Despite What Celebrities Say, We Are Not All in This Together
When the coronavirus hit New York, my parents—and many of my friends’ parents—had to find alternatives to receiving a paycheck and paying their bills. This often meant relying on the weekly $600 unemployment benefits.
Between art installations and advertising campaigns, it’s easy to digest the message that the pandemic hits everyone equally. Canal Street News Summer Journalism Club member Areum Jo set out to challenge this COVID-19 slogan.
Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, the effects of this health crisis have been prevalent in my everyday life.
My school has closed its doors and resorted to online learning. My parents—and many of my friends’ parents—had to find alternatives to receiving a paycheck and paying their bills. This often meant relying on the weekly $600 unemployment benefits, which recently came to a halt.
I, too, have applied for unemployment benefits after being let go from a dessert shop. This $600 direct deposit was three times the amount I earned while working 7-hour shifts, two days a week. While this money sits in my savings account, waiting to be used on clothes, food, and entertainment, that is not the case for those in lower-income communities—often immigrants and people of color—who rely on this check for necessities.
“We are all in this together.” This expression has been floating around on storefronts, captions on many, MANY celebrities’ posts, and even in the United Nations.
But we are not all in this together. The imbalance of resources available for affluent Americans compared to working-class residents is despicable. Not only are there fewer facilities for self-isolation and testing sites for the virus, but the majority of the lower-income population are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).
Meanwhile, many wealthier families in New York moved to their second homes outside of the city. This not only provides families outlets of entertainment, but literally more room to breathe. Escaping Manhattan during the pandemic means contact with fewer people which severely lowers the chance of contracting the virus. This, of course, is not a luxury that is accessible to everyone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that people of color are more likely to live in densely populated areas that are further from grocery stores and health facilities, making them more prone to contracting the virus.
Not only is this a problem in the free world, but Black people are five times more likely to be criminalized than white people. Black males make up 34 percent of the total incarcerated males compared to 29 percent white males. Because of the confined space, lack of medical resources in prison and unfair racial profiling of people of color, it is inevitable that numbers of COVID-19 cases went up amongst colored individuals.
Not only are they battling the financial burden, but they have the battle of racial oppression. Until recently, many families had to plan their future around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) in case, God forbid, the Trump administration ended the program which provides protection to youths who have arrived in the United States unlawfully. The looming circumstances—such as the chance that their families would be separated—added to preexisting financial stress. The plan of the president was to halt the program that his predecessor has created—an explicitly racist approach which cautioned many undocumented immigrants to prepare for the next drawback in their lives.
More recently, President Trump suspended visas for foreign workers. What does this mean? The Trump administration states that by making this executive decision, American citizens will be first in line when job opportunities open up. This policy suspends new green cards for some people outside of the United States, revokes the H-2B visa (a temporary visa for seasonal workers), H-1B visas (employment of foreign workers in high-skilled areas), J visas (people who are in work and study exchange program), and L visas (foreign workers who are employed in the United States’ corporations outside the country). This targets immigrants who are already suffering from financial burdens from the coronavirus and is a slap in the face on America’s diversity.
Clearly, it is not enough to spread encouragement, but rather, it is much more beneficial to spread awareness on the socioeconomic issue that the coronavirus have shed light on. It is important to acknowledge the imbalance of resources between the upper and lower classes, communities of color, immigrants and card-carrying citizens, and to provide the solutions they need to get through this pandemic, ultimately reaching for the goal of truly being in this together.
There are many ways to help and offer aid to those who are less privileged.
Increase drive-through and in-person testing in underprivileged areas to inform those at risk of their infection status.
Increase centers for self-isolation in dense areas that are mainly populated by people of color or lack enough space for self-isolation.
Increase funding for medical facilities and federal health insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
Notice the constant use of the word ‘increase’? That’s because immigrants, undocumented workers and people of color are—more often than not—given significantly less assistance than their white neighbors. It is never ‘decrease’—always increase.
