Culture 2020<\/p>\n
A Year of Staying Home and Standing Up<\/p>\n
Jessica Bodoh-Creed<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
T<\/p>\n
his chapter explores the links between the significant events of 2020 and uses an anthropological lens to analyze them. Anthropologists study people and culture, and that makes <\/p>\n
us observers by trade. While it can appear that anthropologists mainly study small-scale societies in faraway places, more and more anthropologists study contemporary Western society. With so many changes happening now, anthropologists across the country and the world are busy watching and studying how both American and global cultures are modifying and adapting throughout this year of turbulence. We know that events like global health crises and large-scale social unrest signal cultural change. This year has provided ample fodder for study for a whole generation of anthropologists, many of whom are also busy working to revamp how they deliver information and curricula to you, dear student. While scholars in other disciplines are also working to understand the events of 2020, anthropologists are particularly situated to understand how these events will affect American culture, the language we use to discuss them, how we adapt going forward, and the cultural imprint left behind. <\/p>\n
ANTHROPOLOGY: STUDYING CULTURE<\/p>\n
Anthropologists observe and study culture, which is everywhere and in everything we do. An important thing to note is that culture is historical, meaning it is easily marked by historical events, and it is always changing. Think, for example, how the culture of New Orleans was different before and after Hurricane Katrina or how New York City was forever changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11. When there are moments like this where the whole world is affected, we can mark cultural change in each place and how differently people respond and adapt. You can study American culture before, during, and after COVID-19 through that cultural change and mark it by this era. Other pandemics, especially respiratory illnesses, have appeared before, and other parts of the world have adapted and changed culturally as a result. SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) appeared in 2003 and spread from China to four other countries before it was controlled, and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) was first reported in 2012 and affected 27 countries (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease 2002). SARS and MERS are coronaviruses like COVID-19. There are numerous examples of global disease spread, such as Avian flu or Ebola, so a global pandemic like COVID-19 is not an entirely new phenomenon. However, what is new for the United States is how deeply we have been affected and how much we have had to modify our lives to stop it. <\/p>\n
A prominent subfield of anthropology is medical anthropology. Medical anthropologists study all facets of health, including the spread of disease, the effects of disease on a population, and medical media. For example, I study something I call the ER effect, which relates to what people learn about their health from the medical media they encounter (Bodoh-Creed, 2017). We are exposed to medical information from a variety of sources, including news outlets, social media posts, and fictional medical television shows. We learn about our own health and bodies from media, especially from fictional media. We see a character playing a patient with eerily similar symptoms to what we may be experiencing, and that drives a self-diagnosis, or we learn what a CT machine looks like from Grey\u2019s Anatomy or Chicago Med. We passively consume a lot of medical media, and it becomes an information source. Just as people often believe they are informed about forensic science after watching crime shows (the CSI effect), people often believe they are informed about health and medicine after viewing a substantial amount of medical programming. Culturally, media and social media has become a large source of information for people, regardless of whether the source is a news agency or a post from your Aunt Linda. <\/p>\n
It still seems surreal that in 2020, for the first time in modern America, we saw a global pandemic shut down our country (and others around the world), and we are still seeing COVID-19 circulate among us. Even if you are healthy and all of your loved ones are healthy, your way of life has probably been impacted in one way or another. The virus, the information about the virus, the debate over treatment and preventative measures, the inability for media outlets to agree on the validity of masks, the voices of scientists and doctors, and the connection between health and economics are all social, medical, and cultural issues that will be analyzed as we study American culture moving forward. <\/p>\n
Anthropologists can see the physical and material changes of 2020, such as the widespread use of face masks that act as a physical barrier for COVID-19, as well as the linguistic changes of 2020. New words and phrases reflect how the disease has shaped our language. We now have phrases like \u201csocial distancing\u201d and acronyms like \u201cPPE\u201d that were never said or understood like this before March 2020. We add words to our vocabulary when we need them. Social distancing has become an essential phrase for America as we wade through the transmission of COVID-19 and consider how to keep ourselves safe. Linguistic anthropology studies modern language change and colloquial phrases. Think about all of the new ways we talk about work and disease because of COVID-19. What new words or jargon are you familiar with now? Also, there are lots of other debates that have been raised because of their linguistic and symbolic connection to COVID-19. Among them are things like handwashing and general cleanliness, vaccines and herd immunity, social safety nets and economic stimuli, political news and facts, and fake news. <\/p>\n
One of the things COVID-19 has laid bare is the deep-seated structural inequalities inherent in the American social system. We know there are lots of examples of structural inequalities around the world. Some are very clear like the caste system in India, but American structural inequity is often rigid in nature, while also spoken about as being pliable. Here we talk about everyone having a rugged individualism, where if you work hard enough, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. This comes from our economic and social philosophy called neoliberalism that encourages and \u201crewards\u201d hard work, while ignoring the systematic inequality and inequities that frame the experiences of people on the basis of their race, class, and\/or gender. Anthropologists have long discussed social inequality; you can find these discussions in anthropological social theory from Marx to Levi-Strauss to Bourdieu. They all look at social inequality through their own theoretical lens, but all stress the varied experiences of those at the top of the social ladder and those at the bottom of the social ladder. Whether it is Marx\u2019s proletariat in need of an uprising to take back control from the bourgeoisie, or the structures that underlie everything for Levi-Strauss, anthropology has a focus on inequality and how cultural structures and frameworks create, perpetuate, and uphold it. <\/p>\n
