COVID-19 X BLACK LIVES MATTER

Old age. Preexisting health conditions. Crowded quarters. Each is a risk factor for contracting COVID-19.

Compared to 1993, state prisons today hold four times more people older than fifty-five, half of whom have at least one chronic condition, and all of whom are endangered from close confinement (Hawks, Woolhandler, & McCormick, 2020).

Disparities in social determinants of health resulting from centuries of racial discrimination have left Black communities particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus’s debilitating effects over the past months. At the same time, Black Americans have been disproportionately harmed by prison and police systems. The growing strength of the Black Lives Matter movement during a world-shaking pandemic is no coincidence; in the United States, the dual crises of COVID-19 and of the criminal justice system cannot be divorced from one another. In no place is this more evident than in jails and prisons, where urgent changes must be implemented to prevent further fatalities.

Published in April 2020, data from an epidemiological model constructed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in partnership with researchers from Washington State University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee projected nearly one hundred thousand more COVID-19 fatalities over the next six months than estimated by current models that omit jails (ACLU, 2020). This means that total fatalities would be double the number of current projections. The model was built upon a COVID-19-specific SEIR compartmental model which placed individuals into one of four compartments: Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, or Recovered. It was then tailored for jail population, total population, daily jail admit and release rates, and jail officer population using updated datasets for 1,242 counties (representing around ninety percent of the total US population). The model assumes that the probability of effective contact for COVID-19 transmission is three times higher in jails and six times higher in processing, taking into account their crowded conditions relative to the community. It also adjusts for a burn-in period, during which the virus spreads for a custom number of days in each county before shelter-in-place would be implemented.

Of the five scenarios the model tested, “Shelter-in-place, with Jails” and “Shelter-in-place, with Jails, ninety-five percent arrest reduction & two-times release acceleration” were the most relevant to the researchers’ conclusions. The former represented communities that sheltered in place while jails continued to operate as usual; the latter was interpreted both as a policy alternative as well as a baseline for other public models that omit jails. The difference in fatalities between the two scenarios—one hundred thousand—yielded the undercount of deaths by public models, and the number of deaths that could be prevented should counties implement strong decarceration reforms (ACLU, 2020). Given that the model accounts for neither prisons nor medical shortages, it is likely that even more lives are at stake.

Two months have passed since these data were published. In the wake of limited reform across states, its predictions are already becoming reality. From mid-May to mid-June, prison deaths due to COVID-19 have risen by seventy-three percent, and the five largest known coronavirus clusters in the US today are inside correctional institutions (Williams, Seline, & Griesbach, 2020). Racial discrimination underlies every aspect of the US criminal justice system, from one’s arrest to trial to sentencing to post-prison experiences; thus, Black communities are hurt disproportionately by this toll (Sentencing Project, 2018).

Even if those who are incarcerated were provided with ample personal protective equipment, testing, access to treatment, waived co-payments, and expedient care—a scenario far from the status quo—measures like social distancing, quarantine, and isolation for infected individuals are extremely difficult to implement in overpopulated prisons and jails. Due to continuous movement between these institutions and the community, viral spread due to staff and a churning jail population will continue to exacerbate the COVID-19 crisis. The most effective way to avoid future outbreaks is to significantly reduce populations of jails and prisons.

Already, local efforts have resulted in reduced admissions and expedited release from many jails. However, state prisons have been slow to address overcrowding (Prison Policy Initiative, 2020). Criminology data affirms that releasing those at high risk due to age or underlying conditions, those convicted of a nonviolent crime, or those with little time remaining in their sentences would save lives while posing little risk to public safety (Hawks, Woolhandler, & McCormick, 2020). Referring those who are released from incarceration to telehealth visits, housing, and safety net programs would further protect their health and that of their communities.

The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the replacement of systems that fundamentally disregard human life with those that safeguard it. To this end, decarceration amidst the COVID-19 pandemic is a crucial step. ■

Nithyashri Baskaran is an undergraduate student from Santa Clara, CA, USA, currently studying at Yale University.

