying to draw attention to these instances of violence and are putting forth their best effort in pressuring local governments to provide more financial support for victims. The activists also have emphasized the necessity for communities of color to stand in solidarity and focus on cross-racial education and healing in order to “raise awareness about the discrimination that different groups experience.”
Asians are not a virus, the hatred is. Source: Yahoo Images.
Another horrific incidentoccurred in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 16, 2021 which resulted in the deaths of six Asian women and two others who were shot in their workspace by Robert Aaron Long. Long claims he was not racially motivated, but he did target Asian-owned spas. The shooting has not only shaken up the Georgia Asian community but the entire nation, and the event has received immense backlash from all communities. It is unfortunate that a shooting is bringing attention to this ongoing issue.
Asian American lawmakers are also taking a stance to respond to the anti-Asian racism. They want Congress to pass the No Hate Act, which boosts local government funding for tracking hate incidents, along with a meeting with the U.S. Department of Justice and a hearing about recent attacks. These efforts are led by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, chaired by Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), and has gained support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers in the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses. Previously passed in the House of Representatives as part of the Heroes Act, the No Hate Act aims to establish regional hotlines for people to report hate crimes, provide resources for local governments to investigate the reported crimes, and focus on the rehabilitation of offenders through community service. The lawmakers in favor of this act claim that AAPI hatred and bigotry is not a new concept in America, quoting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which framed the Asian American population as “forever foreigners” in the United States. Having such a xenophobic attitude dating from so long ago is something that must be dug deeper into for it to be eradicated from the American mindset.
Ongoing protests by all members of the AAPI community have commenced from the time the violence began. Source: Yahoo Images.
The severe disrespect and violence that members of the AAPI community are enduring for a pandemic that has affected the entire global population is unfair and inappropriate. In any community, the elderly are valued as wise people who have enlightening advice to pass onto their successors. The act of even pushing someone who is a senior citizen is a very lowly act that should not go unobserved or unchallenged, especially by the federal government. And the shooting of 8 people, 6 of which are Asian, is not as coincidental as Robert Aaron Long may claim. Xenophobia is a very damaging concept that is unfortunately part of American history, but that does not mean it should be repeated, especially in a time of dire need for unity against a global pandemic.
It is undeniable that hate crimes directed towards Asian Americans have been increasing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. An organization created to respond to racism against Asians, Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate, has received thousands of reports of hate crimes across the United States just throughout the duration of the pandemic in 2020. This is a very large increase from previous years. Racist rhetoric surrounding the pandemic including terms like “China virus” and “kung flu” is a significant reason why these forms of hate crimes are increasing at such a rate in the United States. Many of the attacks are targeting elderly Asian Americans. In San Francisco, an elderly Thai man was attacked and later died from the injuries he sustained. In New York, one man had his faced slashed with a box cutter, a woman was assaulted in the subway, and another woman also experienced assault on the subway. Hate crimes towards many groups have been increasing in the United States for the past few years, with COVID-19 and the Trump administration providing a lenient space for hate crimes and speech.
New York during COVID-19. Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York. Creative Commons.
In 2020, the FBI released their annual hate crimes report for the previous year, 2019. This report showed that hate crimes rose by 3%, a number that may not seem that significant at first glance but breaks a record with the highest number of hate crimes in a year. Of the more than 7000 hate crimes reported, 51 were fatal, another record breaking number. 22 of the 51 killings motivated by hate towards another group came from a domestic terrorist attack in El Paso, Texas, a mass shooting in a local Walmart targeting shoppers of Mexican descent.
The FBI defines hate crimes as “motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” It is important to realize that while the FBI’s report is key for understanding the hate dynamics in our country, it is ultimately an undercount. Many hate crimes go undocumented and even more are not categorized as hate crimes. Over 15,000 law enforcement agencies participate in reporting hate crimes. In 2019, over 86% of these agencies did not report any hate crime. The FBI report clearly shows that deadly hate crimes are increasing, however less and less agencies are reporting their data.
The categorization of hate crimes is also a major issue. For example, for the 2019 report the FBI recorded only one attack against those of Hispanic origin despite the El Paso, Texas shooting being largely recognized as an extremely deadly attack against El Paso’s Hispanic population. The deaths that resulted from the shooting were listed as “anti-other race/ethnicity/ancestry.”
