It did. It has. The Biden administration and most leaders of and in the United States as well as outside have brought it to you. For Black and Brown people, it’s been going on since La Niña, La Pinta, and La Santa Maria disembarked on this side of the hemisphere. Current leaders are just quickening the job by the way they’re reacting to the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s been over two years since we discovered the virus that would upend our lives. That’s not to say that we, oppressed people, haven’t had our lives crushed by colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, racism, xenophobia… the powers that be, but now they’ve supercharged their abuse toward us. That especially includes our disabled—the immunocompromised, the ones with one or multiple chronic illnesses/conditions, comorbidities, that have been beyond abandoned—they are being exterminated.
The crazy thing is that Biden’s administration isn’t even hiding its crimes:
Dr Rochelle Walensky @CDCDirector said on @GMA "the overwhelming number of death [sic] over 75% occurred in people who had at least 4 comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with, and yes really encouraging news..."
— Steve Walden (@stevewalden) January 7, 2022
Isn’t that incredible? Isn’t that monstrous? It’s “encouraging” that people who have several illnesses are the ones who are dying of covid? Christ Almighty. Oh, but people with scruples, with a conscience have been ringing the alarm about it. Log on to Twitter and search for “eugenics.” You’ll find several tweets calling it exactly that:
I'm not surprised, but I'm still reeling from how callously ableist Walensky's remarks were.
— Azooz 🍂 عزوز (@Azza_Alt) January 9, 2022
In this system of racial capitalism, the state & its agents have always cast us - Disabled, Mad, Black & brown folks - as disposable and Other.
This is eugenics in service of capital. https://t.co/oDlhKZL2qy
The "it's cool if some people die" discourse is eugenics. Every death from COVID is tragic.
— Ahmed Ali (@MrAhmednurAli) January 10, 2022
As a historian of disability I'm upset by #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy. How many disabled individuals have made the same statements and the same demands throughout history? Millions. And they were met with inaction or eugenics time and time again. When will we break the cycle?
— Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch) January 9, 2022
It should come as no surprise to those of us in the trenches of cultural and sociopolitical criticism to know that disabled advocates have been telling us that the covid train was coming for their lives, for our lives:
Ableds are 2 years late to a conversation that disabled people have been having while they left us for dead.
— Imani Barbarin, MAGC | Crutches&Spice ♿️ (@Imani_Barbarin) December 30, 2021
I am so damn tired. pic.twitter.com/lwYKgp5wdw
Imani is absolutely right. The people who are usually the most oppressed within a system are the ones who know it more. Black and Brown people know the United States more than anybody else. Our artists, our advocates, our academics, our community leaders, our historians know more about our current systems than anybody else, but what happens when white people grow a conscience and a spine and call what’s happening to us for what it is? They go viral:
How many of those "co-morbidities" are in themselves markers of inequitable access to clean air, healthcare, safe working conditions, safe housing, access to safe places for physical activities, and a life free of the health impacts of racism?
— Dr. Elizabeth Sawin (@bethsawin) January 8, 2022
She is correct. Inequality is the elephant in the room. Inequality is what has our people suffering at a higher rate from covid than most other groups:
As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in the United States and health experts have collected increasing amounts of data, it has become apparent that persons of color are being affected disproportionately more than whites. Hospitalization rates from COVID-19 are especially high among non-Hispanic American Indians, non-Hispanic blacks, and Alaska Native persons. Hispanics and Latinos are not far behind. On the whole, COVID-19 hospitalization rates among these groups are four to five times higher than they are among non-Hispanic whites.
The researchers did not find any racial or ethnic differences in mortality rates among people hospitalized with the disease. Yet a disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic people became sick enough to require hospitalization, and they made up 53% of inpatient deaths.
Even our children are disproportionally affected by the pandemic:
Among the 281 patients in the study, 143 (51%) presented with respiratory disease, and 69 (25%) with MIS-C. Sixty-nine patients (25%) were diagnosed with another acute SARS-CoV-2-related clinical syndrome or condition, such as gastrointestinal symptoms or neurologic disease. Nearly 58% of those with the severe respiratory form of COVID were Hispanic and 35% of those with MIS-C were Black.
White call-outs are heard because now that someone is fit to be the face of public discourse say them, but how much of a difference can they make? A change of language, of course:
This is it. Days and days of people with disabilities and chronic illness pleading for people to place value on their lives after the CDC Director admitted to eugenics policy and the best she can do in response is nebulous, non-specific "taking steps." https://t.co/LrVYGwxrHj
— Erin Biba (@erinbiba) January 10, 2022
Most of the links I shared here mention racism, immigration, socioeconomic status as being the major factors for our predicament, and they’re 100% correct. Only listening to white people make a ruckus about what’s happening is part of the problem, though, but good God, how many white people are calling out these disparities now? How many were calling them out before?
They say we should judge a nation by the way it treats its most vulnerable. If that is the case, there’s a special place in hell for America, for imperial powers, for the way it treats Native Americans, Black people, Brown people, poor people, the old, the young… the disabled.
The Biden administration let unemployment benefits expire, sending millions of people back to poverty.
The Biden administration won’t extend student loan relief, let alone cancel it.
The Biden administration is mostly concerned with sending people back to work for their corporate overlords despite record breaking levels of people contracting covid, including our precious children.
The Biden administration has kept school open despite protestation from teachers and parents.
The Biden administration washed its hands by throwing the pandemic ball at states instead of handling it itself.
The Biden administration is worsening climate change by approving "more oil and gas drilling permits than Trump.”
The Biden administration has kept most of Trump’s immigration policies.
Hospitals are overworked and understaffed—at the verge of collapse.
The PPP loans program was allowed to end.
The Supreme Court ended the eviction moratorium.
Artist Relief, among other grants for struggling artists, is no longer taking applications.
All these things, and more, affect our people, our disabled, disproportionately.
All of this is preventable, but the powers that be are putting profit, gaining and retaining power, above our wellbeing.
This is literal genocide, but few people seem to care.
Don’t you?
How can we change this?
By pressuring our representatives, our media, our celebrities, and everyone and anyone who can make a material difference for the better for us.
How do we start?
We talk about it.
We bring it up any chance we could.
We share the words of the people who are at the margins, the people whose voices have been ignored and muffled.
By people, I mean people like you and me.
When genocide knocks on your neighbor’s door, raise hell.
Don’t wait for it to knock on yours.