References

American Civil Liberties Union. (2020, April). Flattening the Curve: Why Reducing Jail Populations is Key to Beating COVID-19. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-covid-19

Hawks, L., Woolhandler, S., & McCormick, D. (2020). COVID-19 in Prisons and Jails in the United States. JAMA Internal Medicine. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.1856

Prison Policy Initiative. (2020, May). While jails drastically cut populations, state prisons have released almost no one. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/05/14/jails-vs-prison-update/

Sentencing Project. (2018, April 19). Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Retrieved June 24, 2020, from https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

Williams, T., Seline, L., & Griesbach, R. (2020, June 16). Coronavirus Cases Rise Sharply in Prisons Even as They Plateau Nationwide. Retrieved June 24, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/us/coronavirus-inmates-prisons-jails.html

COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and How Music Plays a Vital Role in Both

On March 12th, 2020, Broadway, the heart of musical theatre, abruptly paused all its current and upcoming shows from running as the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread across the globe (The Associated Press, 2020). Elsewhere in the music world, arenas, concert halls, and underground clubs closed overnight to stem this virus’s spread. Big-name artists like Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga were forced to push their album releases to indefinite dates, popular festivals like SXSW and Coachella have been cancelled or postponed for the year, and stars like Billie Ellish are grappling with cancelled tours (Hissong, 2020). Large musical gatherings as we know them remain unlikely to happen until COVID-19 cases are reduced or a vaccine is produced and distributed.

Such a massive shutdown is particularly concerning when considering that humans have historically relied on music to connect. As a primary means of communication and expression, music has shaped human civilization for more than thirty-five thousand years (Suttie, 2015). Even when humans had to spend their days devoted to hunting and gathering, music’s ability to enhance social cohesion made it evolutionarily advantageous to perform music together. After all, “endorphins [that are created during singing] are the main mechanism for social bonding in primates,” said Robin Dunhar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford (Murray, 2020). So, when thousands of shows are suddenly cancelled for months, we lose an essential element of humanity.

However, modern-day humanity has something that early humans did not: digital technology. Aided by the internet, music has unexpectedly thrived during this pandemic. Live streaming, the act of broadcasting real-time footage and audio, has risen as a viable alternative to live concerts, aided by live streaming startups (Millman, 2020) and big streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch, with the latter targeting video gamers (Grant, 2020). By allowing users to view the same content and communicate in real time, these live streams allow for humans to connect, even through a virtual platform. Although musicians like Indian artist Nirali Kartik find it harder to feel the crowd’s energy in live streams, being able to connect to fans in real-time and to see them commenting, liking, and reacting to their music is nonetheless “surreal” and exciting (Mittra, 2020).

Digital technology has also allowed both skilled musicians and ordinary citizens to gather and perform pieces. University A Cappella groups, such as the Vanderbilt Melodores and the University of Pennsylvania Pennchants, and high school and community choirs across the country have moved singing, a form of music that is particularly risky given its potential to spread SARS-CoV-2 viral particles, to a virtual environment (Carrillo, 2020). Most orchestras, such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, are too large to allow for adequate social distancing and have also moved online. UK nurses, an overburdened and stressed group, have used virtual ensembles to “boost their wellbeing and connect with others.” Like Indian artist Nirali Kartik, Anna Lapwood, who created a National Health Service (NHS) virtual choir, noted that virtual platforms such as the NHS virtual choirs are “a little bit disconcerting ... but what’s lovely is people can comment along in real-time, ... and it does almost feel like a real choir practice” (Murray, 2020).

Despite the distance the COVID-19 pandemic created, music yet again has proven its ability to transcend barriers and connect individuals. Then, on May 25th, 2020, George Floyd’s death forced music to look within and address how it has ironically done the opposite: stifle human connectivity.

