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8 | JUNE 11 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week
jn

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How to reach us see page 12

I

t seems as if the ability 
to breathe — amid a 
pandemic where a highly 
contagious virus prevails and 
continues to attack the respi-
ratory systems 
of vulnerable 
individuals — 
should now 
be considered 
a luxury. The 
opportunity 
to take a deep 
breath — 
whether it is used to ground 
yourself in an argument or 
in an effort to eliminate the 
current stressors in your 
life — is permitted only for 
those who are strong enough 
to withstand the toll of this 
virus. A now-luxurious act 
that we once took for grant-
ed.
But what if the ability 
to breathe was a luxury all 
along?
While our nation’
s elderly 
population is subject to the 
highest death rate as a result 

of the spread of COVID-
19, we must not dismiss 
the notion that the virus is 
disproportionally impacting 
black Americans at a jarring 
rate as compared to white 
Americans. A Washington 
Post analysis found that pre-
dominately black communi-
ties hold a coronavirus death 
rate nearly six times higher 
than predominately white 
communities.
Could this disparity be 
due to a troubling institution 
in which black Americans 
do not receive the same 
access to healthcare as do 
their white counterparts? 
A report from the National 
Academy of Medicine found 
that minorities receive “low-
er-quality health care” as 
compared to white people, 
all other qualifiers held 
equal.
Or could it be due to 
an unjust housing system 
where black Americans are 
more likely to face housing 

discrimination — a situa-
tion which presents serious 
consequences to the health 
and well-being of these very 
individuals?
Perhaps this dispropor-
tionate access to “air” dates 
back to an inherently prob-
lematic society in which the 
ability to breathe is consid-
ered a luxury — reserved 
only for those who the air 
was originally intended for.
Perhaps our systematic 
way of living, rooted in 
ideologies stemming from 
a time of slavery, is why so 
many individuals — individ-
uals of color — remain gasp-
ing for air to this very day. 
Perhaps the death of 
George Floyd, who choked 
out the words “I can’
t 
breathe” in his final sec-
onds, was a consequence 
of an inherently unjust and 
unequal society that was 
created only to protect the 
breath of white individuals.

editorial
If You Can Breathe, 
You’re Privileged

Nicole Dean

a suburb of my hometown of St 
Louis, who had been gunned 
down by a white police officer.
My daughters’
 emerging identi-
ties as young black women, their 
self-love and their self-doubts, 
their righteous anger, their rising 
independence, their bold confron-
tations with risk, developed amid 
looping replays of white cops beat-
ing, strangling and shooting black 
and brown bodies. They want 
me to understand their feelings 
of anger and vulnerability; they 
doubt I can because I am white. 
Yet, when there was a shooting in 
a synagogue in Poway, California, 
and when a rabbi’
s house guests 
were attacked with a machete in 
Monsey, New York, my daughters 
are the first to check in with me. 
Their ears are attuned to danger.
My family is black and Jewish. 
The murder of George Floyd 
revealed nothing new to us, the 
eruptions of mass violence, the 
government collusion, nothing 
new. Yet perhaps this time our col-
lective memories will give us the 
insight, strength and resilience to 
walk into a better future. 

Clare Kinberg is the editor and publisher at 
the Washtenaw Jewish News.

NOTHING NEW continued from page 5

continued on page 12

