The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a fascinating, mind opening, inspiring life story I would recommend for everyone to read. I would especially recommend it to current activists and those interested in America’s history of Racism, Civil and Human rights movements, injustice and inequity, Othering of Blacks by Whites, the de-humanizing effects of colonialism, Pan-Africanism, and comparative studies. Malcolm X offers the reader a unique take on America and the world through a brilliant intense critique from the perspective of a Black Nationalist, Muslim, highly influential leader. Malcolm X and Alex Haley reflect on Malcolm’s life from childhood until his assassination with this perspective in a way that can help the reader question everything in America, a country dominiated by Eurocentrism . As police brutality and white supremacy are as alive in America as ever, Malcolm X’s perspective is just as relevant now as it was then. 

Before Malcolm X was the powerful human rights leader, he had spent time in prison after spending time as a hustler. He uses this time to transform into a powerful leader of the Nation of Islam and then one of Americas most influential Human Rights leaders and speakers, giving voice to Blacks in America and around the world. During this time in prison, Malcolm becomes obsessed with reading and studying books from the prison library. He begins to study the effects of colonialism and becomes critical of the White Eurocentric Bias of much history and literature, right down to the dictionary, in which he studies and interprets every word. Of this Malcolm says; “Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the worlds black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of exploitation. I saw how since the sixteenth century, the so-called “Christian trader” white man began to ply the seas in his lust for African and Asian empires, and plunder, and power. I read, I saw how the white man never has gone among non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s teachings– meek, humble, and Christ-like. 

I perceived, as I read, how the collective white man had been actually nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests. First, always “religiously”, he branded “heathen” and “pagan” labels upon ancient non-white cultures and civilizations. The stage thus set, he then turned upon his non-white victims his weapons of war” (X, Haley p. 176-177). Here we are reminded of the missionaries in Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart. 

In the autobiography, Malcolm X criticizes and compares his perspectives with that of non-violent leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. In an article in Teen Vogue Prince Shakur talks about how the characters in the popular recent film Black Panther mirror the leaders “Both Killmonger and Malcolm X learned to confront the systematic wrongs waged against black people globally while condemning internalized racism, whitewashing of history, and nonviolent direct action by black people. In contrast, the Black Panther, T’Challa, can be argued to resemble Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As King, he is entrusted with the health and future of Wakanda, which he hopes to defend morally.” (Shakur, p.1 www.teenvogue.com) 

Toward the end of his life, Malcolm X makes a pilgrimage to Mecca and travels to visit several African countries. Malcolm again begins to transform his thinking more in line with that of Homi Bhabha. The experience he has outside of America helps him to enter a sort of Third Space where he is able to see his own hybridization in the world and that he has to go beyond the cycle created by the colonizers for the colonized and into an international Pan-African approach. As he says “we Afro-Americans might remain in America, fighting for our Constitutional rights, but that philosophically and culturally we Afro-Americans badly needed to “return” to Africa –and develop a working unity in the framework of Pan-Africanism”(X, Haley p.350). 

Shakur, Prince. “Black Panther” Mirrors the Duality of Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X. (www.teenvogue.com) March 10, 2018 

X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York; Grove Press. 1992 

For my text review I decided to analyze the movie Divergent which came out in 2014. Divergent is based on a dystopian society that has been split up into different fractions. When a child turns 16 years old in this world they have to take a test which decides what fraction suits them best. There are five different fractions that value different human characteristics. Our main character, Beatrice or Tris, chose to join Dauntless which is like the police or enforcers of this new society. If she doesn’t pass basic training then she will be dropped from the fraction and will become fractionless, hence she will be living in poverty. After completing different stages of her initiation, Tris realizes she is divergent because she is able to manipulate the simulations that they are put in. She keeps this a secret because she knows she could be killed for this. As the movie goes on, the fraction that controls the law, Erudite, puts a tracking device in all of the members of Dauntless. Tris wakes up to find that Erudite is using the device to control the members of Dauntless. Since she is divergent, the device doesn’t work on her but she acts like it does. Erudite uses Dauntless to kill people in a different fraction to show their power and how they want to gain control of the government. Tris then escapes to fight against Erudite and stop the simulation and device to save the fractions.

