Additional Rec. - Oct. 22, 2020

Additional Rec. - “The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying” by Adam Serwer

“The underlying assumptions of white innocence and black guilt are all part of what the philosopher Charles Mills calls the ‘racial contract.’...The racial contract is not partisan—it guides staunch conservatives and sensitive liberals alike—but it works most effectively when it remains imperceptible to its beneficiaries.”

“To restrict the freedom of white Americans, just because nonwhite Americans are dying, is an egregious violation of the racial contract...This is a very old and recognizable story—political and financial elites displaying a callous disregard for the workers of any race who make their lives of comfort possible. But in America, where labor and race are so often intertwined, the racial contract has enabled the wealthy to dismiss workers as both undeserving and expendable. White Americans are also suffering, but the perception that the coronavirus is largely a black and brown problem licenses elites to dismiss its impact. In America, the racial contract has shaped the terms of class war for centuries; the COVID contract shapes it here.”

“The frame of war allows the president to call for the collective sacrifice of laborers without taking the measures necessary to ensure their safety, while the upper classes remain secure at home.”

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