In our recent class, Dr. Thrasher delivered such an important message surrounding the factors that contribute to and perpetuate the viral underclass. Based on the conversation, I’ve concluded that the vector that is especially influencial is racism. Although there are several other vectors that make up the viral underclass—such as the myth of white immunity and boarders—racism is an underlying cause of many of the other vectors. The strong influence of racism can be seen when we consider that a great proportion of monekypox viral disease cases are among Black/African American people, yet a majority of the vaccines for this disease are going to white people (a phenomenon Dr. Thrasher called the inverse risk prophylaxis). The way that minorities disproportionately make up a high population of incarcerated persons is heavily due to racism—I urge you to check out The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, a book that eloquently and thoroughly explains this—which directly contributes to the transmission of disease vector. It’s clear that racism permeates several vectors of the viral underclass. Until we eradicate racism, minority groups will continue to be burdened with health inequities.
Below is an article that further discusses the role of racism in health inequities. I found it to be an interesting, informative read. Hopefully, you’ll find it insightful as well.
Brianna, great post. And thanks for making suggestions for other resources. How do you see racism intersect with classism/poverty? How do they inform one another?
Hi Brianna, I really enjoyed your post. I, too, was really struck by Thrasher’s lecture as it relates to racism. It is especially poignant to me that you noted how the majority of monkeypox cases are among Black/African American people, yet the majority of vaccines are going to white people. When vulnerable and marginalized groups are not put at the forefront of response, it maintains the negative feedback loop of these groups having the worst health outcomes. The connection you make with incarcerated communities being disproportionately being made up of people of color makes me think of Thrasher’s comment on vaccine dispersal for incarcerated communities. Incarcerated populations were and are seeing some of the highest rates of transmission, were and are receiving very inadequate care, and have some of the lowest rates of vaccination. In my post, I wrote about how people with disabilities were deemed disposable by society during COVID, and the same appears true with incarcerated populations. I hope to see this country address these inequities, because as you said, racism is a major a vector that propagates the existence of all other vectors in the Viral Underclass. Thank you for the great post!
I highly encourage you to check out The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. It traces history from the period of Transatlantic Slave Trades to the Mass Incarcerations of present day, noting how racism has not disappeared but only mutated into different forms. The museum’s ability to capture the visitors’ visual and auditory senses is absolutely amazing!
Thank you for sharing this resource about inequities in health! Something I think is important to recognize in the field of public health is that we’ve always erased racial minorities from the conversation. I read this book called Maladies of Empire by Jim Downs, and in the book, he discusses how the violence of imperialism and colonialism was the invisible contributor to the field of epidemiology and public health. Enslaved Africans who were transported through the Middle Passage were studied by British doctors. The origins and spread of infectious diseases in those who were packed tightly on boats were documented by these doctors. This repeated and systematic practice created an institutional form of medicine and epidemiology. I found it interesting how Jim Downs mentioned a sort of paradigm conflict during this time. On one hand, some doctors attributed illness in enslaved people to racial differences. This paradigm explains that due to innate biological differences or supernatural forces, the enslaved individuals themselves were to blame for suffering from disease. On the other hand, Downs stated that other doctors were skeptical of this reasoning and went to investigate more. These efforts to understand disease on ships eventually led to the beginning of tracking disease. As the paradigm shifted to view the spread of disease in a group of people rather than blaming illness on the individual, our modern understanding of epidemiology was formed. However, it seems that this story about the birth of epidemiology has been erased for historical narrative. We have long hidden the role of the slave trade in the development of the paradigm of infectious diseases. Like Downs implied, we have failed to include the violence imperialism, race conflicts, and class wars as the protagonists in our narratives. To begin to tell the true story of the public health crises, we must center race and class issues. To this end, we must honor the stories of those who were forgotten back in the Middle Passage and understand the implicit bias that moved us to hide them.