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A Pandemic of Inequality
How Covid19 is exposing the failures of policy.
I remember sitting on the edge of a creek watching my son pick up stones with his small, chubby hands and stack them in a row. His pebbles and stones grew taller and, to his delight, began to divert the water. He piled and piled the rocks, trying to pool the water behind them deep enough to sit in. He walked across a clearing and filled his pockets with more rocks and his dam grew taller — but no matter how tall he made it, water still seeped through. He became frustrated. “It won’t stop coming, Mama.” He looked up the stream, which went up the hill and deep into the forest, looking disdainful. “The water keeps coming.”
Coronavirus is exposing a social, economic, and political crisis that many in our communities have been enduring for a long, long time. As we are reminded to keep calm and to prepare — trips to the store to stock up on food and supplies, hunker down at home with the kids — we are ignoring the fact that for nearly half of us in America, no matter what we try to do, we do not have enough rocks: The water will keep coming.
Nearly half of Americans can’t afford a $400 unexpected bill, according to a 2018 study done by the Federal Reserve, therefore securing a month of food or hoarding hand sanitizer is something we could never do. My own neighbor who works as…