Greetings from El Paso, Texas. Source: Boston Public Library. Creative Commons.
The breakdown for hate crimes in 2018 is as follows:
Anti-Black: 2,426
Sexual orientation or gender identity: 1,445
Anti-white: 1,038
Anti-Jewish: 920
Anti-Hispanic: 671
Anti-Muslim: 236
Anti-Indigenous Peoples: 209
According to the National Institute of Justice, 60% of most hate crimes are motivated by racial bias. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, freedom of speech. Therefore, speech intended to hurt, degrade, disrespect, and discriminate against a group of people can not be punished by law. However, the language used can be used in court as evidence of a hate crime.
The Department of Homeland Security revealed in their Homeland Threat Assessment that the growing upward trend of hate crimes represent a larger threat from extremist right wing groups. The DHS report also acknowledged that the largest domestic terror threat in the United States is the threat posed by white supremacist groups. The record-breaking white supremacist attacks in 2019 created the most deadly year of domestic terrorism since 1995. In 1995 Timothy McVeigh committed a bombing in Oklahoma City, a person and act that many white supremacist leaders look up to. Violent attacks like the one in Oklahoma City and the more recent one in El Paso work to encourage more violence, causing harm to specific groups and bringing more white attention to the cause.
Conspiracy theories are a large part of white supremacy. One conspiracy theory, “The Great Replacement” claims that white people are being replaced and erased from Western countries in a plot created by Jews. This conspiracy theory was alluded to by the El Paso shooter who described a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and by the person who attacked a synagogue in California in 2019, leaving one person dead and three others injured. The rise in hate crimes coupled with the growing presence of hate groups is not a coincidence. Between 2017 and 2019 white supremacist groups grew in numbers by 55%.
White supremacy. Source: Robert Thivierge. Creative Commons.
The recent increase in hate crimes also coincides with rhetoric perpetuated by former President Trump and his supporters. The words, opinions, and discriminatory speech used by the former president has been clearly identified as motivating many hate oriented attacks. An analysis of the FBI report shows that loaded remarks made by Trump are followed by increases in hate crimes and increases in hate speech on online platforms, especially directed towards Hispanic and Jewish peoples. The rhetoric used by former President Trump regarding groups of people and the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lenient space that does not punish hate speech or hate crimes. Hate crimes have been increasing, showing how harmful stereotypes and racism can truly be. It is important to recognize how and why hate crimes have been increasing in order to better address them and keep communities safe.
School closed, stay home. Source: Travis Wise. Creative Commons.
When the pandemic began in the United States almost a year ago, I was working two jobs. As COVID-19 spread swiftly and mercilessly through my community, I found myself unable to continue working at either of those positions. However, as the summer months progressed, a new job market presented itself to me: parents with kids who could not return to in person schooling. Since the school year started, I have worked as a nanny/teacher for a family with two children in elementary school and two parents who work full time. The first semester of school in a time of COVID has come and gone, revealing the many challenges alongside benefits of hybrid or online school. In the United States and in many countries across the world, children are guaranteed an education. How has this guarantee shifted when this education no longer includes in person teaching or the added benefits of childcare, school provided food, and educational resources?
With the onset of the pandemic in the United States in the middle of March 2020, schools have had to adapt their teaching and learning strategies as well as develop ways to provide access to services like hot food, laptops and other e-learning technology, and internet to students who might have relied on schools for those resources. These adjustments needed to happen in what felt like a split second. One minute we were preparing for spring break, the next we were preparing to teach and learn in completely new ways for what would end up being almost a year. Curriculums needed to be shifted and new materials created almost overnight. Many of these changes were placed on the shoulders of teachers, a group of workers who are arguably already underpaid for the work they do in non-COVID times. The sudden shift of teaching methods caused problems for teachers working tirelessly to ensure their students continue learning and engaging in virtual classroom activities. Some teachers reported that the main difficulties revolved around keeping students engaged while they are in their home environments and learning through Zoom, Google classroom, or some other similar program. They also reported the difficulties of ensuring students are reaching learning goals as teachers are unable to view the work as students are working on it.
Teacher teaching online school. Source: Phil Roeder. Creative Commons.