EXERCISE: Masks as Culture <\/p>\n
When discussing cultural change and COVID-19, we can take face masks as a point of study. Prior to COVID-19, face masks were typically reserved for cold weather, medical care, and robbing banks, among other uses. Now we can look at what kind of masks people are choosing to wear, as masks have become a fashion statement for many. They can be hand sewn, repurposed bandanas, surgical masks, painting masks, or scarves over the face. We can study how the designs on masks reveal or define people\u2019s sense of self or identity. Masks have repercussions for the deaf and hard of hearing who rely on lip reading, and experts in child development have worried that children who do not see the facial expressions of masked caregivers could suffer some social-emotional delays. Answer these questions.<\/p>\n
What kind of mask do you wear? Do you have a design on your mask, and what is it?<\/p>\n
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What does your mask tell others about you?<\/p>\n
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People from other cultures who have experienced pandemics in the recent past have continued to wear masks and changed their practices. Do you think Americans will be wearing masks in their daily lives in two years or five years or ten years? Will we adapt and change to mask-wearing?<\/p>\n
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COVID-19, A GLOBAL PANDEMIC: <\/p>\n
STAYING HOME<\/p>\n
In the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, most people were talking very casually about it, not knowing the widespread repercussions we were all going to be facing. People could not really grasp the seriousness of what was to come, and they spoke about the \u201cCorona virus\u201d to the chagrin of Cervecer\u00eda Modelo, the maker of Corona beer. It all seemed so far away and did not elicit serious consideration until things began shutting down, and deaths began to pile up in New York City. Students partied in Florida during spring break without a care in the world, despite being criticized in the press (Miller 2020). In a first indication of how serious things were going to be, on March 9, 2020, Rudy Gobert, a player for the Utah Jazz, jokingly touched all of the reporters\u2019 microphones during his interviews after the game, and two days later tested positive for COVID-19, shutting down the league (Zucker 2020). As grocery store shelves emptied, no one could have predicted that people would be buying toilet paper in bulk in response to the spread of a respiratory virus. Lysol and other cleaning products have never been so popular or so expensive. In March, a small bottle of hand sanitizer went for $17 online (Doheny 2020). We hid inside, gathered supplies, and wondered how we would survive this over the next few weeks. Those weeks turned into months, and months turned into almost a year so far. America collectively wondered what would need to happen to be able to get back to normal. Public health officials stressed washing hands, wearing masks, and staying outside when possible in public places. <\/p>\n
At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a documented uptick in racism and violence towards Asians and Asian Americans. One of the effects of the discussion about the origin of the virus was the emphasis people like President Trump placed on China; Trump referred to COVID-19 as the \u201cChinese virus\u201d twenty times in briefings to the American public in March alone (Viala-Gaudefroy and Lindaman 2020). This led to other people and news outlets referring to the novel coronavirus as the \u201cChinese virus.\u201d Even with the eventual move to call it COVID-19, the stigma stuck in the minds of many. Incidents of berating, spitting, outbursts, and violence towards Asian Americans persisted and were publicized on social media. This has continued, often under the radar, and is directly correlated to racist and prejudiced views against Asians and Asian Americans (Kambhampaty and Sakaguchi 2020). Culturally and historically, America has both viewed Asian immigrants as a model minority to be lauded for their successes and as bad or unworthy, especially during times of war with Asian nations, including World War II (evidenced by internment camps), the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Our \u201cus versus them\u201d mentality is creeping back in during this time of stress and creating a blame game by white Americans against Asians and Asian Americans. When we are worried and stressed collectively, Americans look both for solutions and scapegoats, and these have typically been times where oppression against minority groups increase. <\/p>\n
One of the most important facets of seeing the bigger picture of COVID-19 has been testing. When you are trying to understand a virus that is a moving target and hides and spreads quietly like COVID-19, data about testing become a delayed tracking device that is always about two weeks behind the spread, and data about hospitalizations are about three to four weeks behind the spread (Lin 2020). This lag made it hard for many Americans to be convinced to give up their haircuts, backyard barbecues, and other niceties. It does not seem bad until it is too late. I am from Corpus Christi, Texas, one of the places in the country that seemed to be relatively safe from the pandemic. For most of the spring and early summer, people went to the beach, hung out with family, ate at restaurants, and it generally looked like nothing was out of the ordinary. Then by July, the pandemic had hit and hit hard (Goodman 2020). Corpus Christi has seen very high numbers and many deaths. Testing helps track, but it is always lagging behind, so it gives a false sense of security that you are safe while COVID-19 spreads. <\/p>\n
There are particular sectors of the population that have been affected by COVID-19 more than others. We see race and class divides across the positive test cases and deaths from COVID-19 (Ford, Reber, and Reeves 2020). This is a cultural divide, partly due to who in America disproportionately works service industry jobs that involve making deliveries, stocking groceries, and staffing restaurants, for example. These jobs expose workers to other people throughout the day. Workers such as nursing home aides, farmworkers, meatpacking plant employees, and correctional officers were found to be at the absolute highest risk for COVID19 (Seville 2020). It also stands that those who have more financial means tend to live in single-family houses with private indoor and outdoor spaces. Those without financial means tend to live in apartments, in closer proximity to one another, dependent on parks and public shared land to be outside, putting them at greater risk for exposure.<\/p>\n
