F

rom the end of World 
War II through the pres-
ent day, the United States 

has maintained a position as the 
world’s premier superpower. For 
decades, the American values of 
hard work, individualism, liber-
alism and free-market capitalism 
appeared to lead to massive suc-
cesses, including technological 
advancement, 
economic 
pros-

perity and high standards of liv-
ing. However, as COVID-19 has 
exposed, the values which people 
once associated with America’s 
brand of strength and prosperity 
now appear antiquated and out-
dated and are ultimately holding 
the U.S. back. While countries 
around the world have respond-
ed to the virus in different ways, 
American society’s fundamen-
tal focus on individualism, free-
dom and economic growth have 
exposed the inequality, distrust 
of government institutions and 
lack of protections for vulnerable 
populations within our country. 

First and foremost, the spread 

of COVID-19 has highlighted 
America’s 
extreme 
inequality, 

something which is largely a prod-
uct of American society’s fanati-
cal devotion to economic growth. 
As economist Milton Friedman 
declared in a 1970 New York 
Times Magazine article, “The 
Social Responsibility of Business 
is to Increase its Profits.” In the 
decades since Friedman’s arti-

cle was published, it’s clear that 
America has taken his advice to 
heart. Today, the U.S. has 10 of the 
world’s 20 most profitable compa-
nies, but at a cost: It also ranks 
39th worst in income inequal-
ity, worse than countries such as 
Angola, the Democratic Republic 
of the Congo and Turkmenistan. 
Last year, a study found that 
nearly 60 percent of Americans 
had less than $1,000 in their bank 
accounts, another sign of Ameri-
ca’s staggering income inequality. 

Unsurprisingly, 
America’s 

focus on profits, and its accep-
tance of the inequalities that phi-
losophy inherently produces, has 
greatly contributed to the nation’s 
disastrous response to COVID-
19. On April 21, a day on which 
over 2,600 Americans died of the 
virus, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick 
said that “there are more impor-
tant things than living and that’s 
saving this country.” Similarly, 
former New Jersey Gov. Chris 
Christie 
commented, 
“there 

are going to be deaths no mat-
ter what,” but “we have to stand 
up for the American way of life.” 
In saying this, Christie clearly 
implied that the American way of 
life is primarily focused on eco-
nomic growth — inequality and 
public health be damned. When 
faced with skyrocketing unem-
ployment rates, the U.S. Congress 
was both unwilling and unable to 
come up with an economic solu-

tion that addressed America’s 
income inequality. Although the 
federal government ultimately 
sent out a one-time $1,200 stimu-
lus check to citizens, by April 23, 
only 10 days after the first checks 
were deposited, 84 percent of 
Americans said they already 
needed another check to make 
ends meet. That federal relief bill, 
which cost over $2 trillion in total, 
simply proved how unassailable 
American inequality has become. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has 

also revealed the problems with 
the American society’s support 
of free-market capitalism, as 
workers often find themselves 
under-protected and devoid of 
rights. Although there has con-
sistently been some opposition 
to America’s overly laissez-faire 
attitude — such as Upton Sinclar’s 
1906 novel “The Jungle” — sup-
port for deregulation and limited 
government oversight of the pri-
vate sector is a major component 
of both America’s society and 
economy. As of 2015, American 
employees worked an average 
of 1,779 hours per year, the sev-
enth most of any nation globally. 

W

hat felt like a distant 
reality for the past six 
months is finally here. 

In just few short weeks, students 
across the nation will be reckoning 
with school start-ups — whether 
that means cautiously moving 
into a new apartment on campus 
or logging onto Canvas from your 
hometown. As we gear up for the 
long-anticipated 
fall 
semester, 

inboxes are filled with campus-
wide public health-advised guide-
lines for courses, clubs and sports, 
and I can’t help but feel a little 
nostalgic for a time before COVID-
19 and masks. The optimist in me 
had hoped that summer would be 
the end of it, but now a corona-less 
future seems unimaginable — or at 
least until 2024. Working at a local 
grocery store this summer, I feel 
my current cynicism deepen with 
every customer that refuses to 
wear a mask during their 10-min-
ute grocery runs despite Gov. 
Gretchen 
Whitmer’s 
statewide 

orders — that, and seeing videos 
and Snapchat stories of “COVID-
19 petri dish” parties and gather-
ings. 

I’d like to think my peers and I 

will be more responsible and con-
siderate on campus, but higher risk 
of infection on college grounds 
across the country has already 
been deemed inevitable by a New 
York Times survey prior to the 
new academic year. Unfortu-
nately, this is not all that surpris-

ing given the night-life crowds 
that took over Ann Arbor bars 
after Whitmer’s rescinding of 
the Safer at Home Order in June 
and Theta Chi’s careless summer 
kickback. Our image as the Lead-
ers and the Best was rightfully 
scrutinized then, and it is bound 
to face even heavier surveillance 
during this experimental semester. 