Parents are also discovering problems with the abrupt change in schooling for their children. Some parents have reported noticing how hard it is for their kids to develop a relationship with their teachers, causing inattentiveness and problems with following instructions set by the teacher. The transition has been noticeably harder for parents of children with special needs or learning inhibitions. Without the resources that were provided by in-person schooling, it can be difficult for parents to help their students learn in a completely new environment. Students, especially in elementary school, have a hard time with the technology used for asynchronous learning, requiring parents and guardians to guide their students, sometimes every day. The pressure is added on parents who are now required to balance full- or part-time jobs with sometimes multiple children participating in online school. The students themselves have their own set of grievances with online and asynchronous learning. In the New York Times, students have reported a lack of excitement for school due to remote learning, wishing instead for one or two added days of in-person classes. Others have reported a drop in their grades where A students during in person classes find themselves C students with the online curriculum. The difficulty in distinguishing between homelife and school/work life causes problems with focusing, possibly contributing to these grade drops. However, many students report that Zoom and Google Classroom classes help them feel more productive and return a semblance of normalcy to the asynchronous style.
There is a general consensus that schools must reopen for in person classes, eventually. However, it is difficult to determine when that should be. Many parents and school system administrators have called for schools to reopen for at least part, if not all, of the spring 2021 semester. However, some teachers have protested vehemently against reopening in the past few weeks. Teachers unions have argued that at the very least schools need to prioritize vaccinating teachers and school staff, although this alone would not be enough to safely reopen schools in the unions’ eyes. The current COVID-19 vaccines being administered across the nation are helpful in keeping an individual from getting sick and dying, but it is still unknown as to whether they can prevent the individual from carrying the virus to those not vaccinated. Therefore, teachers could unknowingly carry COVID-19 pathogens home from school. Other precautions must be adopted. On Friday, February 12th, the CDC released an updated set of guidelines for returning kids to in person schooling. This guidance explicitly does not provide affirmation that schools should reopen, rather it reemphasizes the importance of measures like social distancing, masking, proper building ventilation, and contact tracing. The CDC also expresses how proper safety precautions can keep students and staff safe within schools, however they emphasize how dangerous a false sense of security could be in communities where COVID-19 transmission is relatively low.
Online School. Source: Mario A. P. Creative Commons.
A report found that with remote learning continuing into 2021, students will be seven months behind in several educational milestones. Within this report, BIPOC students will be even further behind and students from low income families will be behind by more than a year. The Brookings Institute report has called this phenomenon a “COVID slide,” where students in grades three through eight could be drastically behind on the progress they might have made in subjects like math or reading. 20 percent of students in the United States do not have access to the technology like laptops and reliable internet connection necessary for remote learning. A big push against remote learning is due to a concern regarding mental health problems for students. However, less of a focus is on how the pandemic might have exacerbated mental health problems that in-person schooling had been contributing to.
The added access parents have to their students’ education through remote and asynchronous learning has revealed problems within the educational system. Parents and students are learning that the system for education before the COVID-19 pandemic was not as beneficial as originally thought. Remote learning has exacerbated problems with in-person schooling. These problems include the reduced priorities of exercise, play, sleep, outdoor time, and even conversation between students. Many public schools have not evolved to reflect more modern research on education styles for years. The schedule, amount and types of homework, and learning skills prioritized (like memorization) have also not evolved.
Temperature Check. Source: Dan Gaken. Creative Commons.
It is hard to determine the right course of action for many school systems. While the long and short term effects of the “COVID slide” should not be ignored, many students have really benefited from a non-traditional school setting and are making significant progress in achieving their learning goals. Some students are reporting feeling less stressed, less overwhelmed by assignments, and happier than they were during in-person schooling. More flexible schedules are allowing teenage students to prioritize sleep and many students have been able to escape bullying that had occurred in school. Other students are suffering mentally, physically, and academically from the changes in learning structures. It is clear that the American education system will need to evolve as the country recovers from the pandemic. COVID-19 has brought to light many problems with the current structure affecting parents, guardians, students, and teachers. It seems to have taken a drastic and unprecedented event like a worldwide pandemic to encourage change in the education sphere.
In the Appalachian region of the United States, there have long been overarching socioeconomic problems that have prevented the region from seeing the same levels of growth as other parts of the country, and even been part of its decline in other domains. Much of Appalachia’s population of twenty-five million people remains remote, isolated from urban growth centers and beneficial resources that exist in cities. The rural towns and counties in which many Appalachian people live have not had the ability to maintain the public infrastructure, furnish the business opportunities, or provide the medical services that are necessary to sustain populations.
