Vulnerability highly intersected with race and poverty in the U.S.

People like to say COVID-19 is no respecter of race, class or country, that the disease is mindless and will infect anybody it can.

In theory, that’s true. But, in practice, in the real world, this virus behaves like others, screeching like a heat-seeking missile toward the most vulnerable in society. And this happens not because it prefers them, but because they’re more exposed, more fragile and more ill.

What vulnerable people in society look like varies country to country, but in America, that vulnerability is highly intersected with race and poverty.

Early evidence from cities and states already shows that black people are disproportionately affected by the virus in devastating ways. As ProPublica reported, in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, as of Friday morning, 81% of the deaths were black people. Black people make up only 26% of that county.

In Chicago, WBEZ reported Sunday that “70% of COVID-19 deaths are black.” While black residents make up only 23% of the surrounding county, they account for 58% of the COVID-19 deaths.

The Detroit News reported last week that at least 40% COVID-19 deaths in Michigan so far are black, far exceeding the proportion of African Americans in the Detroit region and state.

If this pattern holds true across the country, this virus could have a catastrophic impact on black Americans.

And yet, there still isn’t much news coverage or national governmental response focused on these racial disparities. Many states haven’t even released race-specific data on cases and deaths. The federal government hasn’t either.

So we’re left with deceptive and deadly misinformation. The idea that this virus is an equal-opportunity killer must itself be killed.

And, we must dispense with the callous message that the best defense we have against the disease is something that each of us can control: We can all just stay home and keep social distance.

In March, the Economic Policy Institute reported, “less than 1 in 5 black workers and roughly 1 in 6 Hispanic workers are able to work from home” and “only 9.2% of workers in the lowest quartile of the wage distribution can telework, compared with 61.5% of workers in the highest quartile.”

If you touch people for a living, in elder care or child care or if you cut or fix their hair, clean their spaces or cook their food, drive their cars or build their houses, you can’t do that from home.

Staying at home is a privilege. Social distancing is a privilege.

The people who can’t must make terrible choices: Stay home and risk starvation or go to work and risk contagion.

And it’s happening with poor people around the world.

If they go to work, they must often use crowded mass transportation.

Such is the life of the working poor or those struggling. Economic elitism stains our discussion over COVID-19. Social media comments about images of packed buses and crowds of delivery workers outside restaurants chastise black and brown people for not always being inside, but many of the chastisers do so from comfortable homes with sufficient money and food.

People can’t empathize with what it truly means to be poor in America, to live in a toosmall space with too many people, to not have enough money to buy food for a long duration or anywhere to store it if they did. People don’t know what it’s like to live in a food desert where fresh food is unavailable and junk food is cheap and abundant.

People are quick to criticize these people for crowding into local fast-food restaurants to grab something to eat. Not everyone can afford GrubHub or FreshDirect.

Furthermore, in a nation where too many black people have been made to feel that their lives are constantly under threat, the existence of yet another produces less of a panic. The ability to panic becomes a privilege existing among those who rarely have to do it.

I wholeheartedly encourage everyone who can to stay home, but I’m also aware enough to know that not everyone can or will, and that it isn’t simply a pathological disregard for the common good.

If you’re sheltering in place in an ivory tower, or even a comfortable cul-de-sac or a smartly well-appointed apartment, and your greatest concern is boredom and leftover food, please stop scolding those scratching to survive.