Book contents
- Frontmatter
- COntents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The long road ahead
- one BLAME the BAME
- two COVID-1984: wake MBE up when Black Lives Matter
- three Black vaccination reticence: HBCUs, the Flexner Report and COVID-19
- four Pregnancy, pandemic and protest: critical reflections of a Black millennial mother
- five It’s alive! The resurrection of race science in the times of a public health crisis
- six It’s just not cricket: (green) parks and recreation in COVID times
- seven Muslim funerals during the pandemic: socially distanced death, burial and bereavement experienced by British-Bangladeshis in London and Edinburgh
- eight Racial justice and equalities law: progress, pandemic and potential
- nine Out of breath: intersections of inequality in a time of global pandemic
- ten An exploration of the label ‘BAME’ and other existing collective terminologies, and their effect on mental health and identity within a COVID-19 context
- eleven COVID-19 in the UK: a colour-blind response
- twelve Reviewing the impact of OFQUAL’s assessment ‘algorithm’ on racial inequalities
- thirteen The impact of COVID-19 on Somali students’ education in the UK: challenges and recommendations
- Conclusion: Long COVID, long racism
- Index
one - BLAME the BAME
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- COntents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The long road ahead
- one BLAME the BAME
- two COVID-1984: wake MBE up when Black Lives Matter
- three Black vaccination reticence: HBCUs, the Flexner Report and COVID-19
- four Pregnancy, pandemic and protest: critical reflections of a Black millennial mother
- five It’s alive! The resurrection of race science in the times of a public health crisis
- six It’s just not cricket: (green) parks and recreation in COVID times
- seven Muslim funerals during the pandemic: socially distanced death, burial and bereavement experienced by British-Bangladeshis in London and Edinburgh
- eight Racial justice and equalities law: progress, pandemic and potential
- nine Out of breath: intersections of inequality in a time of global pandemic
- ten An exploration of the label ‘BAME’ and other existing collective terminologies, and their effect on mental health and identity within a COVID-19 context
- eleven COVID-19 in the UK: a colour-blind response
- twelve Reviewing the impact of OFQUAL’s assessment ‘algorithm’ on racial inequalities
- thirteen The impact of COVID-19 on Somali students’ education in the UK: challenges and recommendations
- Conclusion: Long COVID, long racism
- Index
Summary
I wrote this improvised piece in response to the UK government's delay in the release of their Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 report. Findings from the report identified disproportionately higher BAME mortality rates from COVID-19. The report concluded that ‘COVID-19 is higher among people of BAME groups’ (Public Health England, 2020: 39– 40).
The delay of this report to the backdrop of a revival of Black Lives Matter (BLM) activism after the death of George Floyd compounded the issues surrounding everyday racisms. The delay of the report highlighted fears among UK officials of anti-racist uprising because of the glaring disparities in the report. Perhaps the biggest irony of all was that the very services that were supporting the public during this terrifying pandemic, services such as the NHS, were the very services mostly made up of Black and Brown employees. Public support was emerging not only within a racially hostile environment, but now a physically unsafe one. The irony continued when we were asked to nationally celebrate the NHS through neighbourhood cheers and applause – the imagery attached to the NHS was that of whiteness. The Black and Brown body, once more erased.
BLAME the BAME reflects my racial frustrations with us as a nation state, amid narratives of Brexit, COVID-19 and BLM – all compounded by the delay of this report which, when released, confirmed our fears as the melanated othered.
The piece speaks to the blame culture that often follows around the othered BAME, be it for the collapse of public services or the plight of the white working class. It speaks to the omissions of Black and Brown so intrinsic to our national-narratives, and the deliberateness of overlooking and dehumanising the othered BAME, which is an attitudinal hangover from our colonial past.
BLAME the BAME sheds light on the age-old trope of positioning the othered as sub-human, a threat, or a scapegoat – and invites the public to challenge such toxic narrativisations to really see and appreciate the people behind our services.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- COVID-19 and RacismCounter-Stories of Colliding Pandemics, pp. 10 - 13Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023