Call for Chapters 

Race, Ethnicity and the Covid-19 Global Pandemic

Editors: 

Melvin E. Thomas, Ph. D.  Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University

Loren Henderson, Ph. D.  Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Health Administration and Policy, UMBC Innovation Fellow, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Hayward Derrick Horton, Ph. D.  Professor of Sociology, State University of New York-Albany

Dear Colleagues 

We are seeking proposals for chapters for possible inclusion in the forthcoming edited volume, “Race, Ethnicity and the Covid-19 Global Pandemic.“  This volume will present the most authoritative and up-to-date theory and research on the causes and consequences of the covid-19 pandemic on racial and ethnic minorities in the U. S. and world.    These original essays will provide a critical examination of the progress and direction of debates, as well as a foundation for future research.  Please send your proposed title, abstract (no more than 400 words), name, and affiliation to melvin_thomas@ncsu.edu by July 30, 2020.

We are particularly interested in chapters that address the following issues:

1.      Discussions that apply social science theories to enhance our understanding of racial disparities in covid-19 infections and deaths in the U.S. and/or globally.

2.      Multivariate analyses of the racial disparities.

3.      Cross-national studies of the covid-19 pandemic and how it impacts racial, ethnic or religious minorities.

4.      Qualitative studies of how racial and ethnic minorities deal with covid-19 related issues.

5.      Historical analyses of pandemics and their impact on racial and ethnic minorities.

6.      Analyses that link racism in the U.S. healthcare system to covid-19 deaths.

7.      Analyses that provide solutions to racial and ethnic disparities linked to disparate covid-19 infections and deaths that can be that can used to mitigate the impact of future pandemics.

 CHAPTER FORMAT 

Standard format will help ensure coherence. Full chapter should be within 7000 -8000 words (approximately) including, reference, tables, figures etc.   

Please send abstracts of 300–400 words, and a biography of each author of 50–80 words, to Melvin Thomas at melvin_thomas@ncsu.edu by July 30, 2020^.  Please give the subject header as “Race, Ethnicity and Covid-19  Proposal’. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than August 31, 2020. Chapters of 7,000 to 8,000 words will be due by October 30, 2020.

Dear Colleagues,

I am grateful to work at UMBC, with its commitment to equity and inclusion. Our leaders issued a superb statement about the inequality that videos of police and community violence and the disproportionate harm to Black, Indigenous, People of Color from COVID19 have made so visible. Grief and rage are our immediate responses. The continued centuries of racial inequality in the United States take a toll. We hope you are taking care of yourselves, and that those you love are as well as can be. 

Events affect us unequally. Some of us see our loved ones in Ahmed Arbery, Chris Cooper, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or in ill family members and those working on the front lines of the pandemic. Others know someone like Amy Cooper, or wonder whether we do. Unequal access to housing, loans, schools, health insurance, sick pay and too-frequent, dangerous encounters with police are daily life for Black, Indigenous, People of Color. White people in the United States can often choose whether to recognize inequality, and what to discuss with friends and family.  White people can choose to be too uncomfortable to discuss racism, and avoid it. Black, Indigenous, People of Color can’t. Ignoring racism allows benefits of whiteness to appear as if from nowhere. 

The United States political system is much more than one elected official. Myriad civil servants and people in civic organizations and businesses have opportunities to find ways to improve what we do. Anne Arundel County has just declared racism a public health issue. We want the study of public policy to enable hope, and to include our grief and rage in our hope. At its best, hope is a practical emotion: we expect better outcomes when we take steps to bring them about. Taking steps requires recognizing racism and inequality.  Inequality--recognizing it, ameliorating it--is at the heart of studying public policy. We thank you for your work and commitment. 

We invite you to continue to work with Nancy Miller and Zoë McLaren, who work on health disparities; with Pam Bennett and Jane Lincove who work on schooling, race and inequality; with Usman Ali and Lauren Edwards, our colleagues who work on policing and accountability; Yusuke Kuwayama who works on valuing environmental benefits; John Rennie Short, Fernando Tormos Aponte and myself, who work on inequity, disaster, social movements, and the politics of law. Multiple affiliate faculty are also committed to anti-racist work, including in Sociology, Anthropology and Public Health; History; Economics, Education, and Geography and Environmental Systems.

