Editor's Note: Dorothy A. Brown is a professor of law at Emory University. The opinions expressed in this comment are solely those of the author. See more opinion articles on cnne.com/opinion.
(CNN) - Earlier this month, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced on Twitter that she and her family members had tested positive for covid-19. Also, as it happens, she has repeatedly tried to enact a mask requirement to protect the residents of her city. It cannot because Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp has frustrated her at all times.
Bottoms, a Democrat, tried again last week when she signed a decree requiring that masks be worn in public, only to have Kemp reject that again yesterday. She signed an order that cities like Atlanta cannot require that masks be worn. Why? He called it a "bridge too far," whatever that means, and says the mandate cannot be enforced, although he has encouraged people to wear a mask and wear it himself. ("We don't need a mandate for people to do the right thing," Kemp said earlier this month.)
On Thursday, Kemp filed a lawsuit against Mayor Bottoms for the Fulton County Superior Court to declare that she cannot impose her mask requirement.
Kemp should listen to black women and men, and in this particular case the black woman victim of covid-19 who happens to be the mayor of Atlanta.
While we all face risks with covid-19, the risk blacks face is even greater.
According to the US Census Bureau, Atlanta is almost 52% black and 40% white. A study conducted this spring by a team of epidemiologists and clinicians at 4 universities showed that blacks could be dying of coronaviruses at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group.
While blacks account for 13% of Americans, counties with the largest black populations account for more than half of all covid-19 cases and nearly 60% of deaths, the study found. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks in Atlanta are more likely to be hospitalized as a result of covid-19 than white Americans.
Why? One reason is that being black in America means that you have to navigate systemic racism wherever you are, and this comes at a cost, even in health.
Chief Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals described this racism in an opinion Wednesday (a case of "suspicious capture" of a black man in Virginia, unrelated to covid-19, but fit for this discussion) . We live in a society, he said, "where some consider themselves dangerous even when they are in their living rooms eating ice cream, sleeping in their beds, playing in the park, standing in the pulpit of their church, bird watching, exercising in public , or walking home from a trip to the store to buy a bowling bag. ”
This reality for black people in the United States leads to high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and a variety of underlying conditions that make them more susceptible to covid-19.
And research shows, according to one of many studies on the subject, “that racial disparities in health tend to be more pronounced at the higher ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Despite having access to above-average social and economic resources… ”
Racism always finds a way.
President Donald Trump backed Kemp in the Republican primaries for governor.
Kemp, as Secretary of State, stripped tens of thousands of black voters of their rights. As CNN reported last December, in October 2018, "then Secretary of State Brian Kemp - later a Republican candidate for Governor of Georgia - imposed a policy of" exact match. " Under the policy, in the slightest discrepancy, such as a typographical error or missing a letter, between a voter's registration and their driver's license, Social Security or the state identification card was marked, leading to the suspension of more than 53,000 voter applications. Most of them, 7 out of 10, belonged to blacks ”.
For this reason, many have questioned the legitimacy of her "victory" over Stacey Abrams, a black woman, in the 2018 governing race.
In fact, there is much to question about his concern for the black and brown citizens of his state, which has seen more than 100,000 reported cases. As Abrams put it on MSNBC this week: “More than 3,000 Georgians have died, disproportionately black and brown Georgians. And he continues playing the violin while Rome burns ”.
Governor Kemp has been so reckless in not focusing on the coronavirus crisis that even President Trump criticized him in April for opening the state too soon. And now Georgia's cases are on the rise. On July 1 there was a record increase. The highest record includes young adults.
How do you know you're on the wrong side of covid-19? When not even this president would endorse your decisions.
It is silly and evil to make a murderous combination.
