Inequity exposed

This year was very painful and often made me mad. Not because anything so terrible happened to me personally, I had no job to lose, a steady income, plenty to eat, no friends or family died or even got COVID, I played tennis regularly, loved my pets, improved my house and garden, and read more.

In other words, like so many white, upper income, professional people I got by pretty easily.

This COVID year showed the terrible injustice between the haves and have nots, the professional class and the “essential workers.” The white and the black and brown. The inequities were laid bare, never more clearly.

There are inequities in the distribution of vaccinations and health care by race and class, and the inequities go much deeper. Professional, office-based people kept their jobs and could live in relative safety and security in their homes. Most of them got paid fully, some for doing less or only part of their jobs because it was deemed too unsafe to go out.

Meanwhile, workers in lower-paid jobs, the black and brown, younger and lower-income workers had to go to work or face unemployment, and their kind of work involved the most extensive contact with people and exposure to COVID. Going to work for them meant they had to risk their health and lives and indeed got sick and died at higher rates.

Can there be any inequity greater than that? As we enjoyed our seclusion and safety, did we recognize and reward those who made our security possible?

Trudy McFall, Annapolis