Dr. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field Virtual talk Nov 12th
A part of the socioligy speaker series!
November 12th, 12:30-1:30
The Black Deaths America Treats as Normal
Dr. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Many people are now familiar with the 1918 flu -- the last pandemic on the scale of the current crisis -- which ultimately killed perhaps 50 million people worldwide. Fewer know that white mortality during the 1918 pandemic was less than Black mortality nearly every year, as late as the 1930s. The same pattern is likely to hold during the COVID-19 pandemic: my demographic models show that, unless at least 400,000 excess white deaths occur, white mortality in 2020 will still be less than Black mortality has ever been. I explore the disjuncture between the actions undertaken to fight COVID and the actions *not* undertaken to fight racism, and argue for health-based reparations for racism in the United States.
Zoom link:
Co-sponsored with CU Population Center, Institute of Behavioral Science