Power is a main theme in this movie. Erudite wants control of the government so they decide to wipe out Abnegation. They try to do this by taking control of the fraction Dauntless. This leads to a lot of death and destruction in the city and between the fractions. This film also displays different identities. We learn that there are five different fractions for society. We also learn that there is a group of people called divergents because they seem to not fit one of the fractions. The thing is that they fit all of the fractions. Everyone in this movie is seen based off of their identity or in other words their fraction. People are seen less then others due to what fraction they are in. This is like the concept of the other. People are treated differently because they do not fit in with one’s group or culture. This leads to fighting, killing and destruction in the movie. I feel that the author of this movie series wants to teach us that we should accept everyone even if they are different from us. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and if we work together then as a collective whole we can overcome anything.

For my text review I chose to analyze the Hunger Games. In this dystopian novel there are twelve districts and the capitol. The twelve districts are much less affluent than the capitol, with district one being the richest and twelve being the poorest. Each year the capitol hosts the hunger games where two children from each district are chosen to fight to the death with one victor at the end. The novel has many themes with one being power. None of the citizens living in the capitol are required to enter in the hunger games. The citizens in the capitol have power over the people from the twelve districts because they are wealthier and of a higher class. I think this parallels with our society today. More affluent Americans do not have to endure any real struggles as they are handed all the resources to stay in a higher class than others. Less affluent people are stuck in a cycle as they do not have the best resources such as access to the best education. It is not their fault for being born into this cycle much like it is not the fault of the citizens of the twelve districts to be born into potential hunger games participants. This idea also relates to the fact that in most years, the wealthier districts like district one, two and three, are usually the victors at the end of the hunger games. They are the wealthier districts which one again demonstrates the advantages of coming from a higher class. This relates to a topic we learned this semester called the “One” and the “Other.” In the hunger games, the “One” is the capitol and the districts are the “Other.” This means that the citizens of the districts are treated differently and looked down upon by the citizens of the capitol. 

Green Book is a real black travel guide in history. In 1962, the white supremacy movement once again set off a small climax in the United States. The black postman Victor Hugo Green wrote a pamphlet that pointed out which hotels and restaurants allowed black people to stay and eat. The name Green Book in the booklet is taken from Green, and it seems to adopt the meaning of green symbolizing unobstructedness. The two male protagonists of the movie drove this green paper to tour around the United States. A male protagonist is Tang, a famous black musician, and Tony, a white veteran who is in a nightclub, was called to be Tang’s driver. The contrast between skin color and cultural accomplishment naturally produces some wonderful chemical reactions during the journey. In addition, the film also shows many levels of entanglement: racial discrimination, inequality of the same race, master and servant, the social status of musicians, family relations, and so on.

Many plots that reflect racial discrimination are reflected in this movie. The greater part of this movie is that it unexpectedly avoided direct conflicts between races, and instead used some inverted ways to reflect the discrimination itself. White people who seem to be friendly have turned a hundred and eighty degrees when they encounter practical problems. For example, the two went south to a luxurious manor. The owner of the manor welcomed the musicians politely. After the performance, Tang wanted to use the bathroom. The owner of the manor refused to let him use the bathroom for the guests, and only allowed him to use a hut built by a simple shed in the yard. Because at that time in the South and before the liberation of serfs, blacks could not use the same toilet as whites. Even if Tang is a noble musician and has performed twice in the White House, it is no exception. Another example of the contrast comes from a high-end restaurant in Birmingham. The restaurant invited Tang to perform. When the restaurant manager saw Tang, his mouth was full of beautiful words, but the lounge arranged for Tang was a small storage room, and Tang was not allowed to dine in the restaurant, because the restaurant’s The rule is not to accept blacks.

Oscar winning film, Moonlight, is a story about coming of age. It expresses the emotion of a black man who is struggling to find his identity or identities growing up. The movie is based around the character, Chiron aka “Blue”, a young black male, who we as the audience see him grow up in three stages. We first see him as a young child who is always lonely and meets Juan who is a drug dealer, but also a father figure to Chiron. We see them connect in that father son bond, and Chiron is comforted by him. In stage two, we see Chiron in high school where he his still a loner type, he gets bullied by other kids, and only has one friend Kevin, who becomes his love interest. Chiron is done with getting beat up all the time and he hits one of the kids and this leads him to juvie. This leads to stage three of him becoming a young black man. He has moved from his home in Miami to Atlanta and we see he is not the same since his time in juvenile detention. He does not look the same as he was in high school, he has gotten buffer, has grills in his mouth became more tough, became drug dealer too, but most importantly he meets with Kevin again after being disconnected with him for a while. Chiron and Kevin talk and have a find their deep connection from when they were younger, and in the end they both find comfort in each other.