Another part of this is a class issue around healthcare access and who works jobs that provide \u201cgood\u201d healthcare that enables people to seek preventative health checks and those who work jobs that have \u201cbad\u201d or no healthcare. Those with \u201cbad\u201d or no healthcare may already be at risk from not seeking medical attention early enough, may have preexisting and untreated conditions, or may be reluctant to seek medical help at all. Black Americans tend to express greater mistrust in the American healthcare system, which stems from historical and contemporary racism and inequalities. Direct physical and symbolic violence from events like the Tuskegee experiment, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and forced abortions and sterilizations of Black women that occur even to this day, are just a few examples (Washington 2008, Skloot 2011). Because healthcare is tied to jobs, Americans with high paying jobs tend to have better healthcare. When many Americans were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic, they lost their healthcare as well. In the period from March 2020 to May of 2020, 5.4 million Americans lost their healthcare because they lost their jobs (Stolberg 2020).<\/p>\n
EXERCISE: Essential Workers<\/p>\n
During this pandemic, we have seen a change in which workers are considered essential. Essential workers are those without whom the country cannot run (police officers, doctors, among others). They have jobs where if they do not come into work, people are in danger, and the country cannot function properly. For the first time, people like doctors have been put in the same category as people like grocery store stockers, fast food workers, and UPS delivery drivers. Essential workers now include those with very high paying jobs and those with very low paying jobs, as a wide range of jobs are crucial for society to function. There has long been a fight over the minimum wage in this country in which some have argued that fast food workers and grocery store clerks are not worthy of a higher salary. The pandemic resulted in many Americans seeing high value in these jobs for the first time. <\/p>\n
Poll: Do you believe that grocery employees, delivery drivers, and food service workers should be paid more hourly for working these jobs? Should they receive hazard pay during times like this? (Think about how much you love stocked grocery shelves, food that other <\/p>\n
people cook, and having online orders delivered promptly to your door.)<\/p>\n
Yes No<\/p>\n
Then discuss with your classmates why or why not. <\/p>\n
PANDEMIC ECONOMICS: <\/p>\n
WORKING IN UNCERTAINTY <\/p>\n
Stay-at-home orders, which led to the crashing halt of the country\u2019s labor force in the spring of 2020, were a surprise to many people who saw them as an overreaction. An economic downturn and a recession resulted. Many Americans lost their jobs, many saw their entire occupations shut down temporarily, and others were left without any idea when things would return to normal. Unemployment filings went up dramatically, with 20.5 million Americans out of work in June 2020, according to the Pew Center (Kochhar 2020). Congress put into motion corporate bailout funds for small businesses, but much of this money went to large chains like Ruth\u2019s Chris Steak House, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and Shake Shack. Innumerous stores and small businesses have closed or will close by the time this pandemic is over. Many of those will be restaurants that have been unable to make ends meet with the pivot to takeout, outdoor dining, and other approved arrangements. The groups hardest hit by job loss have been women, immigrants, and young people, especially Latinx people and Black people in these categories (Ford, Reber, and Reeves 2020). Service industries such as the restaurant industry, the salon and beauty industry, the retail industry, and the ridesharing industry were hit very hard, while some businesses and organizations such as grocery stores, delivery companies, and medical services were overloaded.<\/p>\n
Stay-at-home orders meant that people suddenly had more time on their hands during the evenings and weekends, or for those who were laid off, during the weekdays as well. Americans have explored new hobbies during COVID-19, doing things like baking bread, sewing, gardening, and working on puzzles. It marked a bit of a return to earlier years, and people stuck at home transitioned to making and doing things they would not have otherwise. Culturally it will be interesting to see if those hobbies stick going forward. Will sourdough baking at home continue, or will gobs of starter dough die in everyone\u2019s refrigerator? Is your COVID garden flourishing, or are you only now remembering you forgot to water it? <\/p>\n
Many jobs that could transition to a work-from-home arrangement did so. Several tech companies, such as Facebook, have instructed their employees to work from home for the foreseeable future. Working from home is an appealing concept in some respects (no commute, pajamas, keeping your pet company during the day), but in reality, has presented challenges for many. Culturally, we may see more people working from home going forward. How will that change our American work culture? What parts of the work experience will change for people going forward? What will they gain or lose without coworkers physically nearby? The American work ethic pushes people to work harder and for longer hours. If the lines between home and office are physically blurred, will work take over homelife more than it already has since the advent of email and cell phones that make us available 24\/7?<\/p>\n
When parents envisioned working from home, they did not imagine their children would be there with them, home from school. There has been an unequal pressure on parents and caregivers with childcare and schools suspended. Suddenly parents were having to maintain their full-time job, teach the third grade, and feed their baby, while also doing all of the housework they do to maintain their lives. Disproportionately women have been impacted, even if they have jobs, with additional child-related work. Parents have been lamenting the childcare system of this country and the staggered return, hybrid return, or non-return to school in the fall. We expected a lot of working parents before this, and now they have to keep children, even young children, engaged in remote learning via extended Zoom sessions. Added to that is increased economic insecurity; families need extra laptops, Chromebooks, or tablets to ensure their children can attend school from home.<\/p>\n
EXERCISE: Distance Learning<\/p>\n
Right now, you might be doing distance learning, but you are a college student. Think about the difficulty that children in preschool to 12th grade face trying to learn from home after missing school from March to May\/June. What are the challenges? Answer these questions.<\/p>\n
What subjects or grade levels are harder to teach strictly online? <\/p>\n
