COVID-19: NARRATIONS OF RACIAL DISPARITY AND THE PRODUCTION OF HEALTH PRECARITY IN PHILADELPHIA

This piece was developed as part of my Honors Thesis at the University of Pennsylvania. The filmic aspect of this project interrogates notions of novelty and racial inequity through an archival exploration of Philadelphia’s racial and economic marginalization. This audiovisual project situates the current moment as a manifestation of this history, which places certain bodies at an increased risk of exposure and death. The paper that follows, explores the way that COVID-19 racial disparity is narrated, and conversely understood, in dominant discourse. I interrogate these dominant narratives around racial disparity, and point to not only the shortcomings of such an analysis, but also the potential dangers. Finally, informed by the theory of Loic Wacquant, I propose a shift in our understanding of racial disparity to center the symbiotic relationships between race, class, and the state.