Read on Twitter
"Who could have imagined we would have mishandled COVID?" -- many *did* imagine that the US would fare badly. Perhaps worth reconstructing the reasoning behind those early predictions https://twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1352253020818571265
One obvious antecedent is Katrina. Henry Giroux's 2006 article on the "biopolitics of disposability" in the failed response now reads as terribly prescient, highlighting "the long legacy of attacking big government and bleeding the social and public sectors of the state..."
... as well as the racialization of a disaster in which the Bush administration "felt no responsibility for the lives of poor blacks and others marginalized by poverty" [and NB, that admin should be strongly implicated in the scandal of COVID-19 - not rehabilitated by comparison]
![... as well as the racialization of a disaster in which the Bush administration "felt no responsibility for the lives of poor blacks and others marginalized by poverty" [and NB, that admin should be strongly implicated in the scandal of COVID-19 - not rehabilitated by comparison]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsRcL5PVQAAmmqj.jpg "... as well as the racialization of a disaster in which the Bush administration \"felt no responsibility for the lives of poor blacks and others marginalized by poverty\" [and NB, that admin should be strongly implicated in the scandal of COVID-19 - not rehabilitated by comparison]")
(Just taking another moment on the Bush administration and reflecting on how short-term disasters surface different kinds of expressions of racism than "slow disasters" like COVID-19. We haven't seen quite the same demonization of pandemic victims -- more, their erasure)
However, a slight cultural parallel in the erasure of suffering--Giroux notes “the cruel jokes and insults either implied or made explicit by Bush and his ideological allies in the aftermath of such massive destruction”; we saw something similar last year re: deaths among elders
"[Katrina] lays bare what many people in the US do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance,...savings"
!["[Katrina] lays bare what many people in the US do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance,...savings"](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsRfWhkVQAErtUz.jpg "\"[Katrina] lays bare what many people in the US do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance,...savings\"")
!["[Katrina] lays bare what many people in the US do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance,...savings"](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsRfZFNVgAAhLSs.jpg "\"[Katrina] lays bare what many people in the US do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance,...savings\"")
"...and instead offers to black and brown youth inadequate schools, poor public services, and no future, except a possible stint in the penitentiary. ... 'These are the people that Republicans have been teaching us to disdain, if not hate, since President Reagan decried..."
"...the moral laxness of the Welfare mom.'"
It's been long established that racism, classism, and misogynoir have been weaponized by Republicans to shred the safety net.
So maybe the better question is not Who could have called COVID-19? but, How did we forget this history?
It's been long established that racism, classism, and misogynoir have been weaponized by Republicans to shred the safety net.
So maybe the better question is not Who could have called COVID-19? but, How did we forget this history?
