Just How Ivory is the Tower? A Tale of Racial Disparities in the Academy from COVID-19

(May 27, 2020)

I am a member of a bootcamp for a very large grant (think: the Beyonce of grants) and was on a scheduled monthly call.

As has been customary, people struggled through the depiction of how they have been doing during such “unprecedented times”, likely for fear that one person’s situation might be more pleasant or difficult than another’s.

Finally, someone chimed in. “Well, when I’m at work, I can’t move my horses, but now that I’m home, I can move them every 4 hours. They effectively mow my lawn for me — and it only takes 15 minutes out of my day.”

It was at this moment I realized: we are living in two VERY different worlds.

As someone who experienced COVID symptoms early on and was essentially out of commission for two weeks, I realized that there was not (and has not been since) a single mention from our institution of what to do if a faculty member gets sick. Indeed, I continued to teach, logged on to faculty meetings, and tried to write, even when my body took 2 hours to get from the bed to the couch or when the achievement of the day was making soup and tea. It didn’t even occur to me to take time away to focus on my ability to survive the virus.

But then, the news reports started coming out: racial disparities in COVID transmission and death were starting to emerge. Statistics indicated I was twice as likely to know someone who contracted or died from the virus, and it showed. While colleagues continued to talk about their cats or makeshift school adventures for their children, my friends and family talked about Zoom funerals and community grief.

And — it didn’t end there. Once Detroit was named a hotspot, it became clear that those outside the city could not comprehend what it was like to hear the constant blaring of sirens — sirens which permeated the dead silence of once active neighborhoods. Sirens which had no regard for my studying of psychological principles or writing of multi-million dollar grants. Sirens which bore a story for every patient awaiting their arrival.

As someone born-and-raised in Detroit, it was a no brainer when I was afforded the opportunity to join the faculty of the University of Michigan, my beloved alma mater: I would be living and working in Detroit and commuting to Ann Arbor when needed. Clearly, no one would’ve guessed that this moment would have happened when I took the job 2 years ago, but certainly no one would understand just how much of a chasm would be created from this 40 mile divide. This distance is palpable when faculty are debriefing their time in quarantine, yet I — having experienced a number of complications from personally and tangentially being exposed to COVID — was supposed to similarly maintain my productivity?

I tweeted about it this way:

“Conducting business as usual while sick, or mourning the loss of family, or lamenting with community during their loss not only hits different as a ‪#Blackademic in ‪#Detroit, but reflects a whole nother reality. Folks wanna have special issues exploring and capitalizing on this preventable atrocity, all while people are DYING all around me. The sirens are blaring in my head and neighborhood but you wanna discuss these RFPs…and THEN we wake up to more news about the pervasive impact of racism in our everyday lives as in the case of ‪#AhmaudArbery. Some days it really is just a lot to deal with — these days have been very hard with no separation of home, work, community.”

When your life’s purpose IS work and community, the devastating impact of COVID and other deliberate forms of racism seeps into your home, contaminating your dwelling place and sense of peace. It has truly been too much to contend with as someone who sees herself squarely outside of the ivory tower, but now trapped within a muddied hell of loss, guilt, and futility.

…

I am curious about how the next grant call will go with my colleagues. Will they acknowledge the indelible mark of COVID on Black people or Detroiters? Will they speak to the racialized policing state with Christian Cooper and George Floyd? Or, in the same way blame for the virus has been shifted about, will the horses be moved to another plot of land?