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How might this impact socioeconomically disadvantaged students more than wealthier students? <\/p>\n
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What will teachers do when they work from home and also have children at home who need to learn at the same time?<\/p>\n
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What was the biggest obstacle to learning for you in the spring of 2020?<\/p>\n
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Homelife during COVID-19 is changing, including the division of labor at home (especially as we leave home less and less), and anthropologists will be watching to see long term repercussions. We know that rates of domestic violence go up in times of stress, putting children and women, in particular, at greater risk for physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual violence with little relief from their abusers and without the usual avenues for intervention outside the home that may have existed in pre-COVID times. Schools and workplaces, for example, are sites where children and women are seen, and their health and well-being are monitored by others.<\/p>\n
Many other countries have large social safety nets in place for parents, including longer paid maternity and paternity leave, large stimulus checks and support for families, and free healthcare and childcare that have been helpful for their citizens as they have dealt with COVID-19. Several countries also employed a one-time stimulus payment similar to the United States\u2019 CARES Act, which provided a stimulus check of $1200 for each adult (parents got an additional $500 for each child under 17), unemployment weekly supplemental funds, and small business funds (US Department of the Treasury 2020). Japan gave all citizens 100,000 yen per person ($945 USD), and Hong Kong gave its citizens $10,000 Hong Kong dollars, which is roughly equivalent to $1,300 USD (BBC 2020). Canada gave their citizens who lost their jobs CAD 2,000 ($1,400 USD) per month for four months (BBC 2020). Many other countries, like New Zealand and Korea, made staying at home, widespread testing, and tracking cases an early priority and saw faster and more consistent results in containing COVID-19. <\/p>\n
The pandemic provided a captive audience at home, out of work, and ready to consume all forms of media. While many of us were bored at home, we found ourselves interacting with social media more than ever before. We discovered the shock humor of Netflix series like Tiger King (\u201cHey, all you cool cats and kittens!\u201d), and we bided our time, waiting for our lives to open up again. People talked about COVID babies and COVID divorces, as the pandemic either got people knocking boots or ready to bail. <\/p>\n
SOCIAL UNREST AND BLACK LIVES <\/p>\n
MATTER: MAKING CHANGES IN 2020<\/p>\n
In the middle of the COVID-19 health crisis, Americans found ourselves in a social revolution sparked by the death of George Floyd, another Black man killed in a confrontation with police. Frustration teeming at the surface from systemic racism boiled over into large-scale protests in most major American cities in May of 2020. Adjacent to this was a wave of anger and frustration on social media, which resurfaced conversations about \u201cfake news,\u201d aided in part by President Trump\u2019s tweets and convoluted plans (pandemic and otherwise) on a national level. <\/p>\n
While Americans were working and staying home under quarantine, a series of deaths of <\/p>\n
Black men and women rocked America. Within the span of a few months in early to mid2020, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks all died at the hands of police (New York Times 2020). All were either going about their business (jogging or sleeping) or alleged to have committed a minor misdemeanor crime (using a counterfeit $20 bill) when they encountered law enforcement (New York Times 2020). The grief and palpable rage over these senseless deaths multiplied and mounted together, turning into collective mourning. Groups like Black Lives Matter seized the moment to turn that frustration and sadness into action. They, along with other social justice and police reform organizations, organized protests in almost every major city in America. This fight is one that goes back to the beginnings of America, to slavery, to Jim Crow laws, to voting rights, to redlining, to imminent domain, to unequal pay, to segregated schools, and to colonialism. <\/p>\n
Although anthropology was a discipline that endorsed scientific racism at one time, for over one hundred years anthropologists have been vocal and resolved that biological races do not exist in the human species. The Founding Father of American Anthropology, Franz Boas, worked in the early 20th century to establish anthropological understandings of human equality and to fight racist ideas. Today, anthropologists agree that race is a cultural construct. <\/p>\n
It has existed for as long as people have fought their neighbors and have used physical descriptions to devalue them. It was a tool of colonialism; European colonists pitted groups across the world against one another using their skin tone, among other things, to identify who was good, better, best, and closer to being \u201ccivilized.\u201d They afforded opportunities to some and not others based on these classifications, and even as colonial powers left their territories throughout the 20th century, these racialized classifications created social unrest in independence movements. One can look to the Hutu and Tutsis in Rwanda, for example, to see how this colonial, racialized divide played an enormous role in the genocide of 1994. In the United States, the long history of the Mid-Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery has had an enduring effect on Black people in the United States (and also throughout Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America). Black Americans know how systems of inequality embedded in those roots persist today. What we have seen is that white Americans often have difficulty seeing the structures of hegemony, authority, or domination over others that keep racialized divides deeply ingrained and form institutional barriers to success for people of color. <\/p>\n
