This tweet from Charles Blow, among others, said what so many of us are thinking.

x Ã¢ÂÂWhen white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia.Ã¢ÂÂ Ã¢ÂÂ African-American proverb Ã¢ÂÂ Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) April 5, 2020

Blow recently raised the alarm in The New York Times, in ”The Racial Time Bomb in the Covid-19 Crisis.”

Early Monday morning the email arrived. The subject line began, “ALARM AT THE GATE,” written in all caps. Someone had died. That is always what that phrasing means. The message came via a group email list maintained by the fraternity I joined in college some 30 years ago. A younger member, a rising chef in his 30s, had died. As the email read, he passed away “due to immune system complications resulting from contracting the Covid-19 virus as a Type-1 diabetic.” He was in Detroit, which has emerged as a hot spot for the virus. This was the third death I’d heard about of someone with a connection to my college or a friend who went there. All relatively young, all black men, all diabetics. The two others were in New Orleans, another emerging hot spot. I recalled an arresting article I’d read from “Undark,” a Knight Foundation-funded, science-oriented digital magazine in Cambridge, Mass. (I’m on the advisory board of the magazine.) As the article pointed out, the virus may prove most devastating in the South because of “poorer health, curbed health care access and skepticism of government.” What the article doesn’t state outright, but I read in the subtext, was that the virus is more likely to be deadly to black people.

This is certainly a subject that academics have repeatedly explored. A simple search of Google Scholar for ”black health disparities” will keep you reading into the next century.

The Root’s Michael Harriot sums the situation up in his inimitable style, in “We Figured Out Why Coronavirus Is Killing Black People...As If You Didn't Already Know the Answer”

Simply reporting that COVID-19 is killing black people is not enough. As the media reports higher coronavirus infection and death rates for black America, it is also important for outlets to be as diligent in reporting why black people are disproportionately affected by this exponentially multiplying global pandemic. We figured it out. The slurry mix of economics, medical bias and institutional inequality that creates and perpetuates health disparities make black Americans prime targets for health disparities. If you are black, inequality is inescapable. It waits for you at the bus stop. It follows you across town. It emails you at work. It lingers in the air. The data on COVID-19 shows that the disproportionate infection rates can’t be defined by poverty, behavior or geography alone. In fact, when we factor in income and demographics, we can only reach one conclusion: White supremacy, like the coronavirus, is everywhere.

New York radio DJ Ebro Darden put it bluntly.

x CoronaVirus is racist cause America is racist.



The hardeat hit areas will be black cause of racism.



Racism causes lack of healthcare and healthcare resources.



We need to know the race of people contracting and dying from CoViD19 Ã¢ÂÂ Kojo Ebro (@oldmanebro) April 5, 2020

As the novel coronavirus hit our shores, what concerned me the most, initially, was correcting the lie being spread that “Black people have immunity.”

Africa Check— is a good place to start for debunking information.

x Ã°ÂÂÂ There is a lot of misinformation about the new coronavirus, from conspiracy theories & hoaxes to dangerous cures & false evidence. @AfricaCheck has been #factchecking these as fast as we find them. You can now find all our checks in one place. https://t.co/VB3LGdNXN2 Ã¢ÂÂ Africa Check (@AfricaCheck) March 20, 2020

They tackled what looks to be the source of the first set of rumors.

x Damn shame that people are actually believing this! No, African blood and black skin donÃ¢ÂÂt Ã¢ÂÂresistÃ¢ÂÂ new coronavirus | Africa Check https://t.co/tv7e19xtyy Ã¢ÂÂ JDidda (@JDidda) February 27, 2020

The pushback against that lie started last month, on multiple social media platforms. Dr. Alexea Gaffney-Adams, a specialist in infectious diseases, weighed in with knowledge and action items.

x YouTube Video

In addition to correcting the lies, I also felt that we needed to have more discussions with—and not just about—the black community, like this town hall hosted by Sean ”Diddy” Combs on Thursday evening. The opening speaker was California Sen. Kamala Harris.

x YouTube Video

Going beyond the increased medical factors fueling black coronavirus fatalities, Harris also brought up workplace issues.

"You look at what's happening in terms of documenting longstanding health disparities (among African Americans) ... asthma, 20 percent more likely to have it; high blood pressure, 40 percent more likely to have it; lupus, black women are three times more likely that white women to have it," Sen. Kamala Harris said at the beginning of the town hall. "And this disease, this coronavirus, attacks people who otherwise have health conditions. So, we've got a lot at stake." Harris went on to say black people are far less likely to have the option of working remotely, which means they're either risking their health due to a lack of paid sick leave or they're giving up their income in order to stay home. "There's a lot to address, a lot to talk about, a lot to fight for ..." Harris continued. "We're gonna get through this, because we're all in this together. And, again, thank you to all the leaders for being a part tonight."

Some big names joined Harris and Combs onstage Thursday night: criminal justice advocate and CNN host Van Jones, political strategist Angela Rye, also of CNN, as well as NPR, Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Charles Blow, Rev. Al Sharpton, epidemiologist and civil rights legend Dr. Camara Jones, as well as several musicians, including Meek Mill, Fat Joe, and Killer Mike.

Angela Rye pointed out that we have to build a “community plan,” and not just sit around and wait for politicians to respond. I’ve seen of that in action: A group of activist young people in my area are shopping for and delivering food to us older folks.

But most importantly, we have to make sure we get real change, with legislation and funding to back it up, to address the root causes of these disparities.

There are already bills that start that process —for example this bill introduced into the Senate in 2018.

Senators Introduce Bill to Eliminate Racial, Ethnic Health Care Disparities - National Health Law Program

Communities of Color and Other Underserved Communities Have Long Experienced Negative Health Outcomes Compared to Whites

Against a backdrop of increasing overt racial discrimination in the United States, Sen. Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA) of 2018 (S.3660) to address and eliminate health care disparities experienced by communities of color and other underserved communities. Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-13) joined by 67 cosponsors introduced the bill’s House counterpart (H.R. 5942) on behalf of the Congressional Tri-Caucus in May. The National Health Law Program serves on the HEAA Community Working Group, and calls on Congress to pass this legislation.

There is new legislation like “Momnibus” — the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2020.

x The US has one of the highest maternal death rates in the developed worldÃ¢ÂÂand that rate is significantly worse for Black women.



I introduced the Black Maternal Health Momnibus with members of the Black Maternal Health Caucus to address this serious issue.https://t.co/AFQ4oHnFIV Ã¢ÂÂ Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 11, 2020

Passing any of it ain’t gonna happen unless we not only get rid of Donald Trump, but his entire cabal of Republican enablers. That will only happen if we stop ignoring politics on the state and local level. It’s not just Trump. Yes, he’s gotta go, but so does the unholy host of Trump sycophants who want to legislate black folks out of existence.

This will also fail to happen if our not-black allies resist or are uncomfortable with discussions of the intersecting social determinants of health and racism.

We all have to vote—for Democrats—and after we have voted and won, we have to pass legislation that addresses racial disparities across the board. That will only happen if not-black folks begin to understand that, as Dr. Camara Jones said in the town hall, “racism is sapping the strength of the whole society, through the waste of human resources.”

Far too often we black folks are dismissed when attempting to discuss racism—even from folks who pride themselves on being “left,” “progressive” or “liberal.” That has to stop. If we can accomplish that task, after over four hundred years of being steeped in white supremacy, one day, in the future, a cold will be a cold, no matter the color of the person who catches it.