The collective challenges of color, COVID-19, and their convergence

Abstract

There are numerous challenges many of us must confront, including COVID-19 and expansive, global anti-Blackness, that often results in far-reaching consequences for Black individuals worldwide (Bledsoe & Wright, 2019). As a parent of two young Black boys, I worry about these issues influencing my children’s emotional health and physical safety. I value my role as a parent, and as a Black person, partner, researcher, teacher, and activist, these identities cannot be compartmentalized. I pursue grants, conduct research, and teach amid continued trauma. Yet, how does one concentrate on scholarship and protect their children from the pandemic, racial resentment, and the potential of media’s representation of both, which may create concern among young audiences? I offer my narrative as a Black media scholar, adopting the feminist intellectual traditions of standpoint theory (Hartsock, 1983), acknowledging the struggle to be seen, heard, and represented in a society that historically erases the hardships Black folks often face. To offer an illustration of those circumstances, on day two of my six and eight-year-old heading back to elementary school, after seven weeks of at-home virtual learning, my son said, “Daddy, I don’t think the Coronavirus is real.” Hearing my son say this broke my heart; I believe in science and work alongside multiple organizations to research the virus and its impact on Black Communities. My family has numerous friends and family members, all Black, who have contracted the virus, and some have died. At that moment in the car, I turned off the Frozen soundtrack to discuss his statement. My son shared that he overheard that the Coronavirus was fake while listening to news programs, confusing him. I know my children are tired of isolation, and now they see their friends and teachers in person and question why they had to spend months indoors. At that moment, I realized that the media contributed to my child questioning the existence of COVID-19. Sadly, my children did not know their father recently overcame the virus. To protect them, I mentioned that I was exhausted and needed to rest in solitude. I work extremely hard to safeguard my children from the structural inequalities Black people face due to their racial identity. Currently, COVID-19 highlights those disparities, and we are dying at alarming rates (Center for Disease Control, 2020). It pains me that often news programs encourage a narrative of seemingly impartial storytelling, framing the pandemic and the deniers of its reality as “newsworthy.” Likewise, scholars note news media’s role in uneven