In our shorter modern historical memory, and coming out of the \u201ccolorblind\u201d message of the 1990s\u20132000s, America has struggled to address (and even admit) how much institutionalized racism and white supremacy are inherent in structures like policing and then, in turn, have such high stakes repercussions for people of color, especially Black Americans. Institutionalized racism is racism that is seen within an institution, which can encompass company policies, barriers to success, microaggressions, employment challenges, issues in promotion, work culture, formal and informal hiring policies, and other problems. We see Black Americans are disproportionately the victims of fatal police encounters, as well as deaths in police custody, like the death of Sandra Bland in 2015 in Texas. Black Americans are disproportionately imprisoned in this country, which demonstrates alignment among the institutions of the criminal justice systems, including law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and correctional facilities. Prisons are a business in America, and companies make money having more prisoners, not fewer. Women are also affected deeply by racial biases and police violence. The #sayhername campaign used to bring attention to Breonna Taylor\u2019s death in 2020 was a rallying cry not to forget about the women who are victims (Cohen 2020). That campaign is not new and has been advocating on behalf of female victims since 2014 (African American Policy Forum n.d.). Looking at how gender and race come together to make someone even more vulnerable is a key component of intersectionality, a concept driven by recognizing overlapping social classifications.<\/p>\n
Black Lives Matters, an organization founded by three Black women, was formed in the wake of the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and advocates for racial equality and against police brutality (Black Lives Matter n.d.). Martin, a 17-year-old boy, was walking home from buying a candy bar in Sanford, Florida, when George Zimmerman accosted him and then shot him, certain he \u201cdid not belong in that neighborhood.\u201d Zimmerman was later acquitted of all charges. The death of Ahmaud Arbery in February of 2020 echoes Trayvon Martin\u2019s murder very closely (Fausset 2020). Arbery was killed at the hands of two white men acting as their own vigilante justice squad who hunted him while he jogged, as they were suspicious of him and assumed he was a burglar. In America, there is a generalized view of Black men as hyperviolent, hyperaggressive, and hypersexualized. This contributes to racism in the form of fear and a perceived danger of Black men, often used to excuse or justify actions of white Americans as self-preservation . For too long, America has failed to reexamine how the government, community, education, and justice systems have turned a blind eye to inequality that begins in childhood and supports white ignorance and fear of perceived Black aggression. <\/p>\n
NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee at NFL games in 2016 to protest police brutality. His peaceful protest was called un-American, and eventually as he became a controversial figure, he was no longer employed by the NFL (Boren 2020). After the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, a wave of protests began in support of Black Lives Matter and against police brutality. George Floyd\u2019s death moved people in a way that other deaths of Black Americans previously did not, partially because of the manner of death (a police officer knelt on his neck, suffocating him by force), partially because there is a very clear, undisputed video of the whole incident, and partially because in the video of his death he is heard crying out for his mother. This call for her is heartbreaking in and of itself and struck a chord with mothers across the country, many of whom were able to see their own child in that circumstance and felt empathy for Floyd in a way maybe not felt before or at this magnitude. <\/p>\n
Additionally, one of the reasons that the protests of 2020 after Floyd\u2019s death were so large and vocal is that America was at home. When outrage turned to action in marches, more people were able to participate because they were not going to work. They were on social media, they watched the local and national news on television, and they participated in marches day after day. In the 30 days after \u201cthe police killing of George Floyd, the rallying cry [of Black Lives Matter was] mentioned more than 80 million times on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and blogs, according to data collected by the Social Media Analytics Center at the University of Connecticut\u201d (Beckman 2020). The pandemic allowed more people to organize, come out, and support the movement than any other previously with their voices and their bodies. This is telling for anthropologists and demonstrates that people saw value in standing up with their physical bodies during a time when it was generally deemed unsafe to leave their homes and gather in groups. <\/p>\n
As we saw more people consume social media, television, and online personal accounts of racism and microaggressions, white people discussed racism and white privilege more broadly. Podcasts, books, TED Talks, and YouTube videos all offered programming for anyone with a lot of time on their hands who suddenly had an interest in becoming an antiracist. <\/p>\n
Bookstores sold out of books like White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist (Chan 2020). Black Instagram influencers gained thousands of new followers overnight. Blackowned restaurants suddenly had their own category on Postmates. Lists circulated with Black-owned bookstores so white people could direct their antiracist dollars towards Black authors and Black booksellers (Mayes, Tierney and Keating 2020). More and more discussions sprang up online in social media about the issue, and it opened up conversations about the meaning of white fragility. Some white people started having hard conversations about how they treat and speak to and about people of color in their own lives. It also brought many racists out of the woodwork, and in the true spirit of the Internet, groups were created with the aim of getting racists fired by sending their employers screenshots of their racist social media posts.<\/p>\n
In opposition to the Black Lives Matter protests, some people use the retort of \u201cAll Lives Matter,\u201d a linguistic turn of phrase to take the focus off race and attempt to change the conversation. All Lives Matter is not an official movement; there is no organization or website as of August 2020. The phrase All Lives Matters relates to the \u201ccolorblind\u201d discussion of earlier eras. Some who use it may be well intentioned, but they fail to adequately understand the complex issue of race and racism inherent in what exactly matters and to whom. If they believe that all lives truly matter, then they should be advocating for police reform as a whole so that people of all races, all lives, can survive police encounters. However, that is not what the phrase All Lives Matter is advocating. Most people who use it seem to be arguing that we live in a post-racial society in which Black lives are no more at more risk than white lives, or that the current focus on Black lives is unwarranted. A number of popular memes demonstrate the problem with All Lives Matter by using analogies like arguing that you would not tell someone with breast cancer that they shouldn\u2019t focus on it because all cancers matter. A second response to Black Lives Matters is Blue Lives Matter, another online movement that advocates entirely in support of police forces, ignoring any needed reforms and essentially rebuffing any complaints or frustrations with the current culture of policing. Blue Lives Matter has a small social media presence with a Facebook group and Twitter account but is not a formal organization. <\/p>\n