Please don't hesitate to write to share thoughts or concerns.

My very best wishes.

Susan Sterett

Dear UMBC Political Science Students,

Political history is being made: are you involved? Send us your posters, your photos. We want to amplify the political advocacy of our students.

Please send any questions or information to forestie@umbc.edu

The members of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health at UMBC stand in solidarity with those who are grieving the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Freddie Gray, and the too-long list of African Americans who have been killed by the police. We grieve the countless lives that have been cut short and minimized by structural racism and white supremacy. The incidents surrounding these recent murders and the disproportionate impact of the current pandemic on people of color highlight the violence, racism, and inequality that are entrenched in this society.

We stand with those harmed: they are our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters, our friends, our lovers, our teachers, our colleagues, our students, and people we have never met. To be silent as they are taken from us would support the violence and the systems of which it is part. We cannot and will not be silent.

We recommit ourselves to developing and sharing the intellectual and methodological tools needed to dismantle systems of inequality, to finding new ways to support each other, and to helping create the kind of change we want to see. We recommit ourselves to doing this in our classrooms through improved, compassionate, critical pedagogy (c.f. Freire 1970) and in our research as we engage with partners in disenfranchised communities here and around the world. We commit ourselves to working with students, colleagues, and community members to apply social science methods and results to address these pressing social problems.

We are also committed to supporting organizations that work for social justice in our personal lives. Together, we are making a donation to the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), which “provides legal support to Baltimore communities as they exercise their civil liberties protesting against injustices rooted in structural racism and economic inequality” (https://www.baltimoreactionlegal.org/), one of the many organizations working to make a difference in our community. And, as individuals, we are supporting other organizations that work for social justice as well.

If you, too, are looking for ways to make a difference, seek out local organizations that have been involved in this struggle for a long time and see how you can help. Utilize opportunities to enrich and grow your educational and lived experience. Learn and listen and read about white privilege and white supremacy, alternatives to policing, and #citeblackwomen. Explore models for how to create social change and engage in productive conversations with people who are different from you. Seek out Black-owned businesses to patronize. Support each other, and take care of yourself. And please reach out to us if there is anything you want to talk about or any way we can support you.

We stand together in this fight against injustice.

Marina Adler

Anushka Aqil

Katie Birger    

Emily Byrne   

Jennifer Callaghan-Koru

Bambi Chapin            

Sarah Chard              

   Meryl Cozart              

Kevin Eckert       

Kate Hemmis            

Loren Henderson                   

Aubrey Jackson Soller           

Andrea Kalfoglou       

Camee Maddox-Wingfield     

Christine Mair

Dann Malihom

Julie Rosenthal          

John Schumacher     

Dena Smith

Brian Soller                

Jamie Trevitt                

Brandy Wallace         

Nick Welcome

Michele Wolff 

Takashi Yamashita

**To see what others in our UMBC community are saying about this, see UMBC Dr. Kimberly Moffitt, “For Black Mothers” (https://www.wypr.org/post/moffitt-black-mothers), as well as UMBC’s message supporting USM’s Statement on Injustice (https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/insights/posts/93513), which includes links to campus resources.

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY

The members of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health at UMBC stand in solidarity with those who are grieving the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Freddie Gray, and the too-long list of African Americans who have been killed by the police. We grieve the countless lives that have been cut short and minimized by structural racism and white supremacy. The incidents surrounding these recent murders and the disproportionate impact of the current pandemic on people of color highlight the violence, racism, and inequality that are entrenched in this society.

We stand with those harmed: they are our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters, our friends, our lovers, our teachers, our colleagues, our students, and people we have never met. To be silent as they are taken from us would support the violence and the systems of which it is part. We cannot and will not be silent.