George Floyd’s death laid bare America’s daunting problem with racism and how it is entrenched not only within the criminal justice system, but within urban design, education, public health, and a myriad of other institutions. But people argue that, unlike those institutions, music is universal and breaks down barriers. In reality, music is political, messy, and full of the same injustices, as is anything that involves human interaction. Particularly, Black musicians struggle to achieve the same success compared to white musicians, especially in the hip hop, R&B, soul, and jazz genres, even though these genres are traditionally Black and were born from the struggles of Black people. R&B and hip hop emerged as methods of expression for Black youth who had resources stripped from their neighbourhoods and diverted to affluent white suburban areas (Puryear, 2016; Milliman, 2019). Soul and jazz share similar beginnings, as Black jazz musicians like Billy Strayhorn were unwelcome in predominantly white Classical music settings (Chaffee, 2019), and Black soul musicians were not welcomed in white churches (“History of Soul Music”, n.d.). Modern-day white musicians like Sam Smith, Adele, and Ariana Grande draw influences from genres rooted in Black struggles while achieving much greater success in their craft than Black artists. White musicians are aided by record labels who became reluctant to sign on Black musicians, as these labels slowly saw white musicians gain greater recognition—and commercial viability—in Black genres (Kornhaber, 2019; McQuaid, 2015).

In response to George Floyd’s death and the glaring problem of white appropriation of Black music, Atlantic Records executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas started #TheShowMustBePaused, a campaign to urge the music industry to reflect on its issues with systemic racism. Its creators noted, “the music industry is a multi-billion dollar industry ... that has profited predominantly from ... the efforts, struggles, and successes of Black people,” thus making it necessary to hold the industry accountable for their actions (Kaufman, 2020). In response, major music labels like Warner Music Group, Sony/ATV, and Dirty Hit reposted the #BlackoutTuesday message and committed to observing the day, taking a small, but important first step to authentically celebrating Black music. This movement has also extended beyond pop music to classical music, where classical musicians, concert halls and opera houses joined forces to observe the day as well (Asprou, 2020).

However, even with the show paused, it has still gone on. At the same time as #TheShowMustBePaused, peaceful Black Lives Matter protests, many with music as the unifying force, spawned across the United States. One of the most prominent videos from those Black Lives Matter protests showcases people dancing to the beat of a drum in Newark, New Jersey. A couple of weeks later, when the death of young violinist Elijah McClain was brought to light, protesters in both Aurora, Colorado (Clasen, 2020), and Cincinnati, Ohio (Nelson, 2020) rallied to host violin vigils to honour his life. As the rich, yet mellow, sound of violins vibrated through the air, observers witnessed the raw collective of grieving souls, coming together to mourn the loss of a valued human being. No virus nor hate crime stood in the way of humans coming together—safely—through music.

From our earliest days as nomadic beings to the present, music has been both nonpolitical and extremely political. It is nonpolitical in the sense that it can unite individuals and whole countries together, like when UK nurses banded together to create an NHS virtual choir, Italians came together on their balconies to thank health workers by singing at the top of their lungs, or a single nurse in Chile played the violin to COVID-19 patients to comfort them. It is political for the same reason it is nonpolitical—it can be used to tell stories of pain, grief, and injustice, as seen with Elijah McClain’s violin vigil or Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a 1939 song that addressed the lynching of Black people across the United States. There is beauty in this duality of music in society—while music is intertwined with politics, it also can erase labels and strip humans down to their core emotions. It is when this duality is harnessed that music's strengths really shine through.

So, is the show really paused? Not at all, as it certainly hasn’t stopped people from continuing to use music for what it has been used for historically—a universal unifier as well as a tool to fight injustices in society. ■

Allen Lu is an undergraduate student from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who will matriculate at University of Waterloo (‘24) to pursue a Bachelor of Knowledge Integration.

Works Cited

Asprou, H. (2020, June 02). The show must be paused: The classical world falls silent to honour George Floyd. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/show-paused-classical-world-silent-george-floyd/

The Associated Press. (2020, June 29). Broadway shutdown due to virus extended again until January | CBC News. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/broadway-extends-closure-2021-1.5631256

Carrillo, S. (2020, April 05). The Beat Goes On: High School Choirs Improvise In The Age Of Coronavirus. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2020/04/05/826820085/the-beat-goes-on-high-school-choirs-improvise-in-the-age-of-coronavirus

Chaffee, K. (2019, November 30). Music Memories: Billy Strayhorn. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/music-memories-billy-strayhorn

Clasen, G. (2020, July 15). Violinist transformed hostility into beauty at vigil for Elijah McClain. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.streetroots.org/news/2020/07/14/violinist-transforms-hostility-beauty-vigil-elijah-mcclain

