COVID Pandemic, racism and ableism in the workplace

Race Reflections AT WORK

In today's episode Simone reflects on the COVID 19 pandemic and how it intersects with racism and ableism. They begin by thinking about the Olympics in relation to a lack of COVID mitigations and how we need to have conversations about COVID and racism in relation to workplace inequality. How so many things are connected; with racism, xenophobia, classism and white supremacy at the root of it all.

They then consider the way that the first year of the pandemic played out in 2020, drawing on both their lived experience and the studies and data that we now have. Thinking about who could shelter and who could not, and especially how people of colour experienced what has been described as the duel pandemic.

They then look at the article "COVID and Racism Cause Nurses of Color to Face “Dual Pandemic” by Kitta MacPherson: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/covid-and-racism-cause-nurses-color-face-dual-pandemic which sites the study "Effects of Race, Workplace Racism, and COVID Worry on the Emotional Well-Being of Hospital-Based Nurses: A Dual Pandemic” from Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins, Peijia Zha, Linda Flynn & Sakura Ando: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08964289.2021.1977605

They consider the pandemic happening in the context of the murder of George Floyd making it a very specific experience for Black people, and the anti-Asian racism that was exacerbated by the way the virus was being discussed making it a very specific experience for East-Asian people. And those racisms being seen in relation to communities of colour experiencing the highest rates of cases, deaths and hospitalisations, and nearly half of all health care workers with infections being among workers of colour, with nurses being the hardest hit.

Reflecting on anti-Asian racism they look at the article "Research: How Anti-Asian Racism Has Manifested at Work in the Pandemic” by Jennifer Kim and Zhida Shang: https://hbr.org/2023/03/research-how-anti-asian-racism-has-manifested-at-work-in-the-pandemic

Then they reflect on workplaces currently within the ongoing pandemic: how this impacts disabled and at risk people, how employers and governments are failing to recognise this, how there are ways we could immediately make workplaces safer that are not being implemented. They consider the way the loses we have due to this are not just from death and disability, but also from workers and students quitting their workplaces and educational establishments, and the knowledge and experience we lose when this happens.

The episode ends by considering the way COVID has both harmed disabled people disproportionately and created more disabled people, and so going forward we need to include disabled people and attempt to mitigate dangers in our workplaces, and look after and support people if they do get sick.

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