This edited collection brings together social scientists working on race and ethnicity to address the question of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on issues linked to racial and ethnic inequalities.
The fourteen chapters that make up this collection were produced during the pandemic in 2020 and are intended to address key facets of the impact of the pandemic in contemporary Europe, the United States, and globally. Individual chapters address the pandemic by drawing both on empirical research and conceptual analysis. They also seek to draw important connections between broader dimensions of racial and ethnic inequalities and the health inequalities that have been highlighted by the sharp impact of the pandemic on particular communities and groups. This volume speaks to the need for researchers working on race and ethnicity to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic through both original research and by reflection on current policy challenges and interventions.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a themed issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Introduction: Race and ethnicity in pandemic times
John Solomos
1. Fever dreams: W. E. B. Du Bois and the racial trauma of COVID-19 and lynching
Freeden Blume Oeur
2. Face mask symbolism in anti-Asian hate crimes
Jingqiu Ren and Joe Feagin
3. Prejudice and pandemic in the promised land: how white Christian nationalism shapes Americans’ racist and xenophobic views of COVID-19
Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joshua B. Grubbs
4. Race, police, and the pandemic: considering the role of race in public health policing
Adam Dunbar and Nicole E. Jones
5. Racism and nationalism during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic
Amanuel Elias, Jehonathan Ben, Fethi Mansouri and Yin Paradies
6. Compounded inequality: how the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program is failing Los Angeles Latino small businesses
Karina Santellano
7. Perceived COVID-19 health threat increases psychological distress among Black Americans
Ryon J. Cobb, Christy L. Erving and W. Carson Byrd
8. Anti-Asian discrimination and the Asian-white mental health gap during COVID-19
Cary Wu, Yue Qian and Rima Wilkes
9. COVID-19, Black jurisdictions, and budget constraints: how fiscal footing shapes fighting the virus
Angela Simms
10. How COVID-19 may alleviate the multiple marginalization of racialized migrant workers
Maike Isaac and Jennifer Elrick
11. Rethinking refuge in the time of COVID-19
Nasar Meer, Emma Hill, Timothy Peace and Leslie Villegas
12. Has the Covid-19 pandemic undermined public support for a diverse society? Evidence from a natural experiment in Germany
Lucas G. Drouhot, Sören Petermann, Karen Schönwälder and Steven Vertovec
13. Cultures of rejection in the Covid-19 crisis
Benjamin Opratko, Manuela Bojadžijev, Sanja M. Bojanić, Irena Fiket, Alexander Harder, Stefan Jonsson, Mirjana Nećak, Anders Neegard, Celina Ortega Soto, Gazela Pudar Draško, Birgit Sauer and Kristina Stojanović Čehajić
14. Race, immigration and health: the Hostile Environment and public health responses to Covid-19
Giorgia Donà
Biography
John Solomos is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He has researched and written widely on the history and contemporary forms of race and ethnic relations in Britain, theories of race and racism, the politics of race, equal opportunity policies, multiculturalism and social policy, race and football, and racist movements and ideas. His most recent books are Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory (2022) and Race and Racism in Britain 4th Edition (2022). His most recent edited books are the Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms (2020) and Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader Third Edition (co-edited with Les Back) (2022). He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Ethnic and Racial Studies, composed of sixteen issues and published by Routledge. He is also Co-Editor of the book series Racism, Resistance and Social Change for Manchester University Press and General Editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism.