Grant, K. (2020, May 19). The Future Of Music Streaming: How COVID-19 Has Amplified Emerging Forms Of Music Consumption. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinwestcottgrant/2020/05/16/the-future-of-music-streaming-how-covid-19-has-amplified-emerging-forms-of-music-consumption/

Hissong, S. (2020, April 16). The Week the Music Stopped. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/music-crisis-concerts-tours-980968/

History of Soul Music. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/music-soul.htm

Kaufman, G. (2020, June 01). 'The Show Must Be Paused': What to Know About the Music Industry's Response to George Floyd's Death. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/record-labels/9394552/show-must-be-paused-george-floyd-death-atlantic-execs

Kornhaber, S. (2019, January 24). How Ariana Grande Fell Off the Cultural-Appropriation Tightrope. Retrieved July 21, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/ariana-grandes-7-rings-really-cultural-appropriation/580978/

McQuaid, I. (2015, April 23). Turning tables: How Brit soul lost touch with its black heritage. Retrieved July 21, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/apr/23/brit-soul-black-artists-adele-sam-smith-rough-copy-mic-lowry

Milliman, H. (2019, May 9). The Complete History of Hip Hop. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://blog.prepscholar.com/hip-hop-history-timeline

Millman, E. (2020, July 13). Coronavirus Is Giving Livestreaming the Chance to Prove Itself. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/coronavirus-livestreaming-concerts-967169/

Mittra, P. (2020, June 29). The connection between artistes and audience is surreal during e-concerts: Singer Nirali Kartik. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/the-connection-between-artistes-and-audience-is-surreal-during-e-concerts-singer-nirali-kartik-6481735/

Murray, J. (2020, June 12). 'It has illuminated how much music can do': Virtual choirs thrive under lockdown. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/12/singing-together-nice-virtual-choirs-thrive-amid-lockdown-nhs

Nelson, C. (2020, July 13). Cincinnati Pays Homage to Elijah McClain Through Music. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2020/07/13/cincinnati-pays-homage-to-elijah-mcclain-through-music

Puryear, M. (2016, September 20). Tell It Like It Is: A History of Rhythm and Blues. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2016/tell-it-like-it-is-a-history-of-rhythm-and-blues

Suttie, J. (2015, January 15). Four Ways Music Strengthens Social Bonds. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_music_strengthens_social_bonds

Re: Resourcefulness When Confronting Invisible Enemies

Dear Family,

I hope everyone’s staying safe in the cities you’re living in. It turns out invisible enemies have the ability both to unite and to divide a society. But there’s a lesson that I think we can learn about how to continue to protect each other and to show empathy for others.

One invisible enemy we’re all familiar with now is SARS-CoV-2. Our first instinct was to learn more about the virus, specifically how it affected other countries and how it might affect us if we don’t contain its spread. A stream of COVID-19 resources flowed between our family members. YouTube videos and website links explained the symptoms of the disease and introduced ways to go safely about our daily routine, for example, encouraging social distancing and the use of masks. We could even monitor the increase in daily cases in our very counties. Although the threat was new, we took concrete actions to make the best of the situation by protecting ourselves and those around us—especially the most vulnerable populations.

With a specific problem to address, it’s pretty straightforward to act upon solutions together. Of course, there were people who rejected the wearing of masks—people who thought that masks were in no way a benefit to them, let alone a benefit to others. At best, they may have had their doubts in the way the media portrayed the severity of the pandemic and were grappling with the discordance between their beliefs and the appropriate actions that a minority (e.g., doctors, public health professionals, epidemiologists) of the population was advocating for. But at worst, they outrightly ignored and distrusted the science. “Why should we be so concerned about the health and well-being of a complete stranger?” they would say. In the case of COVID-19, I’d respond, “Because we can do something as easy as putting on a mask. Plus, that same stranger would do the same for us.” This bidirectional consideration is an example of the contract on which our society has functioned: the golden rule that is practiced and encouraged in our family.

