By Web Brown, Director, Office of Health Equity
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A common question heard during the COVID crisis is, “When will things go back to normal?” Even with COVID-19 deaths passing 100,000 in the United States, many of us continually express a desire to “get back to normal”. Millions of people in the U.S. today face unprecedented economic anxiety and fear for their very survival. People of color, however, have endured these conditions for centuries.
The coronavirus pandemic is shining a spotlight on the inequities that made the old normal highly objectionable for communities of color. Health disparities are not and should never be a normal human condition. The CDC defines health disparities as preventable differences in the rate of disease experienced by socially disadvantaged populations — people who live with the impacts of structural racism, inadequate educational and job opportunities, inferior housing, poverty and the lack of access to quality and affordable health care.
We should have no interest in either an old or new normal where health disparities are acceptable and where those who are disproportionately burdened are blamed for their circumstances. Somehow, communities of color are expected to halt the impact of COVID-19 in their communities when most lack the ability to work from home and many don’t have equal access to gloves and masks. High percentages of workers of color are also employed in at-risk, low-wage jobs that do not provide health insurance or hazard pay. And this is not to mention the fear that many people of color feel at the idea of wearing a mask in public because of historical stereotypes associated with masks, people of color and criminality.
What we need is a better normal, where all lives are valued equally. We are all anxious for a return to a post-pandemic normal. But the experience of communities of color thus far during the pandemic is a reminder that normal won’t be good enough. We shouldn’t be rebuilding the inequitable systems we used to have, but the more just, sustainable, and fair systems that we need. Lack of access to quality education, housing, and health care was a crisis in communities of color long before the pandemic. But the inequities highlighted by COVID-19 have provided all of us with a call to action to transform these systems in ways that benefit all and not just some.
To learn more about the types of policies needed to create a new normal that's more just and equitable, check out Principles for a Common-Sense, Street-Smart Recovery from PolicyLink.
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