One discussion that has sprung up anew, partially because of the popularity of the book White Fragility, is the mainstream use of the term white supremacy. Linguistically, white Americans have started better understanding that white supremacy does not just mean wearing Klan hoods and burning crosses. Everyone can recognize blatant forms of racism when it is dressed up and out on public display. It is the microaggressions, intonations, and questions of \u201cwhere are you from?\u201d (emphasis on the from) that makes people feel less than and place racism in othering. White supremacy is frequently occurring in small and insidious ways. It lurks, and it can feel like a thousand cuts to people of color victimized by it. White supremacy is the crux of structural racism and inequality that props up white people to look down on people of color. The term is frustrating for white people who feel like they are kind, nice people with good intentions, but recognizing implicit bias is the first step to understanding how white people see and experience the world very differently than people of color. <\/p>\n
Racism and white supremacy deeply harm Black Americans, and the repercussions are often deadly in this country. People of other races and ethnicities have also been harmed\u2014and continue to be harmed\u2014 by racism and white supremacy. In addition to the aforementioned discrimination endured by Asians and Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, for example, deal with suspicion regarding their immigration status and accusations of \u201ctaking jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n
One of the larger actions called for in the wake of protests is the defunding and de-arming of American police departments. This is an action item for Black Lives Matter and a non- negotiable point for Blue Lives Matter. Defunding police means that a portion of budgetary funds would be taken from police departments and moved to other community services that police typically carry out but are not their main function (Best 2020). De-arming (or disarming) police means removing the tactical and military war gear, equipment, and vehicles that police departments received in the wake of 9-11 (Thompson 2020). Both of these actions are meant to redirect tools of violence away from police and instead direct more funding and support to drug counseling services, psychiatric services, community programs for people experiencing homelessness, mental health services, and shelters for people who have experienced domestic violence, for example. It is not meant to leave police unarmed, unable to respond to actual crime, and without the tools they need. If these kinds of changes were made to American police departments, it would radically change the culture of policing and the scope of what is appropriate for law enforcement to engage in within communities. <\/p>\n
EXERCISE: Overt and Covert Racism<\/p>\n
Racism comes in many forms. It is structured within institutions, both through the people acting on behalf of the institutions and in the institutional regulations and organizational policies. Overt racism, which is clearly unfair, is easier to see than covert racism, which hides and can seem small or unimportant to those unaffected. For this exercise, pick an institution. It can be schools, prisons, media, healthcare, police, housing, or any other of your choosing. Think specifically about the type of institution and make two lists. The first list is things the institution might do that would be overtly racist. The second list is things the institution might do that would be covertly racist. Try to come up with at least four examples of each.<\/p>\n
For example, in a high school, a Black student finding a noose in his locker would be overt racism, and Black students being told not to gather behind the cafeteria at lunch so the administration can keep an eye on them, even though white students also gather behind the cafeteria at lunch, would be covert racism.<\/p>\n
Overt <\/p>\n
Covert<\/p>\n
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Then discuss your examples with your classmates. <\/p>\n
FAKE NEWS: HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW<\/p>\n
The divide in this country between political parties has been longstanding, but with the election of President Obama in 2008, there was a new battle fought relating to news, facts, and conspiracies on traditional media, but especially on social media. Racists began circulating rumors and conspiracy theories about President Obama in an attempt to invalidate his presidency (Spillius 2009). With Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, information has become dislocated from its original sourcing, and has trended towards opinions and away from facts. Then with the election of President Trump in 2016, the notion of facts was directly called into question, and the traditional news media became even more divided and divisive. The culture wars over information and facts started and has not stopped. COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have frequently been the topics of fake news debates and conspiracies. <\/p>\n
One of the most important takeaways for our anthropological study is how we can better understand knowledge, what we all know to be true, and how it circulates around us. Knowledge is cultural and shared across groups. Think about how schools all teach the same basic math principles or how there are common recipes and food dishes among a culture. Knowledge comes from a variety of places and is taught by families, schools, friends, social groups, and religious organizations, creating norms and rules for us to follow. We encounter so much information in our daily lives from lots of varied sources, and some we find more valuable, believable, and worthy than others. How do you gather your information? Is it on social media, from \u201cyour side\u2019s news outlets,\u201d friends and family, experts, and academics on an issue? Depending on whom you seek out or believe, you may find yourself thinking very differently than another person who trusts different sources. If we are so divided culturally that we do not agree on basic information about a virus, it begs the question how and what may be able to bring the two sides back together? <\/p>\n