Like a growing number of Americans, we have and will continue to practice safe measures to prevent the spread for as long as it takes society to adapt to and to adopt some of these measures into our daily routine. Maybe washing our hands frequently for at least twenty seconds at a time was the right way all along. But here’s a question we should then ask ourselves: if our empathy towards that stranger comes primarily from our own fear of getting sick, would we act differently if we were immune? For example, would you never wash your hands? No, but you might be tempted to wash your hands less. But wait, you can still be a vector! If you touch the same door handle as a sick person did and then touch another communal surface that a healthy, susceptible person then touches, you can still spread contamination: you just don’t suffer the consequences. Your immunity doesn’t change your capacity for empathy. It merely gives you the opportunity to ignore it.

And that’s why what I’m going to address next may be difficult to hear. What if I said that there’s been another invisible enemy—a “disease”—that people we know suffer from? Although we may have been ignoring it in some way, I also think we have the capacity to acknowledge the problem and can begin to empathize with those who are most susceptible to it.

The problem didn’t arrive recently—it’s been here since before we called America home, and may still be around when we aren’t here anymore. Some scholars call it systemic inequality or systemic racism, and it has many symptoms: racial inequality, implicit bias, police brutality, mass incarceration, and the list goes on. In other words, observing or experiencing these behaviors would collectively point to the overarching disease of systemic inequality caused by racism, a virus that has infected the consciousness of humanity since before America’s founding. If you’re surprised, it may be because this virus is virtually invisible today—disguising itself, mutating, and adapting. For us to even begin to understand how it behaves, we have to first ask the doctors—the professors, lawyers, civil rights activists, sociologists, and more—who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the different aspects of the disease the virus causes. What exactly are its roots? Is there a vaccine? How can we stop its spread? Today, we are lucky that we have access to the resources that they compile and distribute to inform the general public.

But those who’ve studied this disease know it isn’t so straightforward to eradicate, in part because many Americans see the same symptoms as indicative of a different, less severe disease. As a result, they can unknowingly propagate it. However, what is generally ascribed to another disease may just be another symptom. Furthermore, the solutions to fixing the problem—just like the virus—aren’t so tangible or concrete. But we can start somewhere. With the resources that the professionals recommend, we’ll be able to understand which aspects of our daily routine, many that we take for granted, have been spreading the disease. Those of us who are immune each have a question to ask ourselves. Will I choose to help stop the spread?

Here’s what I know: we are resourceful. We are willing to learn and to share videos and articles about what guidelines to follow for disease prevention. We are willing to do what is right for the betterment of the community. We may even already know who around us is more susceptible to the disease and signs of how prevalent it is. Will we sometimes falter and not wash our hands long enough? Yes, but let’s make a commitment to start believing that our fellow citizens deserve as much empathy as members of our own family—for as long as it takes society to adopt, to adapt, and to become as just and equitable as we intend it to be.

Love,

Eric

P.S. Here are some resources I’d like to leave you with:

“We need to talk about an injustice.” A TED Talk by Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights activist and lawyer: https://youtu.be/c2tOp7OxyQ8

“How we can make racism a solvable problem—and improve policing.” A TED Talk by Phillip Goff, a psychologist: https://youtu.be/t0Cr64zCc38

13th, a 2016 documentary by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, initially released on Netflix: https://youtu.be/krfcq5pF8u8

“How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time.” A TED talk by Baratunde Thurston, a comedian and author: https://youtu.be/RZgkjEdMbSw

“Let’s get to the root of racial injustice.” A TEDx Talk by Megan Ming Francis, an associate professor in political science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aCn72iXO9s

“Police Killings of Blacks: Here is What the Data Say.” A New York Times article written by Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor in computation and behavioral science: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html ■

Eric Chen is a graduate of the University of Delaware (PhD ‘18) and Columbia University (BS ‘13) and is currently a postdoc in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University.

This piece is written in response to numerous recent events in my hometown, Chappaqua, NY, where I have been quarantined since March after returning home from my first year of college.

The water in this town tastes

like it has forgotten my lips.

Taps in other places fill my void now.

It took months to unlearn this flavor, forget its filtered ease,

its scintillating, fluoridated flow,

to squeak teeth clean

to smile for every camera.

But the natural reservoir rushes over ancient soil.

Colonial disregard poisons distant waters,

yet seeps into our well

as well.

We are not immune to our own

toxic.

We must stop blaming bad apples,

start blaming the bloodsoil

of trees that line our suburban lanes.

