It's Time to Address That Underlying Reality

Syosset, NY – April 9, 2020 – Newly released data highlights major racial disparities in deaths from COVID-19. According to preliminary data released yesterday by the City of New York, black and Latino people are dying of coronavirus at twice the rate of white people. In New York State excluding New York City, black individuals represent 18 percent of deaths, despite being 9 percent of the population; Hispanic individuals represent 14 percent of deaths and 11 percent of the population. In Michigan, according to The Washington Post, African Americans account for 33 percent of COVID-19 cases and roughly 40 percent of deaths, despite comprising only 14 percent of the population. In Chicago, according to The New York Times, African Americans account for more than half of those who have tested positive and 72 percent of virus-related fatalities, even though they make up a little less than a third of the population.

In response to that data, Elaine Gross, President of ERASE Racism, released the following statement:

“Preliminary data showing that black and Latinx people die of COVID-19 at disproportionate rates is not surprising. It’s a reflection of the structural racism that provides the unequal foundation for so many aspects of life, including widely documented, underlying health disparities for African American and Latinx individuals. It is those underlying health problems that land people in the hospital and that lead to more deaths due to the virus. Increased rates of infections for African Americans are likely exacerbated by such factors as whether one can work from home, whether one works in an essential service, whether one has routine access to healthcare, and how quickly one has access to care at this time, among others. A study by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer found that 75 percent of front-line workers in the city – grocery clerks, bus and train operators, janitors and child care staff – are minorities.

Those circumstances are a function of structural racism – not a function of race, which is a social construct. In considering these racial disparities, we should not confuse the two. We should not give credence to the idea that there is something inherently different about African American or Latinx individuals that makes them have higher death rates – other than the circumstances of structural racism. What we should focus on is this: How do we address the structural racism that has caused and continues to cause health and other disparities? That is the question that rightly examines the structural impediments to racial equity that are leading to these racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths.

Structural racism is partly a function of conditions that are baked into our society: the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and other historic conditions. But it is partly a function of ongoing activities: ERASE Racism’s own research and the recent landmark investigation by Newsday evidenced widespread, contemporary, racial discrimination in real estate practices on Long Island, for instance. That discrimination continues to steer blacks and Latinos to less-integrated less-resourced communities and thus to less-integrated less-resourced schools.

Anecdotal evidence already identifies disparities in students’ access to distance-learning – with some schools sending students home with laptops, for instance, and others not; some schools providing students with video-based instruction and others giving them packets of materials. New York State has left it to individual school districts, and that just amplifies the differences between the well-resourced schools and the less well-resourced ones. Structural racism again is the determinant. The overwhelming percentage of black and Latinx students are in segregated and less well-resourced schools and will be at a disadvantage now but most importantly in the Fall when they may return to school behind their peers or behind the grade-level standards.

ERASE Racism launched in 2018 an ongoing region-wide public initiative called “How Do We Build a Just Long Island?” That’s exactly how we should approach this problem: How do we look at this data and together seek a just America – an America of shared action to disassemble structural racism. COVID-19 is creating a new future. Let’s create a future together that does not accept that these disparities are unchangeable. Let’s take advantage of the light that COVID-19 is shedding on our society and come together to reflect that light onto a path to justice. It’s time to join together as a nation and root out structural racism for good.”

To speak with Elaine Gross, contact Henry Miller at hmiller@highimpactpartnering.com.


ERASE Racism is a regional civil rights organization based on Long Island that exposes and addresses the devastating impact of historical and ongoing structural racism, particularly in public school education and housing. It does so through research, policy advocacy, legal action, and educating and mobilizing the public – driving policy change at local, regional and statewide levels and through national coalitions. It has been recognized locally and nationally for its cutting-edge work.