The COVID crisis reveals what’s actually important: family, food and community. It also shows what’s not important: material items and money worship. Globalization, too, a specific form of money worship, proved unable to support the domestic production of basic but critical supplies, like masks, in a time of crisis.
Another thing revealed by this crisis is the true cost of racism. It shows how racism supports mediocrity.
The crisis reveals the moral and spiritual bankruptcy embedded in some of the “religious” claims by white racists in the US. These appear to be materialistic and greed-based misinterpretations. This is a self-centered version of “faith” that somehow justifies not wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic. In addition to being irrational, any logical interpretation of this behavior reveals the selfishness driving this behavior. The common thread is veneration of white privilege, including the right to impose a deadly pandemic on Black people, simply because some white people choose to do so. No appeal to free markets, personal liberty, or state’s rights can justify the damage done to the entire community by these irrational, anti-science based behaviors. These mirror, directly, violent racial extremism.
This hatred of Black people specifically, the descendants of people who played a critical role in building the country, has always been irrational. Blacks bore the brunt of the damage racism has caused, but always knew this social damage was going to grow. Targeting blacks is a reflection of white fear and mediocrity, nowhere better seen than in the performance of the current (December, 2020) president. The other thing this crisis reveals is the central role that lying plays in white supremacy: in 1,316 days, the current president told 22,247 lies.
Black people don’t oppose white supremacy just because it damages Black people. Historically, Blacks have tried to make the case that anti-Black racism imposes significant costs on the entire society. Those who promoted this line of reasoning have either been assassinated, like MLK or assimilated, like Obama. Under either outcome, the result is the continuation of white supremacy, to the now clear detriment of society.
Both humanity and the planet continue to suffer.