Derrick Bell in 1992 published Faces at the Bottom of the Well – The Permanence of Racism. One short story embedded in Bell’s opus is a prescient allegorical tale titled The Space Traders. I’ve met Bell. We are both members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
The Space Traders came from another planet on an aircraft carrier-sized ship that landed on waters off the eastern part of the United States. At that time America had an economy in shambles, toxic waterways teeming with dead fish, and an energy-raped environment. The Space Traders walked on the water from their ship to meet the U.S. representatives.
The Americans were relieved that the foreigners we not a threat, but the aliens did have specific proposals. The Traders were willing to provide gold, safe renewable energy, and special chemicals to restore the environment to pristine condition.
In return for these much-needed items, the Traders wanted all the Black people in the U.S. to come back with them. (That is, every American citizen categorized as Black on a birth certificate or other official identification.)
The ship landed on January 1 and the Traders gave America until January 17 – MLK’s birthday – to accept or reject the offer. While the decision was being made, the US tested the equipment and assayed the gold. All expectations were exceeded.
One meeting held by the President to evaluate the proposition assembled the all-white cabinet along with a Black non-cabinet member named Gleeson Golightly. He was an acceptable conservative (Think Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or the Samuel L. Jackson “Django” character – Stephen.)
America wanted the deal, but worried about the optics. So the Traders amended their offer to exclude all Black people 70 years and older and those who were seriously ill or injured. Additionally, 1,000 otherwise eligible Blacks and their immediate families would be left behind as trustees of Black property and possessions, all of which was to be stored or held in escrow in case the Blacks were returned to this country.
Bell’s conclusion is intentionally omitted, but the willingness of White America to go on its merry way without Black America is central to the tale.
In many ways and in real time, we are now living through a similar situation in America. According to Black scholar and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, Trump’s legacy will be to expose the patina of inter-racial decency for what it is, and more worrisome, to reveal just how much a demagogue can get away with.
Consider our situation. The U.S. Supreme Court, newly packed with ultra conservatives, appears poised to undo 50 years of civil rights reforms. The Attorney General is exonerating Trump’s friends despite the fact that they pleaded guilty.
Black voter suppression schemes are being launched by Republicans in preparation for Trump’s re-election. Farmers are killing hogs, turning over crops, and crushing eggs while urban food pantry lines stretch for blocks.
Ahmaud Arbery – the Black Georgia jogger – is killed and videoed by three white men. Minneapolis’ George Floyd joins Eric Garner in the Black “I can’t breathe” death club at the hands of white police.
A Reality Stanger Than Fiction
With a nod to Derrick Bell’s Space Traders, I submit that we are now being invaded by what I’ll call the Corona Chaos Crusaders. Whereas the Space Traders walked on water, the Crusaders are invisible yet lethal virus molecules riding on coughs, sneezes and touches.
As of this writing, over 60,000 Black people have been slain by the Corona killers. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see our national leadership’s passivity toward prevention and cavalier response to mass fatalities.
This absence of leadership ought not be attributed to inefficiency alone. It would be quite simplistic to say this is a viral attack only against Black people, going unattended. This would be a mistake because scores of white people are dying, many of whom have gone uncounted.
Consider just two hot spots – nursing homes and prisons. At least 28,100 residents and workers have died from the coronavirus at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for older adults in the U.S.
The virus has infected more than 153,000 at 7,700 facilities, according to the New York Times data base. Older adults often have pre-existing conditions and can spread the virus more easily inside congregated facilities where many people live in a confined environment and workers move from room to room.
One-third of U.S. corona deaths are linked to long-term care facilities. In 14 states the number of residents and workers who have died account for more than half of all deaths from the virus. In Illinois, it’s 410 facilities, 11,437 cases, 1,563 deaths.
The Corona Chaos Crusader continues its laser-like attack on Black people. Nursing homes with a significant number of Blacks and Hispanics have been twice as likely to be hit by the virus as those where the population is overwhelmingly white.
In the suburbs of Baltimore, workers at one nursing home said that they were given rain ponchos to protect from the infection. So far, 27 employees at this facility, where most resident are African Americans, have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Separate, Not Equal
Covid-19 has been particularly virulent toward African Americans. Nursing homes where these groups make up a significant portion of residents – no matter their location, no matter their size, no matter their government rating – have been twice as likely to get hit by the coronavirus as those whose population is overwhelmingly white.
More than 60 percent of nursing homes where at least a quarter of the residents are Black have reported at least one coronavirus case. That is double the rate of homes where Black people make up less than five percent of the population. In Illinois facilities where patients are at least 75 percent Black or Hispanic, there have been 75 cases. Where minorities are less than five percent, only 24 cases.
