Look closely at this face.
It’s the face of one of COVID-19’s victims.
It's a window into the story of who coronavirus is killing.
Black people are dying at disproportionate rates in the United States.
I will miss my daughter for eternity.
She was like a butterfly.
She was just a great daughter.
Experts say the U.S. could have anticipated the deadly disparity.
Because we know that anytime
a new disease enters the community,
people of color tend to get
the downside of that.
And that's just not surprising at all.
That was a recipe for disaster.
And some believe the solution to closing the gap isn't a return to normal,
because “normality” is what produced the circumstances
that left Black people more vulnerable.
I don't want to get past this pandemic
because the reality is that like
where we were
wasn't really working for us.
Hey fam, I’m Imaeyen.
Like some of you, I’m working from home during this pandemic.
And today, we're gonna look at the social
and economic factors that led to this acute crisis.
It's a story about so much more than underlying health conditions.
Her last paycheck was $20 and 63 cents.
$20 and 63 cents.
It's what cost her -
is what took her life away.
But I do know
that she died
helping humanity.
When grocery store worker Leilani Jordan finally made it to the hospital
with severe coronavirus symptoms,
her mother, Zenobia Shepherd, says,
she was already fighting for her life.
When she got to the emergency room,
she fell out in the parking lot at Walter Reed,
and they put her on a gurney and took her in
and, immediately, she had 104 fever, and they put her in isolation.
Twenty-seven-year-old Leilani entered the hospital on March 27.
She died April 1, and, even in her final moments,
Zenobia says she had to push the chaplain to spend time with her daughter.
I held her hands, and I sang for her.
and I sang to her and I sang to her,
I touched her feet.
I touched her hands.
I touched her arms.
I got in her ear and I said,
"Lani, it's Mommy. I'm right here."
Then she coded.
Leilani is one of the many Black Americans
on whom the virus has exacted a particularly deadly toll.
Around the U.S., early data shows Black people who contract the virus
are dying more frequently than others.
The governor of Louisiana says more than 70% of their deaths
have been African Americans.
Look at this chart.
You can see African Americans represent 41% of COVID-19 deaths.
The next closest race? Caucasian at 28%.
In Chicago, nearly 70% of virus-related fatalities are Black,
even though African Americans make up less than a third of the population.
The numbers we're seeing
aren't because Black people are getting infected more often.
They are not, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
There is something much deeper going on here.
Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a crisis,
like we are now with the coronavirus,
it really does have, ultimately,
shine a very bright light on
some of the real weaknesses and foibles in our society.
The United States' longstanding racial health gap -
which is fueled by inequality -
is more than a “foible.”
Let me show you.
Even though Black Americans are living longer than they have in the past,
they are still more likely to die at early ages from all causes.
We know that there are reasons why we have these health inequities,
and that's our societal issues, you know,
transportation and housing
and the environment and all the things
that we know that people of color
have to deal with that are unequal.
And by the way, that includes
discrimination, racism.
Black people between 18 and 49
are twice as likely to die from heart disease than white people.
Black people from ages 35 to 64 are 50% more likely to
have high blood pressure than their white counterparts.
And then there’s the fact young African Americans are living with diseases
more common at older ages -
things like stroke, diabetes and high blood pressure.
For some of us, 45 is the new 60.
There're some familiar explanations
for what’s happening.
Higher rates of diabetes...
African Americans at higher risks for a lot these conditions across the board…
...the hypertension, the obesity,
the asthma -
those are the kind of things that wind them up in the ICU,
and ultimately, give them a higher death rate.
It's easy for people to understand
talking about diabetes and
heart disease, etc.
And there's always this undercurrent
that it's somehow your fault
that you have that.
Yes, having disproportional
health outcomes is important.
It's not necessarily anybody's fault.
The other thing we have to do
is recognize that a lot of people of color
work in public-facing jobs.
That means while folks like me
are able to stay at home,
there are many people that can’t.
When we filter the entire U.S. workforce by race,
we find Black workers account for 13% of the labor force.
It’s comparable to their numbers in the nation’s general population.
And when we drill down to see what kinds of jobs people have,
we learn people of color are more likely to be in roles
deemed essential in this pandemic,
roles like the one Leilani Jordan had.
Black and Hispanic workers are at the top of the list
for work the government calls
“production,”
as well as the service industry, transportation and material moving.
These generally lower-paid jobs
likely don't have paid sick leave, health insurance or retirement benefits.
Black people also have higher unemployment numbers
than any other group.
What I didn’t include in those stats was the racial gap
in median salary,
you know, because the amount of money you make and have
has a direct correlation to the type of health care you can receive.
So this is why focusing solely on underlying health conditions
to explain away why Black people are dying disproportionately of COVID-19 isn't enough.
These fatalities are the result of larger, systematic issues.
So what do solutions look like?
The long-term solution of course, is for us to
put in place the systems
so that we end up with these terrible health inequities.
Dr. Benjamin says that closing the racial health gap means
addressing structural inequalities in everything
from incomes and housing to transportation and environmental health.
It’s exactly what David Johns is focused on -
doing the work to make sure Black people aren’t forgotten.
We're developing toolkits.
We're hosting virtual sessions.
David says the nation’s response to this crisis
should heed lessons from another pandemic that caught the U.S. off guard:
AIDS.
There're at least three reconnections
between the HIV/AIDS epidemic
and the COVID pandemic.
And one of them we're seeing a disproportionate impact
upon the Black community.
The second thing is with regard to stigma.
And then the third way for us
is really thinking about how,
in moments of crisis like this,
it is organizations like NBJC
and people that show up trying to fill gaps
for the least of these
that often get pushed to the back of the line.
The National Black Justice Coalition is only
one of the groups helping with short-term relief.
What that looks like for us is contributing
to families by providing grocery cards
so that individuals who are not going to receive
a stimulus check from the government
or the CARES Act
could otherwise cover the cost of groceries.
We're also contributing to and helping people
cover the cost of their rent.
But they and other activists also are battling the systematic issues
that have brought the nation here.
That includes fighting against paying rent during the crisis.
Discussions about raising the minimum wage have fired up again,
as essential workers fight for better pay and conditions.
And the implicit racial bias in health care
is even more important, as medical professionals
face the difficult choice of who to treat during the pandemic.
Treatment didn’t save Leilani Jordan.
Her death has resonated with her colleagues and community.
Giant Food, the parent company that owns the grocery store where Leilani worked,
says it’s enacted new procedures
including installing temporary plexiglass shields for higher traffic areas,
limiting the number of customers that can enter a store at any time
and recommending personal protective equipment for all employees.
For Zenobia Shepherd, the protections come too late.
They could have bought two box of gloves,
which is a hundred pairs of gloves in one box.
Masks, they could have bought that too.
Out of that one paycheck for $20 and 63 cents.
As Leilani lay dying in her hospital bed,
she gathered the energy to record one final video message to her mother and her family.
She said, "I love you. I love my family.
I love my dog. I love my job.
I love my friends."
She says, "I'm going to miss you, Mommy."
And she said, "I won't be going back to Giant.
This is the last time you ever talk to me again."