There are three regions of Appalachia: the southern region, which covers parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and Tennessee; the central region, which covers parts of Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southern and southeastern Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee; and the northern region, which includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, Maryland, and northern and northeastern Ohio. While the entire Appalachian region struggles with higher levels of poverty, unemployment, and lack of services and infrastructure, some sub-regions suffer worse than others, and in different ways (Tickamyer & Duncan).
Percent of persons in poverty in rural Appalachia by age group: 2014-2018
Even when compared to other rural areas, Appalachia struggles on measures of educational attainment, household income, population growth, and labor force participation. Rates of disability and poverty are significantly higher in rural Appalachia than they are in other rural areas of America. In 2018, the number of Appalachian residents living below the poverty line was higher than the national average in every age group except those 65 and older. The largest disparity was among young adults (18-24), where the Appalachian population was more than 3% higher than elsewhere. From 2009 to 2018, median household income in Appalachia went up by 5%, not far behind the national average of 5.3%. However, the median household income in Appalachia remains more than $10,000 lower than the national median.
Map of population age in Appalachia
One area where disparities between Appalachia and elsewhere in the country are particularly noticeable is in healthcare. The Appalachian Regional Commission released in 2017 “Health Disparities in Appalachia”, which reviews forty-one population and public health indicators in a comprehensive overview of the health of the twenty-five million people living in Appalachia. The study found that Appalachia has higher mortality rates than the rest of the nation in seven of the nation’s leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, COPD, injury, stroke, diabetes, and suicide. In addition, diseases of despair are much more prevalent in Appalachia than the rest of the country. Rates of drug overdose deaths are dramatically higher in the Appalachian region than the rest of the country, especially in the region’s more rural and economically distressed areas. Research indicates that diseases of despair will increase under COVID-19, as well. This will be especially true for women, who experience death from diseases of despair at a rate 45% higher than the national average in Appalachia. The ARC found that, while deaths as a result of diseases of despair were more numerous in metropolitan counties of Appalachia, rates of suicide and liver disease were higher in rural counties.
These issues are exacerbated by the fact that there is a much lower supply of health care professionals per capita, including primary care physicians, mental health providers, specialists, and dentists in Appalachia. The supply of speciality physicians is sixty-five percent lower in the central sub-region of Appalachia than the rest of the nation as a whole. Other factors negatively impact health in Appalachia, as well. Nearly twenty-five percent of adults in Appalachia are smokers, compared to just over sixteen percent of all American adults, and obesity and physical inactivity are extremely prevalent. However, it is worth noting that in some areas of public health interest, such as the occurrence of STIs/STDs and HIV, Appalachia does better than the rest of the country. Healthcare disparities are an increasingly dramatic phenomenon. From 1989-1995, the cancer mortality rate in Appalachia was only 1% higher than the rest of the US, but by 2008-2014, it had risen to be 10% higher. In the same time frames, the infant mortality rate was 4% higher versus 16% higher, respectively. And, in 1995, the household poverty rate in Appalachia was 0.6% higher than the national average, but by 2014 was 1.6% higher. We like to think of these problems as things of the past, but the gaps are still very much relevant. Fortunately, people living in Appalachian communities are more likely to have health insurance coverage than other Americans. 8.8% of the population in Appalachia do not have health insurance versus the national average of 9.4%.
This year, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, some factors of the Appalachian population have put people living there at greater risk of COVID-19. 18.4% of people living in Appalachia are over age sixty-five, which is more than two percent higher than the national average. In more than half of Appalachian counties, over 20% of people are older than 65. This, combined with high rates of obesity and smoking, put many people in the “high-risk” category. COVID-19 has affected Appalachian communities in ways that don’t result in death but make surviving even more difficult. Food insecurity, for instance, is an increasingly severe problem. At one soup kitchen, “…we were serving about 200 people a day, and our numbers have nearly tripled since COVID started,” social worker Brooke Parker, from Charleston, West Virginia, said.
However, perhaps due to the isolated nature of many Appalachian communities, mortality rates from COVID-19 have not been markedly higher than the national averages.