They say Black lives matter,

and sweep controversy under the rug,

the N-word from the bathroom mirror,

from their TikTok feed

and Snapchat memories.

Numb the symptoms of our true colors,

heinous complacency

by telling us we’re cured.

Between venti chais and self-congratulations,

it’s easy to laugh when words face no consequence,

when being caught racist is just as tasteless as juuling.

Suspend them for two days’ time to learn their lesson

to reflect on what they did

in their bedrooms with their Xboxes.

On Fortnite there may be meritocracy,

but not at school, administrative hypocrisy.

They hide behind inaction

and fester complicity

through the teeth of their apologies.

Why tarnish a reputation,

so eerily white

and clean.

Hurt standings,

Hurt image,

Hurt silenced bodies.

To reckon with mishandling and mistakes

our dual liberalism and privilege is to

wake to the fact that we break

rules and take risks

to hug estranged friends,

but when it's time to march and protest,

laws of quarantine won’t bend.

Obliterate social distance to pose in

cute bikinis on a crowded beach.

Wait for permission from the Instapolice

To okay your frivolousness,

To absolve you from ignoring Pandemic and plight.

The ongoing fight

set a woman alight.

She burns in Wisconsin

while we extinguish our sin

before the flames upset the neighbors.

They lit fireworks above their drive-in graduation

under scorched stars.

We spark new fires to distract from the old,

taint communal introspection with nocturnal nostalgia,

drink to forget our broken world

on public fields where cops won’t catch us.

At not-so-social-distance, these tender flowers

are tangled in their own mangled roots.

The paradox of our inclusive bubble is

we always drink the running water

and remind ourselves that’s why we live here:

the public school that sets us apart

and the good tap water,

Yet in Chappaqua we don’t learn

about Algonquins erased;

Our namesake lost in translation:

Shapequa

“A place of separation”

and of

“Running water.” ■

Jacob Kaufman-Shalett is an undergraduate student from Chappaqua, New York, USA, currently studying at Yale University (‘23).

An honor to life, an honor to those lost.

A BODY IN MOTION

I.

I wish they taught us how to live inside a skeleton.

To carve a birdhouse in our chest for days Hope comes to visit.

To touch the soft of our skin and the brittle of our bone and recognize our great contradiction.

I wish they taught us that every memory bleeds into one another to make

watercolors.

II.

If there is one word I could kiss into the side of your forehead over and over, it would be remember.

Remember there are people who live in light after knowing you. Smiles that were made softer after seeing you.

Remember that every body is filled to the brim with light. Laughter is just a body overflowing.

Remember that a hand’s instinct is to hold another. Remember that a heart’s instinct is to beat with another.

A BODY AT REST

III.

There is a field past the bridge where bird songs are always blooming.

A field past the bridge where the sky is bruised blue with the ache of time.

There, every loved person reunites with the sunlight. Beauty in every corner of sight.

IV.

We keep places for them in our hearts,

even when they go.

And at night, maybe you will still hear the

scuffles of footsteps dancing.

The bubbly windchime of

a child’s laugh.

The soft hum of a man

dozing and dreaming. ■

Kiran Masroor is an undergraduate student from Pakistan, currently studying Neuroscience at Yale University (‘23).

Our bodies were never meant to lie so still

in these bare city streets

gone now is the music of vendors calling 

and the percussion of rubber tires scraping up against the pavement

once again cities are rocked by fiery breathing 

and the crash of human bodies and desperate calls

for unity and for mercy

young men play as sirens rush through the city

on this beach I’ve found women hugging the sea

the orbs of seawater streaking down their backs

scores of crushed soda cans lying in the grass

the fragility of our lives like moisture on the skin

the closeness of these souls, a haunting

the music, a reminder that touch can become a substitute

for poison.

In this our world, planes drive empty

like castles floating across the sky

newscasters mourn as the markets crash

mothers try to translate their love over facetime

believers reach up to God for comfort

In a small apartment room in this our city 

the man attempts to swallow

waiting for the woman who heaves in the iron chamber

the one who taught him 

that change was like moving sandcastles away from the shore

like rising again. ■

Jude Okonkwo is a pre-med student from Dix Hills, New York, USA, currently studying English and biology at Harvard College (‘21). His work has previously appeared in Pleiades, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Flash Fiction Magazine among other publications.