As university students, it’s high 

time our increasingly expensive 
schooling be put to productive use 
this semester. According to a New 
York Times article, we are impul-
sive, risk-taking college students 
that study together, live together, 
party together and sleep together. 
And they’re right. As thousands 
of students are welcomed back, 
campuses will become what psy-
chologists call a strong situation 
in which external environmen-
tal forces define the desirability 
of potential behaviors despite an 
individual’s personal tendencies 
and personality. This is especially 
true in cultural systems like that of 
universities where the norm is the 
often anti-intellectual nature of 
college student culture. The endur-
ing coronavirus calls for a reevalua-
tion of hookup culture and reckless 
school spirit, and we must be the 
ones at the forefront of this battle 
against amateur human tendency. 

While 
reopening 
campuses 

seems like a doomed endeavor 
from the beginning, we should 
take this opportunity to rede-

fine our college experience apart 
from tailgating and Thursday 
night excursions — whether that 
means spending more time on 
Zoom meetings and nights in, or 
looking deeper into the flaws of 
our own college culture. Amid a 
global pandemic that doesn’t seem 
to be going anywhere any time 
soon, it’s time for a cultural reset, 
if you will — one that encompasses 
a little more accountability for 
our actions. The only question is: 
Are we up for the challenge? For 
everyone’s sake, I sure hope so. 

This quarantine period has 

woken America up to the glaring 
systemic issues of highly politi-
cized public health initiatives, 
structural racism within every 
established institution and the col-
lateral damage from U.S. Immi-
gration and Customs Enforcement 
policies. It would be for naught if 
we did not bring those issues back 
to our own schooling as many have 
done with the newly resurfaced 
review and reassessment petition 
for the University of Michigan’s 
Race and Ethnicity requirement 
as well as the student-led peti-
tion in response to ICE’s recent 
international student regulation. 

Closer to the University of Michi-
gan’s campus, in Ypsilanti, Mich., 
protesters gathered on the after-
noon of Tuesday, May 26, after 
a video was circulated showing 
a white police officer punch-
ing Sha’Teina Grady El, a Black 
woman, in the head multiple times. 

Building 
awareness 
about 

and a consensus against these 
horrific, racist acts of vio-
lence has to be a priority. But 
doing so safely and effectively 
is important as a pandemic 
rages on and police depart-
ments continue to aggressive-
ly crackdown on those who 
speak truth to their power. 

First, it is imperative to offer 

a historical context into the 
nature 
of 
policing 
agencies 

in America when wanting to 
approach conversations about 
the current Black Lives Matter 
protests occurring across Amer-
ica and around the world. The 
birth of modern-day police offi-
cers in America can be traced to a 
multitude of political, economic, 
legal and historical conditions. 
Most 
importantly, 
perhaps, 

modern policing departments 
can be traced to slave patrols 
and night watch groups, which 
were both maliciously designed 
to control the behaviors and 
freedoms of minorities — most 
notably Black and Native Ameri-
cans. In the southern colonies 
of the United States especially, 
origins of policing were root-
ed in racialized social orders 
and in the economy that so 
heavily depended on individu-
als that were enslaved. Slave 
patrols 
and 
night 
watches 

assisted wealthy landowners 
and maintained economic order 
by recovering and punishing 
both enslaved and freed Black 
individuals who did not adhere 
to white societal standards. 

The vicious and abhorrent 

rationalizations of slavery and 
racism did not end after the 13th 
amendment abolished slavery in 
the U.S. With the rise of so-called 
vigilante groups who resisted 
abolition and Reconstruction 
after the Civil War, America 
continued to perpetuate deep 
racism, oppression and injustice 
toward Black Americans. Due 
to the traditions of slavery and 
racism that are, unfortunately, 
so deeply embedded within this 
country’s history, these vigi-
lante groups felt it their duty to 
uphold the narrative that Black 
individuals were sub-human. 

Coinciding with the onset of 

the second phase of post-Civil 

War Reconstruction, the most 
infamous vigilante group, the 
Ku Klux Klan, was founded. 
Notorious for brutal campaigns 
of violence against Black indi-
viduals, “local law enforcement 
officials either belonged to the 
Klan or declined to take action 
against it.” Due to law enforce-
ment’s involvement with the 
infamous group, Congress even-
tually passed the Enforcement 
Act of May 1870 and two more 
Force acts — also known as the 
Ku Klux Klan acts — which 
acted to prohibit the assembly 
of groups with the intention of 
violating constitutional rights of 
minority groups. However, this 
legislation, along with many 
more legal events, has not sup-
pressed the inhumane practices 
of racial abuse and oppression 
that have persisted in America. 