Moonlight portrays the themes of  black masculinity and intersectionality and how the system of power is being a black man in a rough communities such as the one Chiron,”Blue”, was raised in can be controlled by a patriarchal society. Chiron is struggling not only his identity as a man, but a man who is finding his sexual identity. His first sexual encounter was with Kevin and it affects him. Getting bullied by the “rigid and aggressive” teen group in Moonlight and that is the opposite of Chiron’s character. In black communities being a gay, black man is considered weak and effeminate. Kevin hides his homosexuality and as he grows up he has a child with his ex-girlfriend. Chiron grows up and chooses the stereotypical black male as he becomes a part of the streets. Going back to when Chiron was younger, Juan tells him “black people are everywhere”. Chiron get the nickname “Blue” to cover up his real identity and that is his shell in order to survive the community he grows up in and he continues to build this shell as he buffs up. Moonlight expresses the message of the hardships of a young man and men just like Chiron struggling to fins his voice and reason of being and how it can be difficult in the black community to show vulnerability

The 1973 Robin Hood film will always hold some nostalgia for me. I still whistle the intro to this day sometimes. This movie is about a younger brother, Prince John, whom comes into power after his older brother, King Richard, is out of England for some time. The protagonist of the story is Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the poor with the help of his sidekick Little John. Robin Hood and Little John target Prince John since he is the wealthiest man in England. Being the greedy ruler that he is, Prince John continues to raise taxes on the poor to the point where whomever can’t pay their taxes is thrown in jail. Robin Hood and Little John devise a plan to free those stuck in prison while stealing back the tax money. The two hero’s, along with the poor and tax money, narrowly escape the clutches of Prince John. As this is happening, Prince John manages to burn down his family castle in an attempt to stop them. Soon after, King Richard shows back up and pardons those all who wronged his younger brother, and Robin Hood gets to marry the love of his life. This movie is an example about how much power rich people can have in society. The ruler at the time, Prince John, was corrupt and just cared about money. He didn’t care that the poor were starving and barely getting by. I think that this is almost the case for things in the United States. The upper-class income is growing while the middle and lower classes are slowly shrinking. The percentage of middle-class Americans has shrunk from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019 (Pew Research, 2020). The upper-class is becoming more and more powerful in this country. The richer they become, the more influence they have over people and even some politicians which is scary. I think that the film makers wanted to communicate that there are some bad people in power in the world but also some good. I also think that the film makers wanted to show that there are people that genuinely care for others in the world and that you don’t need money to be happy.

Horowitz, J. M., Igielnik, R., & Kochhar, R. (2020, August 17). Trends in U.S. income and wealth inequality. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/#:~:text=The%20growth%20in%20income%20in,majority%20of%20Americans%2C%20is%20shrinking.&text=The%20share%20of%20American%20adults,1971%20to%2051%25%20in%202019.

Black Panther is more then just a movie to many people. Black Panther is a Marvel Film directed by Ryan Coogler, a black director, that is about a country in Africa that has advanced technology though a special metal that is hidden from the rest of society. There is trouble because an outsider wants to overthrow the controllers of the metal to use it for their own use. The cast of Black Panther is majority black, including the super hero. This is a major deal for American culture because there are not many movies with a majority black cast that are seen as positive. A lot of movies only show a certain part of American life, and don’t represent many other minority groups. Black Panther not only represented the black community on screen, but it brought African culture to be able to relate back to its black community watching at home. The actors and actresses in the movie also were able to show their culture to the world too. To the movie premier, the guests were asked to wear royal attire. In an article from Time magazine, it stated that people including the main character Chadwick Boseman and director Coogler wore a kanzu, which is a formal attire from Uganda. There were also a wide display of crowns and head scarfs from a wide variety of African Decedents. Being able to show off African culture and represent it was ground breaking for the large black community in America. The sense of pride was shown throughout the country, and some black people went to see the movie in their native dress attire. Watching a movie where African tribes have the power and technology to control the world is significant, yet just a small step to fixing systematic racism and the injustices faced in America. There needs to be a continuation of more minority casts seen in positive lights to help inspire the next generation and to properly represent all the different culture and ethnicities of America.

