Policing the Block: Pandemics, Systemic Racism, and the Blood of America

Abstract

The Coronavirus Pandemic has altered the ways we use shared space fundamentally. Policymakers across the nation have enabled police to deploy the power of the state to limit unnecessary and dense usage of public spaces and private gatherings. Such social distancing policies are critical in flattening the pandemic curve of an effective and efficient airborne virus and lessening the public health burden of an already-strained health care system. Yet, the stickiness of systemic racism persists. Racial inequities underpin the facesgoverning the matrices of the pandemic, policing, and protests.