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Thursday, May 28, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Color as a symptom of the coronavirus

As the spread of the coronavirus 
exponentially increases by the day, 
so does its toll with 1,678,843 total 
cases and 99,031 deaths in the U.S. 
alone. Despite making up only 13.4 
percent of this nation’s population, 
the Black population is seen to 
be disproportionately victim of 
more than 50% of reported cases, 
33 percent of hospitalizations and 
approximately 60 percent of the 
deaths from the pandemic. Though 
these reports are often deemed 
related to health comorbidities 
prevently 
experienced 
amongst 
the Black community, the social 
inequities experienced by race are 
more to blame. 
A recent study conducted by 
Sutter Health Center for Health 
Systems 
Research 
expressed 
in 
their 
retrospective 
cohort 
analysis of COVID-19 that “African 
Americans had 2.7 times the odds 
of hospitalization compared with 

IZZA AHMED-GHANI
MiC Staff Writer

GRAPHIC BY HIBAH CHUGHTAI 

What’s in a name?

PRISHA GROVER
MiC Staff Writer

The video “Substitute Teacher” 
by comedians Keegan-Michael Key 
and Jordan Peele (often referred 
to simply as Key and Peele) put a 
hilarious spin on the very common 
experience of students who have 
had their names distorted by 
their educational leaders. This 
lighthearted video is a reference 
to a much bigger issue in which 
people have developed a certain 
apathy when it comes to the 
pronunciation of names which 
appear unconventional to them. 
I was raised being taught that 
my name represented my ties to 
my culture and role in the world 
— a belief quite common among 
Southeast Asian communities. 
I decided to ask some of my 
friends about their names, and 
what having that name means. 
Jeevin Amrit, pronounced Jee-
vin, means “the king of life” 
Nishanth, 
pronounced 
Nih-
shaa-nth, means “peace at dawn” 
Namratha, pronounced Numm-
ruh-tha, 
means 
“modesty 
and 
humility” 
Amrita, pronounced Uh-mrith-
uh, means “nectar of immortality” 
Inaya, pronounced In-ah-yah, 

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non-Hispanic 
white 
patients.” 
While findings indicated that age 
(39 years+), sex (male), income 
status (low-income) and insurance 
status (Medicaid, self-pay, or no 
insurnace) did increase the odds of 
hopsitalization, race independently 
influenced susceptibilty to hospital 
admission because of COVID-19. 
While the public seems to be 
surprised by the health disparities 
presented during this pandemic, 
the health burden as a person of 
color in America is anything but 
unordinary. The most prevalent 
health inequities experienced in 
this country are perpetuated by 
the systematic barriers that racism 
has inspired. The color of your skin 
ultimately warrants restrictions 
in health security to attain this 
country’s unalienable rights of life, 
liberty and pursuit of happiness. 
Race and ethnicity are crucially 
related to access to care, resources 
to treatment and health outcomes 
defined in social determinants of 
health.

Social determinants of health 
express the everyday social and 
physical conditions in which people 
play, work and live. According to 
HealthyPeople.gov, these factors 
express how individual health 
outcomes intersect with underlying 
issues that stem from economic 
stability, education, neighborhood 
and built environment, health 
and 
healthcare 
and 
social 
and 
community 
contexts. 
It 
standardizes the quality of living 
people are able to achieve and 
afford. 
The 
historically 
racist 
subjugations in the foundations 
that this country was founded 
upon leaves communities of color 
disenfranchised to suffer worse 
health outcomes. 
The 
health 
outcomes 
of 
marginalized 
communities 
presenting at the top of COVID’s 
food chain are driven by poverty 
and food insecurity and bisected 
by 
housing. 
The 
majority 
of 
the 
13.4 
million 
low-income 
American families are racial or 

ethnic minorities: Four million 
(30 percent) are hispanic, 2.9 
million (22 percent) are black, 
and about 800,000 (6 percent) 
are other nonwhites. According 
to the CDC, these families make 
up the majority of overpopulated 
American 
metropolitans 
due 
to 
institutionalized 
residential 
housing segregation and often live 
in multigenerational households 
with poor access to resources to 
drive quality of living. Racial and 
ethnic minorities often live in 
these conditions not as a means of 
personal choice or financial means, 
but by legislatively deliberate racial 
de facto segregation and redlining 
that affect residential housing 
and school systems, especially 
from the 1950s to 1970s. Though 
many people are unaware of the 
impacts legislative discrimination 
has played in the history of this 
country, it still plays a major part 
of current standards of health and 
implicitly influenced by private 
discrimination 
in 
real 
estate, 

banks, clothing, food and more. 
These households, in which the 
majority of essential workers arise 
from, are often subjected to food 
swamps, poorer physical housing 
and neighborhood infrastructures, 
limited 
occupational 
mobility 
and 
opportunity, 
and 
higher 
rates of stress. This then plays 
into increased prevalence and 
comorbidities 
with 
higher 
rates of obesity, asthma rates, 
hypertension, diabetes and other 
health conditions due to poorer 
housing conditions and access 
to care. Therefore, the overall 
risk of infection is not only more 
prevalent in communities of color, 
but these communities also have 
pre-existing health disadvantages 
that have suppressed their immune 
systems. While the essential work 
of racial and ethnic minorities 
might currently carry the nation, it 
is at the cost of their lives. 

means “blessing from Allah” 
During this conversation, many 
of them mentioned that their names 
are 
often 
mispronounced 
and 
although they make initial attempts 
to correct those who falsify their 
identity, they often fall complacent 
as a result of the person’s unwilling 
tongue. My name means “a blessing 
from God,” and while the common 

mispronunciation of it as Pree-
shah doesn’t change the meaning, 
I’ve always felt that choosing to 
pronounce my name incorrectly 
disregards its origin. I was given 
my name because my parents 
struggled to have kids for several 
years after having my older brother 
and suffered many complications 
throughout their pregnancy with 

me, thus when I was born, they felt 
that God had blessed them. The 
Sanskrit word “Prisha” is meant 
to give hope and warmth, and the 
way I pronounce it is the way my 
parents gave it to me. As my friend 
Jeevin says, “There’s a certain pride 
that you carry when you know your 
name has such a powerful meaning 
… it is a reminder of my roots.” 

Followers of Hinduism will 
often name their children after 
important figures in Hindu epics. 
For example, the name Arjun is the 
name of one of the heroes of the 
Mahabharata and one of the five 
Pandava brothers. He is said to be a 
symbol of clarity, loyalty and often 
won the favor of the gods. When 
someone names their child Arjun, 
they are paying respect to his 
namesake and hoping their child 
will be a testament to Arjun’s strong 
character. This is no different than 
someone naming their child after 
the Angel Gabriel or the Prophet 
Muhammad. 
Despite these sacred meanings, 
so 
many 
people 
resort 
to 
pronunciations 
or 
nicknames 
which are easier for the American 
tongue to pronounce. This is not 
about shortening one’s name just 
to a cute friendly nickname, but 
is about the obligation some feel 
to change what they are called in 
an act of complacency for other’s 
lack of effort. An example of 
this is people named “Prathik” 
(pronounced Prah-theek) going by 
the name “Peter.” 

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