We recommit ourselves to developing and sharing the intellectual and methodological tools needed to dismantle systems of inequality, to finding new ways to support each other, and to helping create the kind of change we want to see. We recommit ourselves to doing this in our classrooms through improved, compassionate, critical pedagogy (c.f. Freire 1970) and in our research as we engage with partners in disenfranchised communities here and around the world. We commit ourselves to working with students, colleagues, and community members to apply social science methods and results to address these pressing social problems.

We are also committed to supporting organizations that work for social justice in our personal lives. Together, we are making a donation to the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), which “provides legal support to Baltimore communities as they exercise their civil liberties protesting against injustices rooted in structural racism and economic inequality” (https://www.baltimoreactionlegal.org/), one of the many organizations working to make a difference in our community. And, as individuals, we are supporting other organizations that work for social justice as well.

If you, too, are looking for ways to make a difference, seek out local organizations that have been involved in this struggle for a long time and see how you can help. Utilize opportunities to enrich and grow your educational and lived experience. Learn and listen and read about white privilege and white supremacy, alternatives to policing, and #citeblackwomen. Explore models for how to create social change and engage in productive conversations with people who are different from you. Seek out Black-owned businesses to patronize. Support each other, and take care of yourself. And please reach out to us if there is anything you want to talk about or any way we can support you.

We stand together in this fight against injustice.

Marina Adler

Anushka Aqil

Katie Birger    

Emily Byrne   

Jennifer Callaghan-Koru

Bambi Chapin            

Sarah Chard              

   Meryl Cozart              

Kevin Eckert       

Kate Hemmis            

Loren Henderson                   

Aubrey Jackson Soller           

Andrea Kalfoglou       

Camee Maddox-Wingfield     

Christine Mair

Dann Malihom

Julie Rosenthal          

John Schumacher     

Dena Smith

Brian Soller                

Jamie Trevitt                

Brandy Wallace         

Nick Welcome

Michele Wolff 

Takashi Yamashita

**To see what others in our UMBC community are saying about this, see UMBC Dr. Kimberly Moffitt, “For Black Mothers” (https://www.wypr.org/post/moffitt-black-mothers), as well as UMBC’s message supporting USM’s Statement on Injustice (https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/insights/posts/93513), which includes links to campus resources.

The Center for Social Science Scholarship stands with the University System of Maryland and UMBC leadership against structural racism and for racial justice, equity, democracy, and social action in our communities. We stand in solidarity with and support of Black faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Black Lives Matter, every day.

In partnership with the Dresher Center for the Humanities, we invite faculty to attend an online faculty drop-in session on Friday June 12 at 10 AM to consider how can we use our roles as faculty, teachers, chairs/directors, or mentors to work towards racial justice, social change, civic action, community action, and pedagogical engagement. Registration and details are forthcoming.

To read more about the Black Lives Matter movement, to access statements from across the social sciences against police violence and anti-Black racism, and to access anti-racism resources from UMBC, please go here for our ongoing list of resources. 

Photo credit: Black Lives Matter https://blacklivesmatter.com/social-media-graphics/

The Dresher Center for the Humanities stands in solidarity with members of our Black community and other communities suffering across the nation. We mourn and condemn the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others. We recognize the injustice of a system of mass incarceration rooted in white supremacy under which Black and Brown women and men, including queer and trans people, are unduly subject to violence. We rededicate ourselves at this time to calling out and taking action to oppose white supremacy and the powerful systems of racial injustice that remain at work in the United States, including in institutions of higher education. We will use our platform, programming, and voices to bring the tools of the humanities to work against racism and for social justice.

To start, we offer the following list of resources for work against anti-Black racism. While not definitive, it is our hope that this list provides articles, books, podcasts, films, and other media that will be stepping stones towards a wider conversation.

Anti-Black Racism Resources

Also, in partnership with the Center for Social Science Scholarship, we invite you to attend an online Faculty Drop-in Session on Friday June 12 at 10:00 A.M. to consider how can we use our roles as faculty, teachers, chairs/directors, or mentors to work towards racial justice, social change, civic action, community action, and pedagogical engagement. Registration and details are forthcoming.

In solidarity,

The Dresher Center for the Humanities