The nation’s nursing homes, like many of its schools, churches and neighborhoods, are largely segregated. And those that serve predominately Black and Latino residents tend to receive lower grades on government ratings. Those facilities also tend to house more residents, and to be located in urban areas, which are risk factors in the pandemic.
Eric Russel, who moved his mother to a different nursing home in the Chicago area after she tested positive for the virus, said the prevalence of cases in homes with more Black residents is alarming and needs to be more widely understood and examined by the authorities. As reported by the Times, at The Villa at Windsor Park on Chicago’s South Side, at least 121 residents and employees have been infected and 24 people have died.
Small nursing homes which are disproportionately occupied by white residents tend to have fewer outbreaks than larger facilities and urban nursing homes have more outbreaks than suburban or rural.
The Times found that a racial disparity remained even after accounting for a variety of factors, including the size of a nursing home, the infection rate in the surrounding county, the population density of the neighborhood, and how many residents had Medicaid or Medicare.
Large homes with few Black and Latino residents were less likely to have outbreaks than large ones with more Black and Latino residents. A home in an urban area was less likely to get hit by the virus if it had a small Black and Latino population.
Robin Grant, of National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term Care, worries that: “The sheer numbers are horrifying. The underlying factors that have contributed are no surprise. They’ve been issues of concern for a long time.”
Not until mid-April did the Federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announce a reporting system to track Covid 19 in nursing homes and funnel data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Phillip Stone states, ”Nursing homes, cruise ships, and prisons all share large numbers of people in extremely small spaces, so it’s hard to do isolation.” Black people are in the minority on cruise ships!
It has become tragically obvious that changes are needed in nursing homes, which should:
1. Expand rapid testing and contact tracing;
2. Establish a full-time position for contagion prevention and resource management;
3. Change design of living spaces;
4. Increase worker compensation; and
5. Change visitor policies to have a relative or close friend undergo regular testing and learn the purpose for and use of PPE, or personal protective equipment.
This close look at nursing homes is not just another case of outsized victimization of Blacks by the Chaos Crusader. Scant attention has been paid to the Black nursing home workers who catch the virus inside the facility from the elderly and go untested. They go out into the larger Black community and unintentionally infect family, friends, and neighbors spreading the virus exponentially.
As for prisons, both guards and inmates are at risk. Guards at Rikers Island in New York sued for protection. Inside Chicago’s Cook County Jail, detained men staged a protest strike over the lack of safety precautions and placed hand-made signs in their windows reading, “Help us! Don’t let us die!”
The Damage Done
Everywhere, Black America is under siege. News reports tell us that 40 percent of Black businesses are shut, with many likely to disappear altogether. As of April, the country had lost nearly 450,000 African-American business owners as the pandemic intensified, from beauty salons and barber shops to taxi services and day care centers. Indeed, the childcare industry has collapsed, with a devastating effect on working families.
White Supremacy was at play in the founding of America, was reinforced during African slavery, and is alive and well today. The Corona Chaos Crusader has attacked Blacks in an outsized way. It’s as if corona is a flood and Blacks live in the basement and lower floors. Whites reside on the upper floors and penthouse – out of harm’s way. White supremacy created this paradigm.
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What to do? A quick list:
1. Volunteer with organizations out to correct these challenges;
2. Organize over social media;
3. Stay informed on the issues;
4. Contribute financial support;
5. Participate in virtual and webinar meetings;
6. Support Stacey Abrams’ fight against Black Voter Suppression.
Ta-Nehisi Coates nails it when he writes: “The most powerful country in the world has handed over all its affairs – the prosperity of its entire economy, the security of its 300 million citizens, the purity of its water, the viability of its air, the safety of its food, the future of its vast system of education, the soundness of its highways, airways and railways, the apocalyptic potential of its nuclear arsenal – to a carnival barker who introduced the phase ‘grab ‘em by the pussy.”
It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a Black man can be president, then any white man – no matter how fallen – can be president.”
Enough of this. Derrick Bell, please send us the Space Traders!
(Paul King is a construction consultant and member of Chicago’s Business Leadership Council.)
Having city ward and suburban township committeepeople is one way to combat Black Voter Suppression. 😃
Committeepeople’s duties include voter registration, election materials, community forums and election operations. 😃
When COVID-19 hit Cook County, it wasn’t that difficult to find new voting locations, to replaced shuttered senior citizen locations. 😃