The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther

Marvel’s Cinematic Universe had made a movie Black Panther, one of the most powerful and revolutionary movies in the Universe, and one of the most influential movies of the 21st century to African American people. We see King T’Challa played by the late great Chadwick Boseman, undergo his rightful passage as the new black panther after his father, King T’Chaka dies, he becomes the new ruler of Wakanda. He is at odds when he meets with Killmonger, a former black ops soldiers who comes in Wakanda after he helps Klaue steal artifacts that are from Wakanda, from a London museum, and enters the hidden country to fight T’Challa and take over the throne. Killmonger’s father taught him about Wakanda and all the vibranium they use to provide for themselves. He sees the idea of black liberation, but the real goal of Killmonger is world domination over his oppressors. T’Challa, at first follows the ancestors by hiding in plain sight and worries the outside world using vibranium, Wakanda will be lost. However he sees Killmongers views as valid and he should help people who look like him, who do not have similar resources, and share it the right way. The movie not only shows a visual representation of a black  excellence, but it portrays the message of black people who have lost their identity, the bruises of slavery and how African Americans deal with consequences on a daily basis, as director Ryan Coogler uses personal and historical facts making Black Panther and two main characters showing two different points.

Coogler has been open about how his personal life and black history has helped him during the process of making Black Panther. He was raised in Oakland, California and we see this as an opening shot where Killmonger lives. This is the same city that the Black Panther Party was founded as well.Black Power phrase was a declaration that was said by Stokley Carmichael aka Kwame Ture. During the civil right era Black Panther was made in the Marvel comics, at the time he was made, 41% of African Americans were below the poverty line, and Black Panther was a symbol of “afrofuturism- an ethos that fuses African mythologies, technology and science fiction and serves to rebuke conventional depictions of (or, worse, efforts to bring about) a future bereft of black people(Smith, TIME).” Even though it’s fantasy, Chadwick Boseman says it himself that “to have the opportunity to pull from real ideas, real places and real African concepts, and put it inside of this idea of Wakanda—that’s a great opportunity to develop a sense of what that identity is, especially when you’re disconnected from it.” This is mostly what African Americans have a feeling towards, especially since they have a hard time tracking back their roots to Africa.

The messages that are portrayed have two sides as we look at T’Challa and Killmonger. If we take a look at Killmonger, he had little to nothing growing up, he asked himself how there were “two billion people all over the world who look like us whose lives are much harder, and Wakanda has the tools to liberate them all…where was Wakanda?(Serwer, Atlantic).” Wakanda failed to be apart to help black people around the world. What he says is true and hits home to T’Challa. His methods get ahold of him, even with T’Challa pointing out that he has become like his oppressors something Killmonger never wanted to be and leading to his fatal end. As we look at T’Challa he is the opposite of Killmonger, he has everything and only knows Wakanda outside of him being Black Panther and saving others. He listens to ancestors, even his friend Nakia played by Lupita Nyongo, wants him to help the outside because she believes Wakanda has resources to help the outside and stabilize the country, but T’Challa is blinded by tradition and keep Wakanda separated. T’Challa sees Killmonger’s views but wants to do it right as he demolishes isolation and sets up buildings in Oakland. California “to deploy Wakandan capital toward an international social-service project focused on impoverished black neighborhoods—again echoing the legacy of the Black Panther Party(Serwer, Atlantic).”

Finally, this is not just a movie with just messages and historical references, but Black Panther is a movie of inspiration to African American people. There aren’t a lot of black heroes in movies or television. So with a big company like Marvel who portray an African American man as a hero and not being type casted as a junkie or absent father is wonderful. Not only is it a black movie but it is a good movie with black people in it. It celebrates black women as well, the power and the poise that black women have fought side by side with black men too. T’Challa surrounded by his mother Ramonda, sister Shuri, leader of the Dora Milaje, Okoye, and his dear friend Nakia, fighting for the throne, prior they were the ones trying to help save their country for themselves and not letting Killmonger take the seat. This movie made black representation in a lighter note, where people sold out movie theatres to schools for little girls and boys who see an African American onscreen a be the good guy. Black Panther was not a just a movie, but a whole movement for people who are black, portrayed by  black excellence.From acting, writing, costume and set design, directing, the comics that made the character, was made and portrayed in this movie by a black King in real life.