This is to my fellow healthcare workers, African Americans, and LGBTQ+ community members, the warriors of 2020 who, despite their struggles, continue to thrive. ■

Cassandra Chu is an undergraduate student from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, currently studying at Georgia Institute of Technology.

As members of the media seek to address both the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against policing, it has become increasingly common to write that Black people are fighting two pandemics. Framing racism as a pandemic fits into a long legacy of medicalizing social issues, replacing the language of systems for words like “disease,” “epidemic,” or “pandemic.” At a time when it is strikingly clear how the prison and medical industrial complexes work together to kill Black people, it is more important than ever to understand the work that the language of medicalization does. When Western biomedicine and ruling class media speak about racism, colonialism, and other systems in biological metaphor, it only serves white supremacy by obscuring the true nature of these structures.

In her essay “Medical Violence Against People of Color and The Medicalization of Domestic Violence,” Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo writes, “medicalization represents a deep threat to the movement, because it uproots the conceptualization of domestic violence as a social problem. Instead, it replaces the ideology and structures of social movements with the ideology and structures of (Western) medicine, subsuming grassroots to state and capital interests” (Durazo, 2016). The medicalization of racism functions in this same way, framing racism, and thus the mass death of Black people, as unavoidable or natural. The truth is that anti-Blackness is not a pandemic temporarily sweeping the world; it is the foundation of global systems.

Biological metaphor is especially dangerous when the values of Western biomedicine and the medical-industrial complex run in contradiction to the well-being of all Black people. Though medical institutions portray themselves as benevolent and objective, the structural reality is that biomedicine was forged in the political and social terrain of colonialism. Ultimately, Black “health” is an impossibility in a system built and sustained by anti-black violence and logics through exploitative research, medical discrimination, and eugenic principles. Further entangling the language of racism and the language of medicine only perpetuates the idea engrained in Western medicine that race is natural and distinct from racism.

Instead of calling for systemic changes and the abolition of anti-Black structures, medicalization instead searches for a cure. When Paul Ehrlich discovered Salvarsan as a treatment for syphilis in 1909, he called it a “magic bullet.” This brought in a new era of “magic bullet” medicine, with scientists and the rest of civil society desiring ideal medicines that target diseases with no negative side effects (Tan & Grimes, 2010). Comparing racism to a pandemic harkens back to this era, but racism has no “cure” and certainly no “magic bullet.” It is not for lack of a cure that Black people are dying at the hands of the state. It is the presence of policing and its structural foundation of anti-Blackness. From any angle, freedom for Black people does not exist within the boundaries of biomedical language.

Language that is meant to be revolutionary cannot reinforce the same systems it is attempting to dismantle. In her essay, “Problems of Language in a Democratic State,” June Jordan remarks on how the ruling class media uses the passive voice to transfer responsibility from the state onto the people. Jordan writes, “Should we really just relax into the literally nondescript, the irresponsible language of the passive voice? Will the passive voice lead us safely out of the action? Will the action and actors behind it leave us alone so long as we do not call them by their real names?” (Jordan, 2003). The same could be asked of biological metaphor. The language of current systems will never create a radically different world. Instead, fissures need to be created in vocabulary that create the room to call the actions and actors of racism by their real names. Abolition is always a positive project. Once the old systems are destroyed, then comes the task of world-building, of imagining a matrix of alternative systems and resources. The movement to end policing cannot pander to “health-care” systems that rely on medical violence against Black people to function. Rather, this current moment requires language that is demanding, accurate, and healing. ■

Gwendolyn Wallace is a rising senior at Yale College from Danbury, Connecticut majoring in the History of Science and Medicine.

References

Durazo, A. (2016). Medical Violence Against People of Color and the Medicalization of Domestic Violence. In Color of violence: The INCITE! anthology (p. 180). Durham: Duke University Press.

Jordan, J. (2003). Problems of Language in a Democratic State. In Some of us did not die: New and selected essays (p. 227). Place of publication not identified: Civitas.

Tan, SY; Grimes, S (2010). "Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915): man with the magic bullet" (PDF). Singapore Medical Journal. 51 (11): 842–843. PMID 21140107.