There are many issues like this in America with the same problem. Basic knowledge has been questioned on topics like climate change, gun control, abortion, and vaccines, among others. When we cannot agree on the basic facts underlying these issues, we start a discussion yelling and pleading for people to understand our facts before we can even argue about policy in a coherent way. The discussion around \u201cfake news\u201d is one used by a small amount of Americans who are generally white and disagree with information that does not suit them. It is a strategy, a tactic to call into question verified and trusted knowledge about settled science and make it unsettled and debatable. The same tactic was used around oil drilling and climate change in the last decade, although it has not been labeled like this until recently. There are scientific facts that 99.9% of academics, researchers, and scientists worldwide agree on. Cries of \u201cfake news\u201d are coming from the 0.01% of scientists who are often paid by big businesses that profit from being the polluter or the driller or the pipeline company, in the case of oil and climate. For COVID-19, the fake news cries are from a small number of physicians who are uninformed, have an agenda, are paid to dissent, or lack qualifications. An excellent example is the easily debunked Plandemics video by Dr. Judy Mikovits, which has been widely discredited, much like Dr. Andrew Wakefield\u2019s bogus autism and vaccine links (Enserink 2020, Snopes 2020). Saying something loudly to an eager audience and that something being true are very different things.<\/p>\n
One big complicating factor for discussions and debates is the nature of text-based American communication. Much of what we read and learn is online, and we text, email, and write posts on social media to discuss and debate. Emojis were invented as an assistive device for text communication, which lacks intonation and tone. Without an indication of whether someone is being serious or sarcastic (LOL, for example, is the predecessor to a laughing face image), someone\u2019s words can be misconstrued. Linguistic anthropologists, such as Marcel Danesi, study the creation, perpetuation, and expansion of emojis in our modern discourse (2018). We see miscommunications over social media all the time and often emojis and emoticons substituting for language. Gifs have also become popularized because they can also assist with discerning intention, and they rely on shared cultural images. <\/p>\n
EXERCISE: Sources of Knowledge<\/p>\n
With such complicating factors in our communication, will America be able to bridge the divide? Let\u2019s think about our own knowledge bases and sources. We collect information from multiple locations and take it going forward as our beliefs and values. <\/p>\n
List all the people, groups, and media in your life that are sources of trusted information for you. Then rank them in order of importance. <\/p>\n
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Is your list comprised of more people? More groups? More media? Why do you trust one source more than the other? What would you need to learn about a source in order to deem it untrustworthy?<\/p>\n
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How do you think your list compares to those of your classmates?<\/p>\n
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GOING FORWARD: LOOKING TO 2021 AND BEYOND<\/p>\n
All of the events of 2020 may be deeply affecting you personally. You may have lost a job, missed out on events and opportunities, lost a loved one to COVID-19, mourned the loss of Black lives to police brutality, or recognized for the first time that you are complicit in a racist system. 2020 has been devastating, but it has also pushed conversations forward and driven open a space for race and racism to be a point of widespread public discussion.<\/p>\n
We are still dealing with surges in COVID-19 across the country that will put our future timelines and plans into some uncertainty. Schools are taking a variety of approaches, using online, in person, and hybrid models. Businesses that can be open are, and others are waiting to try to stay financially solvent until they can. With cold and flu season, it is going to be much harder to discern who is sick with something typical and more benign and who is sick or contagious with COVID-19. <\/p>\n
Looking forward, one wonders what happens in response to the next police shooting of a Black American and the next. Due to social pressure, police departments across the country are making changes in 2020. We have seen a rise in police forces banning chokeholds and neck restraints, requiring body cameras, and dealing with budget cuts and an increased appetite for more community-based policing (Rummler 2020). It is not enough, but it is progress America has not seen since 2012 and the death of Trayvon Martin. <\/p>\n
Just one final reminder that anthropologists are observers. Look around you, both at those who think like you do and those who do not. Ask questions and be inquisitive about their perspectives and their knowledge sources. Furthermore, look deeply into your own language and beliefs about race and inequality in this country. How are you advocating for the people of color in your own life? There are links and resources below to trusted and verified online knowledge about both COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. Educate yourself on the issues and check your facts. And most importantly, stay safe and six feet apart, wear a mask, and wash your hands. <\/p>\n
Bibliography<\/p>\n
African American Policy Forum. (n.d.). About the #SayHerName Campaign. AAPF. Retrieved August 11, 2020, from https:\/\/aapf.org\/sayhername<\/p>\n
BBC News. (2020, May 8). Which country has the most generous bailout? Retrieved August 2, 2020, from https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-52450958<\/p>\n
Beckman, B. L. (2020, July 7). Black Lives Matter, George Floyd dominated social media. Now what? Mashable. https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/black-lives-mat ter-george-floyd-social-media-data\/?europe=true<\/p>\n
Best, P. (2020, July 14). What does \u201cdefund the police\u201d really mean? Fox Business. https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/ lifestyle\/what-does-defund-the-police-really-mean<\/p>\n
Black Lives Matter. (n.d.). Homepage. https:\/\/blac klivesmatter.com\/<\/p>\n
Bodoh-Creed J. (2017) The ER Effect: How Medical Television Creates Knowledge for American Audiences. In: Kendal E., Diug B. (eds) Teaching Medicine and Medical Ethics Using Popular Culture. Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-319-65451-5_3<\/p>\n
Boren, C. (2020, June 1). A timeline of Colin Kaepernick\u2019s protests against police brutality. Washington Post. https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/sports\/2020\/06\/ 01\/colin-kaepernick-kneeling-history\/<\/p>\n
Chan, T. (2020, June 4). \u2018White Fragility,\u2019 \u2018The New Jim Crow\u2019 Top Amazon Best Sellers List Following Week of Unrest: Books about race relations and the black experience are selling out online. Rolling Stone. https:\/\/www .rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-news\/books-racesell-out-amazon-george-floyd-protest-1008220\/<\/p>\n
Cohen, S. (2020, August 10). Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor And America\u2019s Deadly Case Of Racial Amnesia. Forbes. https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/sethcohen\/2020\/08\/10\/ say-her-name-breonna-taylor-and-americas-deadly -case-of-racial-amnesia\/#6586cde06caf<\/p>\n
COVID-19, MERS & SARS. (2020, April 6). National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. https:\/\/www .niaid.nih.gov\/diseases-conditions\/covid-19<\/p>\n