R.I.P Chadwick Boseman

By Kennedy Latham

Works Cited

•  https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-erik-killmonger/553805/
• https://time.com/black-panther/

The recent social and political climate in America has placed racism at the forefront of everyday dialogue in such places as social media platforms. The Donald Trump presidency of the past four years was associated with increased racial violence and the empowerment of white supremacy. Instances such as the killing of Black man George Floyd by the police have been pivotal in bringing more awareness and protest of systemic racism. The Covid pandemic has heighted the focus on racism as well, as people, including many of White-privilege, had the more opportunity to reflect on racial injustice. The pandemic brought much more exposure to systemic racism and inequities of poor people in the last year. The Covid pandemic has demonstrated harmful injustices in the dualities created in conceiving ourselves as one and the other. Dualities of white vs. non-whites, and those with means vs. the poor result in inequalities in health care, and a number of other institutions in our society. 

The Eurocentric worldview that creates social and biological others, continues to have a large role in the fabric of everyday life in America. This worldview constructed the idea of race, and has placed humanity on a scale of evolution with Whites on the top and Black people at the bottom, with everyone else in between. This scale has dehumanized non-white groups of people and given false justification for inequity and injustice in our competitive capitalistic society of people that have vs. people who have not. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote “Thus it is that no group ever sets itself up as the One without setting up the Other…against itself. If three travelers chance to occupy the same compartment, that is enough to make vaguely hostile ‘others’ out of the rest of the passengers of the train. In small-town eyes all persons not belonging to the village are ‘strangers’ and suspect; to the native of a country all who inhabit other countries are ‘foreigners’; Jews are ‘different’ for the anti-Semite, Negroes are ‘inferior’ for American racists, aborigines are ‘natives’ for colonists, proletarians are the ‘lower class’ for the privileged.” (Introduction. de Beauvoir) 

“Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” From Letter to Birmingham Jail. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Systemic racial injustice often goes hand in hand with systemic inequality. Not only has the Covid pandemic shown disproportionate death rates on Americas non-white populations but disparities in income as well. Steve Greenhouse states in his July 30, 2020 article in the New Yorker “The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted America’s enduring racial disparities, which are fueled by decades of unequal treatment, unequal opportunity, and structural barriers like job discrimination and poor schools. Blacks have been infected with covid-19 at three times the rate of whites. (The same is true for Hispanics) The coronavirus is also having a hugely disparate impact on Black people’s finances and prospects” (Greenhouse p.1). According to this article America has a political economy that makes Blacks vulnerable to preexisting conditions, and Blacks are more likely to be essential workers (Greenhouse p.1)  

The February 5th, 2021 episode of the Rachel Maddow show included a segment on what Maddow referred to as vaccine inequity. The Covid pandemic has demonstrated the systemic inequities in America and throughout the world in the way poor people, poor countries, non-white, and specifically Black people have gotten sick and died disproportionately compared to their white counterparts (msnbc.com). 
 Racial Disparities Already Taking Shape In Covid Vaccination Rates | Rachel Maddow | 
 The recent development and roll out of the distribution of the vaccines in America once again points to the same inequities. Black people in America are receiving disproportionately less vaccinations than the rest of the population. According to a February 1st, 2021 article on Politico Magazines website, only five percent of the vaccines administered since the beginning of the rollout in December 2020 have went to Black Americans (Politico 1). 

Maddow points out that racial and economic disparities have been the root causes that Blacks have less access to vaccines and are sick and dying more in this country. I agree with Maddow on the fact that because we are familiar with these disparities, we should be able to have a vaccine roll out that avoids such pitfalls. This is one of the most current examples of the fact that as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” that if we fall back on the status quo systems and leadership, we will continue to see the same injustices. 

Before the pandemic, our health care system (just one component of this network of systemic injustice) was underserving Black Americans. Reducing the component of poverty in this country would help because Blacks are disproportionally poor. Lessoning the digital divide in America would help the situation access to technology needed to register for the vaccine. Improved access to transportation would help as people without cars are not able to take advantage of such programs as drive-through vaccinations. Maddow interviews Dr. Jerry Abraham of Los Angeles Kedren Community Health Center, who has demonstrated success in using community programs to network and provide resources to underserved populations in vaccination access. 

