In the days before Arizona Governor Doug Ducey changed course by urging people to stay home, Scottsdale City Councilman Guy Phillips covered his face and yelled “I can’t breathe” into a microphone. at an anti-mask rally. His mockery of George Floyd’s last words is just one more example of the racism that seems to cast a shadow over contagious virus outbreaks.
That is precisely what happened 40 years ago with HIV / AIDS; That is what happened a century ago with the Spanish flu called xenophobia. Today, it is happening in sovereign tribal lands throughout the southwestern United States, where the disgusting relationship between racism and the new coronavirus is on full display.
Our ethnographic studies include a focus on health care and health policy for indigenous peoples in the US We now know that COVID-19 cases and deaths in indigenous nations have skyrocketed, and are among the worst critical points in the country. There are currently more than 7,000 positive cases in the Navajo Nation, which covers parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, where infections per capita quickly overtook New York and New Jersey in May.
One reason: When Governor Ducey stopped expiring his order to stay home across the state, crowds of Arizonans came to life as usual. They congregated in long lines and dined in crowded restaurants. Many did not wear masks. Fourteen days later, COVID-19 cases began to increase. With that, Arizona lost control of the virus.
Indigenous people already live with existing challenges for health and life. About 18% of COVID-19 deaths in Arizona have been indigenous people, where they represent 4.5% of the population. And even Arizonans in the border regions actively resist changing their behaviors to slow the spread of the disease.
Getty Images / Mark Ralston
Racism towards indigenous peoples
Hispanics, blacks, and indigenous people are more likely to be hospitalized or die of COVID-19 than whites. And while white Arizonans are aware of that, their response too often is indifference and sometimes hatred. Cities on or near ancestral indigenous lands and tribal nations may be geographically close, but politically, economically, and culturally they are separated by worlds. This racism is common in the regions bordering the tribal lands.
A recent example: In a Facebook post, Daniel Franzen, a 34-year-old white man from Page, Arizona, urged readers to use “lethal force” against indigenous people because “they are 100% infected.” The local police arrested him.
And as of April 2016, an even more deadly example of violent police surveillance: Austin Shipley, a Winslow, Arizona police officer, shot and killed Loreal Tsingine, a 100-pound Navajo woman. The officer claimed to fear for his life because the woman was holding a pair of scissors. After Tsingine was shot, witnesses were not allowed to administer life-saving techniques that could have saved him. Her body was left on the street until 6 a.m. the next day.
This was not the first time Shipley had been the aggressor during his career, and as the current Black Lives Matter uprising reminds us, indigenous people, blacks and people of color are often killed by the police. The leaders of indigenous social movements sued the federal government and continue to fight for justice.
Getty Images / Mark Ralston
Distance from ‘strangers’
In March 2020, our research team interviewed 30 non-indigenous people across the political spectrum about the pandemic. One of our questions: Is anyone to blame for the virus? Responses range from pointing fingers at all of China (the “Wuhan coronavirus”), to President Trump and “capitalism out of control.” Regarding “who would suffer the most”, our respondents were consistent. Homeless people of color, they said, are at higher risk.
They also discussed the need to physically distance themselves from “strangers.” Such a response suggests a widespread idea: that associating with certain groups increases the dangers of virus transmission. A white woman, an outlier, told us that the Indians had been “a little slower in taking precautionary measures … it is easier for them to forget to protect themselves.” The woman now avoids the stores where the indigenous people go. Others said the same, although generally with concern and conscience. Exposure to friends and family was fine. Interaction with strangers was more dangerous.
The notion that indigenous peoples are “slower” to respond to COVID-19 is false. The tribes quickly and proactively promoted science-based resources and issued executive emergency orders that are regularly updated. The White Mountain Apache Tribe closed the borders early and then again in June, after an eighth of the tribe members tested positive for COVID-19. Donations of hand sanitizing stations and personal protective equipment for the Navajo, Hopi, Tewa, and other tribes in the region continue to provide aid.
The challenges to life-saving procedures came from outside the tribal nations. The Mayor of Page, Arizona, for example, posted a social media query to the President of the Navajo Nation in hopes that tourist attractions would be opened for business. Others replied that Nez, the president, was “busy fighting hard for our people.”
Rather than acknowledge tribal leadership actions to save lives, the mayor chose to perpetuate the racist trope of “drunken Indians” by writing, “I would like you to fight alcoholism as hard as COVID-19.”
Getty Images / Mark Ralston
A battle for clean air and water
Before COVID-19, many indigenous peoples already feared the inability to breathe. In the Southwest, children in tribal lands are 60% more at risk for asthma than non-Hispanic whites. For the heat, many families in the Southwest use charcoal and wood stoves; their particulate matter is not safe for inhalation, and long-term exposure increases the likelihood of death from COVID-19.
Clean water is also often inaccessible. More than 500 abandoned uranium mines have high levels of radiation on tribal lands in the southwest. This means that indigenous peoples and their livestock depend on contaminated water. Radiation spills, including the Church Rock spill, the largest in the country, continue to contain high levels of toxins. Indigenous miners and their families are also at high risk for respiratory problems, including lung cancer, and increased vulnerability to COVID-19.
Tribes that partner with environmental justice organizations and federal agencies are aware of these disparities and are striving to improve science and policy for healthier air and water in tribal lands, but these efforts are an uphill battle. The racism of border city leaders shows why.
defend yourself
In recent weeks, Black Lives Matter has drawn national attention to this failure. Finally, we all see what Native Americans, Hispanics, and Blacks have long known: We live in a political, government, and judicial system that treats black and brown bodies as disposable. We are governed by a collective mindset that rigidly applies economic disparity, deprivation of political rights, environmental injustice and extreme vigilance. The difficult but doable task that we all face now is to create a more equitable and just future for indigenous peoples.
Lisa Hardy, associate professor of anthropology and director of the community engagement laboratory for social sciences, University of Northern Arizona; Gwendolyn Saul, research affiliate, University of Northern Arizonaand Sonja Michal Smith, a graduate student in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Northern Arizona
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