Danesi, M., & Bouissac, P. (2016). The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet (Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics) (Reprint ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.<\/p>\n
DiAngelo, R., & Dyson, M. E. (2018). White Fragility: <\/p>\n
Why It\u2019s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Reprint ed.). Beacon Press.<\/p>\n
Doheny, K. (2020, March 6). Low Stock, High Prices for Coronavirus Supplies. WebMD. https:\/\/www.webmd.com\/ lung\/news\/20200306\/low-stock-high-prices-for- coronavirus -supplies<\/p>\n
Enserink, M. (2020, May 11). Fact-checking Judy Mikovits, the controversial virologist attacking Anthony Fauci in a viral conspiracy video. Science | AAAS. https:\/\/ www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2020\/05\/fact-checking- judy-mikovits-controversial-virologist-attacking- anthony-fauci-viral<\/p>\n
Fausset, R. (2020, June 24). What We Know About the Shooting Death of Ahmaud Arbery. NY Times. https:\/\/ www.nytimes.com\/article\/ahmaud-arbery-shoot ing-georgia.html<\/p>\n
Ford, T., Reber, S., & Reeves, R. (2020, June 17). Race gaps in COVID-19 deaths are even bigger than they appear. Brookings. https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/ up-front\/2020\/06\/16\/race-gaps-in-covid-19-deathsare-even-bigger -than-they-appear\/<\/p>\n
Goodman, D. J. (2020, July 11). In Texas Beach City, Outof-Towners Drove In an Outbreak. Https:\/\/Www.Nytimes .Com\/#publisher. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/11\/us\/ coronavirus-texas-corpus-christi.html<\/p>\n
Kambhampaty, A. P., & Sakaguchi, H. (2020, June 25). \u201cI Will Not Stand Silent.\u201d 10 Asian Americans Reflect on <\/p>\n
Racism During the Pandemic and the Need for Equality. Time. https:\/\/time.com\/5858649\/racism-coronavirus\/<\/p>\n
Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist (First Edition). One World.<\/p>\n
Kochhar, R. (2020, July 27). Unemployment rose higher in three months of COVID-19 than it did in two years of the Great Recession. <\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2020\/06\/11\/ unemployment-rose-higher-in-three-months-of-covid19-than-it-did-in-two-years-of-the-great-recession\/<\/p>\n
Lin, R. (2020, July 5). L.A. County sees \u201calarming\u201d COVID-19 hospitalization rise. Los Angeles Times. https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2020-0704\/l-a-county-sees-alarming-rise-in-coronavirushospitalizations-infection-rates<\/p>\n
Mayes, B. R., Tierney, L., & Keating, D. (2020, July 2). Demand for anti-racist literature is up. These black bookstore owners hope it lasts. Washington Post. https:\/\/ www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2020\/business\/ black-owned-bookstores-anti-racist-literature\/<\/p>\n
Miller, R. W. (2020, March 19). Spring break beaches in Florida look packed despite coronavirus spread. USA Today. https:\/\/eu.usatoday.com\/story\/travel\/destina tions\/2020\/03\/19\/spring-break-beaches-florida-lookpacked -despite-coronavirus-spread\/2873248001\/<\/p>\n
New York Times. (2020, June 15). With New Policies, Cities Seek a \u2018Seismic Shift\u2019 in Policing. NY Times. https:\/\/ www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/15\/us\/rayshard-brooksgeorge-floyd-video.html<\/p>\n
Rummler, O. (2020, July 27). Major police reforms since George Floyd\u2019s death. Axios. https:\/\/www.axios.com\/ police-reform-george-floyd-protest-2150b2dd-a6dc4a0c-a1fb-62c2e999a03a.html<\/p>\n
Seville, L. R. (2020, May 8). These are the most dangerous jobs you can have in the age of coronavirus. NBC <\/p>\n
News.https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/health\/healthnews\/these-are-most-dangerous-jobs-you-can -have-age-coronavirus-n1201496<\/p>\n
Skloot, R. (2011). The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. <\/p>\n
Broadway Books.<\/p>\n
Snopes. (2020, May 11). Snopes Debunks \u2018Plandemic.\u2019 Snopes. https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/collections\/ plandemic\/<\/p>\n
Spillius, A. (2009, September 30). Barack Obama: The wildest conspiracy theories launched at the US president. Telegraph. https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/ worldnews\/barackobama\/6245145\/Barack-ObamaThe-wildest-conspiracy-theories-launched-at-theUS-president.html<\/p>\n
Stolberg, S. G. (2020, July 14). Millions Have Lost Health Insurance in Pandemic-Driven Recession. NY Times. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/13\/us\/politics\/ coronavirus-health-insurance-trump.html<\/p>\n
Thompson, D. (2020, June 22). The Overlooked Role of Guns in the Police-Reform Debate. The Atlantic. https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2020\/06\/ overlooked-role-guns-police-reform-debate\/613258\/<\/p>\n
US Department of the Treasury. (2020, August 9). The CARES Act Works for All Americans | U.S. Department of the Treasury. Https:\/\/Home.Treasury.Gov\/Policy-Issues\/Cares. https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/policy-issues\/ cares<\/p>\n
Viala-Gaudefroy, J., & Lindaman, D. (2020, April 21). Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018Chinese virus\u2019: the politics of naming. The Conversation. https:\/\/theconversation.com\/donald-trumps -chinese-virus-the-politics-of-naming-136796<\/p>\n
Washington, H. A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (Reprint ed.). Anchor.<\/p>\n
Zucker, J. (2020, March 12). Jazz\u2019s Rudy Gobert Apologizes to Fans, Players After Coronavirus Diagnosis. Bleacher Report. https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/ 2880610-jazzs-rudy-gobert-apologizes-to-fans-players -after -coronavirus-diagnosis<\/p>\n
Links for Further Reading\/Trusted Sites<\/p>\n
Links for COVID-19 Links for Black Lives Matter and <\/p>\n
Institutional Racism https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/index <\/p>\n
.html https:\/\/blacklivesmatter.com\/<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/coronavirus-covid-19 https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-53273381 https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/coronavirus https:\/\/www.thoughtco.com\/examples-of-institution al-racism-in-the-u-s-2834624 Count of Global Cases: https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/ goatsandsoda\/2020\/03\/30\/822491838\/coronavirus-<\/p>\n
Acknowledgments<\/p>\n
world-map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-outbreak<\/p>\n
Special thanks to Dr. Melissa King for her counsel and editing. <\/p>\n
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Culture 2020 A Year of Staying Home and Standing Up Jessica Bodoh-Creed INTRODUCTION T his chapter explores the links between the significant events of 2020 and uses an anthropological lens to analyze them. Anthropologists study people and culture, and that makes us observers by trade. While it can appear that anthropologists mainly study small-scale societies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-78649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}