As COVID-19 cases peak higher and higher, a great spike in cases relating to the people of color highlight a crucial racial disparity present in our society. COVID-19 affects people of color worse than white people. Its role in higher education has taken a huge toll on the academic health of students. Media in America tends to shadow any racial gaps but to combat the secrecy, revealing disparities relating to POC cases will push forward our efforts towards resolving racial inequity issues. With the stress of racial health care disparities and new health guidelines, POC students living in dorms have to return to unstable households unfit to be used as an academic environment. Ultimately, students of color in higher education are taking one of the largest tolls during this pandemic.
“It’s as though you had a front row view on American inequality and the ways in which it was disguised and papered over”, notes Anita Issacs – a political science professor at Haverford University since 1988. Her work focuses on democratic transitions and resolving political issues in Latin America. With an elaborate understanding of under-privelleged communities, her evaluation of COVID-19’s effects of POC speaks volumes about mistreatment and discriminatory problems present in our highly biased community.
Racial health care disparities originate in unconscious bias which is automatic, effortless, and fast to act on. Our brain depends on cognitive efficiency to speed up the evaluation of our environment. These “predicting factors” ultimately determine our immediate reactions to events around us. Implicit social biases exist as a byproduct of our cognitive processing system made of a complex set of beliefs and attitudes. These beliefs and attitudes usually stem from teachings, experiences, and morals passed down from family and friends. There are many other cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, bandwagon effect, selection bias, and observer expectancy effect. Many of these, but not limited to, determine our split-second emotional reaction to events in our environment which further progress the impact of our implicit biases. Biases distort one’s interpretation of what they believe. For example, Confirmation Bias towards the taste of an apple may lead you to believe that the apple you just picked off the tree is sweet. Contrary to your Confirmation Bias, the apple turns out to be sour but your belief in the idea that apples are sweet remains. One incident that disproves a bias does not adequately erase your biases towards anything. Getting rid of a bias is a slow process which requires lots of hard work, determination, and self-training.
Why can’t we just erase implicit biases?
Implicit opinions rely on harmful emotional associations which are difficult to undo. The only way to combat these attitudes is to confront our implicit cognitive systems and ask, “WHY do we think that way?” Humans have an automatic preference for information that creates positive emotions. Dominant racial groups tend to feel powerful while – sometimes unconsciously – undermining “inferior” races. Some interventions have shown promising results on patient care. Targeting an inclusive and diverse climate in all workplaces can reverse systemic assumptions of a dominant and inferior racial ideology. Yet, confronting our biases can cause unpleasant tension between fair opinions and ones that may be socially degrading. These biases do not stop POC from standing up and proving themselves in a system rigged solely to pull them down. Real world examples of POC in power which have helped decrease social stereotyping include Barack and Michelle Obama, Naomi Campbell, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. These are just a few of many people which highlight the true potential of all POC. It is important to mention that not only do POC have potential, the oppressors make it so potential is concealed beneath layers of racist attitudes and opinions ultimately making progress in the POC community almost impossible.
“People from some racial and ethnic minority backgrounds are disproportionately represented in essential work settings” quotes the CDC. It is important to recognize that “people of color makeup 51.5% of all essential workers” making them the most underrepresented and the most overlooked in all industries during COVID-19. POC making up such a large portion of essential workers also means they have the most chances of being exposed to COVID-19. This directly ties into how these workers are now treated in healthcare facilities. The cause for racial health care disparities lies mainly rooted in the socioeconomic imbalances caused by systemic economic inequalities – as represented by the high number of POC essential workers. Data recorded by the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report of 2014 accurately examines that 100% of evaluated members in the survey were treated better when they had a higher income. This stark distinction highlights the role which systemic economic oppression has on the healthcare industry and its patients.
The word “privilege” has great weight in the context of racial health care disparities. Privilege not only has to do with the emotional factor of this issue, but also focuses on the monetary discimination presented in the POC community. Privileged people in the United States stand on higher monetary ground than that of their neighbors. Higher monetary ground means being insured in terms of health and well-being. POC are at the “highest risk of being uninsured, with 22% of AIANs and nearly one in five (19%) Hispanics lacking coverage compared to 8% of Whites.” Adding to that “uninsured Blacks are more likely than Whites to fall in a coverage gap (15% vs. 19%) because a greater share lives in states that have not implemented the Medicaid expansion.” Uneven distributions of healthcare availability caused by historical systemic oppression, socioeconomic inequality, and financial opportunity have a great negative effect on the health of POC.
Adding to a lack of health insurance, mistreatment of POC in healthcare worsens racial health care disparities. 28% of POC (Blacks, Hispanic, Asian, and AIANs) claimed to have worse quality treatment as compared to white people. Similarly 57% of low income people reported worse quality of care. Care inequality emphasizes the negative effect of COVID-19 on POC. An extremely overworked, under-appreciated, and oppressed community sufferers greater health concerns when all these problems pile on one another. Issues on top of issues worsen the racial health care disparities which taint our already biased community.
Ultimately, racial healthcare disparities, stubborn implicit biases, socioeconomic factors, and insurance inequalities all affect POC students the worst because of the home environments which students have to adapt to. Once moving out of dorms was made mandatory for a POC student at Haverford University, she had to return back to her home which entailed a failing food truck that her family was about to lose. In a similar situation, another POC student had to return to a home which was half quarantined due to sick family members which could not get necessary medical assistance. The unstable home environments which POC students have to return to shed some well-needed light on the harm of a socioeconomic disparity which impairs students’ already difficult academic careers. Racial health care disparities harm the academic condition of POC much worse during COVID-19.
All these issues boil down to a few key factors. The first being a system designed to manipulate, reject, and oppress POC. Secondly, pre-existing factors such as environmental elements which are statistically worse for POC*. Lastly, the healthcare system which needs to decrease racial mistreatment to provide high-quality care for all its patients. Recognizing these issues and making your effort to relieve them is the only way to make change. Unify this movement and let’s work together as a whole to amend these inequalities.
About Us
Hello, we are Annaya Singh and Durva Patil. Coming from a background of immigrant parents aiming to bring us a sound education, the cracks and holes in the school system popped out to us clearer than expected. The realization that monetary competence determines the quality of your education and ultimately your success came early on. Knowing that, months of planning and digesting the best way to compliment this scholastic discriminaion led us to EduBlock. A strong effort to bring transformation to education in places that need it the most.