Covid-19 and Eco-Apartheid
Outline of a Project
By Daniel Aldana Cohen
Disasters expose and exacerbate existing inequalities of race, class, gender, and power. Context is everything. And the context for the novel coronavirus is both appalling levels of social inequality — and the ongoing climate emergency, with its turbocharged extreme weather hitting us more and more often. At the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, we’ve started this Medium channel to gather thoughts and research on these intersecting disasters — and on strategies and movements for reconstruction that would attack our problems’ root causes.
We start with some recent data. As the Covid-19 epidemic ravages the United States, we’ve already seen evidence of an intense racial bias in reported deaths. One likely factor is communities’ of color disproportionate exposure to air pollution.
I haven’t seen systematic national numbers yet. But I’m seeing consistent reports. Kat Stafford’s thread linked here, reporting findings from Michigan, is bracing: 40% of the coronavirus deaths in the state are of Black people, against only 14% of the population.
In Chicago, the Washington Post reports another shocking number:
In Chicago, black Americans account for 68 percent of the city’s 118 deaths and 52 percent of the roughly 5,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, despite making up just 30 percent of the city’s population, according to data from the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Black city residents making up 68% of deaths, over double their share of the population. The Chicago Teachers’ Union also tweeted out a screenshot of the numbers from an ABC News report.
Summarizing much of the available data, the New York Times writes:
In Illinois, 43 percent of people who have died from the disease and 28 percent of those who have tested positive are African-Americans, a group that makes up just 15 percent of the state’s population. African-Americans, who account for a third of positive tests in Michigan, represent 40 percent of deaths in that state even though they make up 14 percent of the population. In Louisiana, about 70 percent of the people who have died are black, though only a third of that state’s population is.
There is a important social science discussing this kind of health disparity in terms of eco-apartheid. I find that term helpful because it captures the convergence of state-sponsored violence, racialized inequalities, and a host of environmental inequalities, from access to water, to the macro-ecologies of climate change — and now, I am learning, the micro-biology of disease. (Others, like Mike Davis, have long understood the need for a critical social science of both the micro- and macro-moments of human/non-human relations.)
In The Nation, I recently wrote an essay, “Eco-Apartheid is Real,” about the convergence of racialized housing inequalities and climate change, looking at both unequal impacts of extreme weather, and the disproportionate amount that communities of color pay in energy bills:
…we learned on Monday that New York utility Con Ed intentionally cut off power to the majority-black Canarsie neighborhood to avoid risking broader blackouts. Amazingly, the utility wasn’t prepared for a major heat wave and sacrificed low-income black customers to ride out the crisis. Eco-apartheid, which I define as a regime of greening affluence for the few at the expense of the many, is the path of business as usual.
And give an example of the live connections between housing and the pandemic: as COVID-19 responses cause a surge in unemployment, people who already couldn’t afford rent and utility payments are facing evictions and shut-offs. The Homes Guarantee housing movement (full disclosure: I’m on the campaign’s policy team) and many of its allies are calling for #rentzero and #cancelrent: an end to monthly housing-related payments until further notice.
We’ll also connect what’s happening in the United States with what’s going on elsewhere. Neither the climate nor Covid-19 emergency can be understood in sealed national borders. In these opening remarks, however, I’ll just point to developments in two places that exemplify eco-apartheid — foreshadow what’s coming to the U.S. In Ecuador, we have seen devastating floods in Indigenous communities. And there was an inadequate, muted response from the national government, which feared coronavirus contamination if it unleashed proper relief efforts.
As the story notes, the US is in immediate danger of a wretched season of floods. It’s also staring down an especially dangerous hurricane season. On Vanatu, we’re seeing a hurricane endanger its victims with the virus.
And the same is coming to Fiji, which has 19 confirmed cases already.
One thing we’ll do here at Wreckage and Reconstruction, featuring ongoing work by the demographer and sociologist Nick Graetz, along with several other collaborators, is exploring how the COVID-19 epidemic is an example of eco-apartheid.
We’ll be digging into these and related issues over the coming weeks and months with a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis. And we’ll point out relevant research and policy work by colleagues near and far. The point isn’t just to understand our wreckage — it’s also to build toward a just, green reconstruction. We look forward to the conversation.
Daniel Aldana Cohen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2. He is also a Senior Fellow at Data for Progress, a member of the policy team for People’s Action’s Homes Guarantee campaign, and the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.