With schools moving to online learning, problems with access to internet in Appalachia become more relevant and pressing. Around 84% of Appalachian households have a computer, which is five percentage points below the national average. 75% have access to reliable internet, which is also five percent lower than average. There is no easy solution to this lack of access to education. Even in non-Appalachian counties, students are being severely impacted by the disruption to their normal education activities.
Human rights organizations ought to keep a close eye on Appalachia as we see the results of COVID-19 on an already vulnerable and at-risk population. The ultimate consequences of the pandemic will likely be more severe here than elsewhere in the country. People living in Appalachia deserve the same assistance being offered to and resources being put towards urban centers in other parts of America. Too often have they seemingly been forgotten.
Additional References:
1. “Health Disparities in Appalachia”. Marshall, J.,Thomas, L., Lane, N., Holmes, G., Arcury, T., Randolph, R., Silberman, P., Holding, W., Villamil, L., Thomas, S., Lane, M., Latus, J., Rodgers, J., and Ivey, K. August 23, 2017. https://www.arc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Health_Disparities_in_Appalachia_August_2017.pdf. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
2. Population Reference Bureau. https://www.prb.org/appalachias-current-strengths-and-vulnerabilities/. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
3. Tickamyer, A., Duncan, C. (1990). Poverty and Opportunity Structure in Rural America. Annual Review of Sociology. 16:67-86.
Children ask for their parents’ safety while they are in ICE facilities during COVID-19. Source: Yahoo Images
On a visit to a private United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Texas, a reporter met with Philip, an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, to speak about the conditions of ICE facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic. Philip recalled his experience, telling the reporter that ICE does not “pay attention to the rules,” and “agents do not wear masks and do not respect quarantine.” Furthermore, he shared that the agents claim “health isn’t ICE’s responsibility.”
How severe is the risk of COVID-19 in the ICE facilities?
After hearing about the first warnings of COVID-19, Chris Beyrer, MD, Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights, highlighted the potential for catastrophic outbreaks of the virus in America’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers. His background in epidemiology and research on infectious diseases in prisons gave him the credibility he needed to make such a grave claim. Additionally, in Wutan, China, where one of the first big outbreaks of COVID-19 was, prisons and jails had all the red flags that worsened the spread of COVID – indoor facilities, crowded populations, and hygiene challenges. This was more alarming to Breyer since he was aware of America’s densely populated facilities and their lack of preparedness in handling a pandemic.
Breyer was approached by a group of lawyers working with five older Latina women in the El Paso ICE facility; the women, in addition to their age, had at least one preexisting condition, such as diabetes and hypertension, putting them at a greater risk of becoming severally ill if they were to contract COVID. The lawyers sent Breyer detailed plans of the facility and housing arrangements, and Breyer’s team concluded that ICE could not protect the five women; they would be at high risk if they were exposed. The case reached a federal court where the judge ordered the release of all five women, who fortunately had family in the U.S., so they could go home. The judge’s ruling cited the irrefutable scientific evidence and explicitly said that ICE had failed to prove that they could protect the women from exposure. This precedent itself sets the standard for any other case that emerges during COVID in relation to ICE and the safety of a detention facility amid a pandemic.
Police in ICE facilities ignore COVID-19 guidelines. Source: Yahoo Images.
What else has ICE been doing amid a pandemic?
The sad part is that this unsanitary environment was present prior to the pandemic. In a 2019 inspection of ICE facilities by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the report says the DHS found “egregious violations”: moldy bathrooms, food safety issues, lack of hygiene items, and inadequate medical care. If these problems existed pre-pandemic, there is no guarantee that ICE has improved their filthy detentions’ environments. Though the ICE website has posted that it is abiding by CDC guidelines, there is no solid proof of such changes. Instead, ICE’s ongoing deportation flights have not ceased. Since January, over 450 deportation flights to fifteen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have taken place. Eleven of these fifteen countries have confirmed that deportees returned with COVID-19. Since March, ICE has arranged 180 flights from detention centers in hotspot states – Texas, Arizona, California, and Florida – to the Northern Triangle and Mexico. Cases across the region in March jumped from few to thousands, which has been worsened by the deportations of COVID-positive immigrants.
A Call to Action
Amy Zeidan, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University, called for ICE to comply with mandatory CDC guidelines and release as many people as possible from immigrant detention. It has also been suggested to do three things in the meantime to fix the underlying structural issues that have worsened the spread of COVID in detention facilities: “increase COVID-19 screening and mass testing; improve access to medical care outside of ICE facilities for COVID-19 positive detainees; [and] implement systematic investigation into ICE facilities in violation of other guidelines.”
