As Physicians, We Must Assert That Black Lives Matter

To the Editor:

I rarely spent my days thinking about my “race.” Greeting my patients, I was generally more preoccupied with their medical cases than with what they thought seeing my dark hair and almond eyes.

But that has changed.

COVID-19, sometimes misleadingly referred to as the “Chinese virus,” has exacerbated anti-Asian sentiment. My friends and family trade stories about being coughed at, spit on, or told to “go back to China.” For some, contemplating how our physical appearance may mark us as unsafe is disorienting and new. For my Black friends, this happens every day. But COVID-19 has amplified their racial experience in a different way. Nationally, Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at 2.4 times the rate of their White counterparts. ¹ This is unjust, and it is not by accident.

The cause of excess deaths from COVID-19 among Black Americans is anti-Blackness. Anti-Blackness in our laws, policies, and practices limits access to quality food, education, housing, and health care. These disparities accumulate and lead to chronic stress, lung disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In addition, Black Americans comprise an outsized portion of our essential service, homeless, and incarcerated populations. Together the odds are stacked against Black communities. If you are Black and you get COVID-19, you are more likely to die. ²

The structural racism that permits anti-Asian hate and disproportionate Black deaths from COVID-19 is the same. It treats Asian Americans as perpetually foreign and Black lives as less valuable. It gives individuals permission to hurt others to preserve their own comfort rather than acknowledge our interdependence. Structural racism promotes assaulting people who appear Asian rather than holding our institutions accountable to a coordinated COVID-19 response. It asks whether Black Americans are more genetically susceptible to COVID-19 to deflect from unjust social systems that increase Black mortality.

No Americans should fear for their safety due to their “race” or ethnicity or fear for increased odds of death from COVID-19. To address structural racism, we in medicine must first recognize that our Black brothers and sisters are dying. As stewards of health, only when we assert that Black lives matter can there be hope that all lives will matter.

Acknowledgments:

The author would like to thank the UNtraining community and Dr. Keith Norris for comments and suggested revisions.