 Removing Barriers Is Key To Getting Vaccine To Underserved Communities | Rachel 

The hesitancy of many people to receive the covid vaccine has been another issue in fighting the pandemic. Some have pointed to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where Black men were denied treatment, as a reason many Black people do not trust vaccines and the healthcare system. However, according to a recent article in the L.A. Times, when Karen Lincoln of Advocates for African American Elders talks to Black seniors “Tuskegee rarely comes up. People in the community talk about contemporary racism and barriers to healthcare…while it seems to be mainly academics and officials who are preoccupied with the history of Tuskegee” (p.1 Dembosky. latimes.com)’ 

Another part of the issue is the implicit bias of many individuals throughout healthcare systems. “Implicit bias refers to unconscious attitudes and stereotypes held toward other people. In a healthcare setting, when ideas about a patient are made because of unconscious associations rather than that person’s individuality, it can lead to poor care” (p.1 www.usnews.com). There has been a history of implicit bias in America in the medical management of non-white people. Because of this there have been multiple articles and accounts of Black people who died of Covid because medical facilities deemed symptoms were not enough to receive testing and sent them home (p.1 www.usnews.com). 

The CDC website highlights social determinates and inequities that increase the risks of death and sickness due to COVID-19. According to the CDC, discrimination “can lead to chronic and toxic stress and shapes social and economic factors that put some people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of Covid-19 (p.1 cdc.gov). 

An additional factor of injustice that has been magnified by the Covid pandemic is homelessness. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty discriminatory economic and housing policies, among other variables, have historically led to disproportionate numbers of homeless in people of color. They also point out homelessness puts people at greater risk for covid due to increased difficulty accessing resources. They go on to say that “Homeless individuals infected with Covid 19 will be twice as likely to be hospitalized, two to four times as likely to require critical care, and two to three times more likely to die than the general population” (nlchp.org p.1).
 

As we slowly pull ourselves out of the pandemic, recovery is inequitable as well. The February 12 2021 PBS News article Amid systemic inequality, U.S. salaries recover even as jobs haven’t talks about how people in low-income occupations have been disproportionately affected during the pandemic compared to higher-paying industries. Low-income workers from restaurant, hotel, entertainment, low paying health care, and retail industries. Recent indications have shown that overall, Americans are earning similar wages that they were before the pandemic (Rugaber p.1). The Washington Post reported in September 30th 2020 that groups slowest to recover economically from the pandemic recession are “mothers of school age children, Black men, Black women, Hispanic men, Asian Americans, younger Americans (ages 25 to 34) and people without college degrees “(Long, Van Dam, Fowers, Shapiro p.1). We can see here that a proper recovery from the pandemic will involve dealing with systemic injustice as well as inequality.  

We must and rebuild all of America’s racist intuitions, in government, health care, education, economy, to name a few. In our information and technological age, everyone needs the same access to information and technology. We must work to end poverty. These are just a few things we can do to lessen the social inequity that make events like pandemics especially horrible and tragic. As Martin Luther King believed, “Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” (King p.1) We are all one human race, interdependent on each other. Injustices arise in the creation and maintaining of inequalities rooted in conceiving human groups as one and the other. Once again, we must remember as Simon de Beauvoir said;

 “Thus it is no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other…against itself” (Beauvoir p.1) 

References; 

 Racial Disparities Already Taking Shape In Covid Vaccination Rates | Rachel Maddow | 

 Removing Barriers Is Key To Getting Vaccine To Underserved Communities | Rachel 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/01/covid-vaccine-racial-disparities-464387 (Links to an external site.)  

Greenhouse, Steve https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-pandemic-has-intensified-systemic-economic-racism-against-black-americans (Links to an external site.)  

Rugaber, Christopher. Associated Press https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/a-sign-of-stubborn-inequality-u-s-salaries-recover-even-as-jobs-havent (Links to an external site.)  

Long. Heather, Van Dam. Andrew, Fowers. Alyssa, Shapiro, Leslie, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/coronavirus-recession-equality/ (Links to an external site.)  

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/01/covid-vaccine-racial-disparities-464387 (Links to an external site.)
Beuvior, Simone de. The Second Sex Introduction. Bantum Books. 1961
King Jr. Martin Luther. Letter to Birmingham Jail. Harper San Francisco. 1994 

Dembosky, April. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-03-25/current-medical-racism-not-tuskegee-expls-vaccine-hesitancy-among-black-americans 

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-01-14/racial-bias-in-medicine-a-barrier-to-covid-health-equity 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html