Today, we are witnessing the 

continued perpetuation of racial 
injustices and violence from 
modern-day institutions against 
Black Americans. From being 
disproportionately affected by 
health inequalities that have 
been made most apparent during 
COVID-19 to repetitive injustic-
es perpetuated by the criminal 
justice systems in America, it is 
clear that what has been done so 
far is not nearly enough. Dur-
ing this global pandemic, many 
disparities and corrupt systems 
have come to light — ranging 
from the exploitations of essen-
tial workers who are primarily 
POC to healthcare inequalities 
and biases to precariously unfair 
shortages of protective equip-
ment 
for 
frontline 
work-

ers — which has undeniably 
showcased where the values 
of our country’s leaders lie.

While our healthcare workers 

are “at war with no ammo” — 
forced to use expired masks and 
perform invasive procedures 
on COVID-19 patients without 
any personal protective equip-
ment — local police forces tout 
a saturation of protective gear 
and riot gear when confront-
ing protesters. This disparity 
forces the financial hypocri-
sy of this country to light. In 
response to the jarring lack of 
PPE for healthcare workers, 
President Donald Trump stat-
ed, “the Federal government 
is not supposed to be out there 
buying vast amounts of items 
and then shipping … we’re not 
a shipping clerk.” However, he 
quickly changed tune when 
American citizens took to the 
streets to protest, mobilizing 

nearly a dozen federal agen-
cies to “dominate” protesters. 

Right now, it is most impor-

tant to stay safe and keep 
friends, community members 
and loved ones safe as well. 
However, The Michigan Daily 
Editorial Board understands 
the boundless difficulties of 
doing just that when our coun-
try is fighting both the COVID-
19 pandemic and racism. The 
fact that Black communities 
are having to gather in large 
numbers during a pandemic to 
protest their right to stay alive, 
all the while being dispropor-
tionately disposed to having 
higher rates of non-communi-
cable diseases is not lost on us. 
This is why we, as an editorial 
board, encourage resourceful, 
respectful and safe protesting. 

Because of the pandemic, 

many individuals who would 
normally opt to practice activ-
ism in person at protests are not 
able to. This may be the result 
of immunocompromised fam-
ily members, personal health 
reasons, working essential jobs, 
etc. If this is the case, there are 
many ways to protest unjust, 
racially 
oppressive 
systems 

from home. Considering donat-
ing to bailout funds for protest-
ers who have been arrested, 
boycotting 
organizations 
or 

businesses that continue to 
perpetuate racism or exploit 
Black 
creators, 
researching 

ways to stop offering funds to 
local policing agencies while 
simultaneously 
supporting 

Black businesses are some of 
the first steps one could make. 

Social media right now is 

a huge platform for activism, 
information and resources. It 
is imperative, however, to uti-
lize these platforms to the best 
of our abilities. This includes 
active interactions with the 
media while trying to edu-
cate yourself and/or others 
about current events and how 
we can move forward. It is 
very easy to be passive when 
dealing 
with 
social 
media 

activism, a term designated 
“slacktivism,” 
which 
can, 

unfortunately, 
block 
access 

to important, helpful infor-
mation. Consider the recent 
event 
of 
#blackouttuesday, 

where millions of Instagram 
users reposted a black square 
with the hashtags #blacklives-
matter, #blm or the afore-
mentioned 
#blackouttuesday. 

EASHETA SHAH | COLUMN

Back to school, not to normal

Easheta Shah can be reached at 

shaheash@umich.edu.

ZACK BLUMBERG | CONTRIBUTOR

How COVID-19 exposed America’s failing values

From The Daily: The history of 

policing and the power of protesting
O

n Monday, May 25, George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white 
Minneapolis police officer. This incident was a final breaking 
point and has galvanized outrage from communities all over the 

country, sparking protests and calls for justice across the United States. 
The unjust death of Floyd is not an isolated incident by any means, nor 
is it unprecedented, nor should it be a surprise to anyone who has access 
to news and media outlets — this is a tale as old as time, one that has 
happened to an unfathomable number of intersectional Black citizens.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

WHAT’S YOUR 

REASON? 

When we all closely follow public health guidelines, it slows 
the spread of COVID-19 — protecting those who need it most 
and giving researchers time to find the treatments we need. 

Together, we will make a difference. 

campusblueprint.umich.edu/care

TAKING CARE OF MAIZE&BLUE

“It’s important we work together 

to keep our campus safe.”

JENSEN, STUDENT

Monday, August 31, 2020 — 11
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Zack Blumberg is a junior in 

the College of Literature, Science 

& the Arts and can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

