Home > Journals > St. John's Law Review > Vol. 95 > No. 2
Document Type
Article
Abstract
(Excerpt)
America was founded on institutionally recognized and supported oppression, namely, slavery and conquest. So, the fact that the inequality spawned by this oppression continues to exist today should surprise absolutely no one. That said, the extent of the racialized social and economic inequality that pervades American society today is being exposed in horrifying and glaring detail, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
African Americans, the Latinx community, indigenous communities, and immigrants are at much greater risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19 because of now widely-acknowledged systemic health and social inequality and inequity. More specifically, in July 2021, the CDC reported that the death rate for African Americans was 2.0 times higher than the death rate for whites, for American Indians and Alaskan Natives the death rate was 2.4 times higher, and for Hispanics/Latinx people the death rate was 2.3 times higher.