Homeland security is something that everyone cares about. But if America needs to cage immigrants in unsanitary, filthy conditions where they are at a greater risk of dying, then the DHS and ICE need to rethink their stance and their treatment of people who have immigrated to the United States. This pandemic affects everyone, but it can be mitigated with the correct precautions. People like Philip who witness such malnourishment within ICE facilities do not deserve to be treated with such cruelty.
One perspective into an ICE detention facility. Source: Yahoo Images.
Amidst the global pandemic, we have all had to make some changes to our daily lives. It used to be normal to go to restaurants, movie theaters, and concerts, but now, for the most part, we stay away from those activities and social distance instead. While social distancing has slowed the spread of COVID-19, most of us are aware of the toll it takes on our mental health. Humans are a very social species, and social isolation can have a severe impact on overall wellness. Financial hardships and anxiety over illness contribute to a decline in mental health as well.
Social isolation has many benefits when it comes to slowing the pandemic. However, it drastically impacted the lives of many people in an unintended way. Loneliness has skyrocketed due to people only having contact with the people they live with—or no one. The effects can be even more confusing because social isolation affects everyone differently. Some people have pre-existing mental health conditions, and when the pandemic forced them into isolation, they recognized their symptoms worsening. While their original symptoms worsen, they also are more likely to develop PTSD than their counterparts without pre-existing conditions.
Even those without pre-existing mental health conditions are vulnerable to worsened mental health when facing social isolation, especially children and adolescents. Many people in this age group get most of their social interaction through school, and with many schools closed or on limited schedules, they’re not receiving the social interaction they need to grow. Because of the loneliness these children and teens are feeling, there is the increased risk that some of them will develop depression at an early age, with even higher rates than normal among those that have a family history of depression.
College students are facing very similar challenges that adolescents in middle and high school experience, except many have the added pressure of being away from their families while also no longer having a strong social network on campus to rely on. Many students are experiencing increased fear and anxiety in addition to depression, which can lead to physical health issues; anxiety and depression can worsen sleep and eating habits, which can have profound effects on a student’s energy, and in turn their performance in school and overall health.
Financial struggles have been shown to have severe impacts on a person’s overall wellbeing outside of this pandemic. Over a third of the United States’ population experienced negative financial impacts due to the pandemic. Hourly workers, who typically already struggle financially, were hard hit, which creates a lot of stress for them and their families. People who are worried about their finances may also be unable to seek mental health help from professionals, which could potentially improve mental health.
Many people with stable work before the pandemic hit, lost their jobs. They experience an added stress of worrying about evictions and foreclosures and where their next meal is going to come from. This can lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression, and in the past, economic downturn, which we have experience during the pandemic, is associated with an increased rate of suicide.
This pandemic has been a new experience for all of us. The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t the first pandemic, and many are realizing it won’t be the last. This realization is increasing anxiety in many people, along with worrying about the health of immunocompromised loved ones or personal health. Additionally, many are worried about dying alone. This increase in stress can lead to an increase in anxiety and depression, along with other mental health issues, and worsen existing mental health conditions.
Being home all day has kept people in front of the TV, watching the news. It’s beneficial to be informed, but studies have shown that too much COVID-19 news can worsen mental health issues. This can exacerbate issues that already existed. One way to reduce being overwhelmed with the news, but to stay informed is to limit the time watching the news and instead get reliable information from the CDC, which updates information regularly.
Mental health is a human right, and should be a priority, especially during times or social isolation, financial hardship, and illness. An emphasis should be put on practicing self-care, but it’s also important that people who need help from a psychologist or psychiatrist get the chance to see them. During this pandemic, mental health has been put on the back burner. While many of the steps taken have saved countless lives, their impact on mental health should not be overlooked. In the future, when we take drastic measures, such as social isolation, we need to make sure the mental health aspects will be given the attention they need to be able to keep our population healthy in every way possible.
UAB is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer committed to fostering a diverse, equitable and family-friendly environment in which all faculty and staff can excel and achieve work/life balance irrespective of race, national origin, age, genetic or family medical history, gender, faith, gender identity and expression as well as sexual orientation. UAB also encourages applications from individuals with disabilities and veterans.
