Students across the UC system took a new online course, Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa (named after this Blog), for the first time in the spring of 2020. Given the severe stresses of the “double pandemic,” as one student called it, they were offered the option of writing about their experiences and giving their advice for actual and would-be humanitarian actors during this time. Here are the combined reflections of six (6) students who chose this option.
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COVID-19 has affected many individuals globally. These students describe their different experiences:
The situation has taken its toll on me regarding school and my outlook on society. The coronavirus was something that my family and I were keeping an eye on pre-quarantine because of relatives in Asia. I was also planning to study abroad in Fall 2020 at Seoul University in South Korea — something I was planning for a while, and a big thing I wanted to do as an undergraduate since I have never gotten the chance to travel overseas. While my program has not been cancelled yet, I do not feel at ease leaving my family and the United States amidst a pandemic and the current circumstances, and am trying to rearrange my academic career. It feels like my life has been put on pause.
During final exams for winter quarter, I was experiencing anxiety from overthinking being exposed to the virus, and it was hard to focus on studying. My mom became unemployed since she worked as a manicurist in a nail salon, deemed an unessential business. Personally I feel safer with her at home anyway. My dad is an essential worker and works the night shift in shipping, and has several underlying health problems. It’s pretty worrisome to see him come home extra tired because of all the additional hours he’s been assigned as more people order stuff online. My mom makes him change his clothes before coming in the house and sprays the dirty ones with Lysol. I’ve heard very crude remarks online about a “Chinese virus” and I’m a bit concerned each time my mom leaves the house alone to get groceries, since she can’t speak English to defend herself. My younger brother is a high school senior and had to miss out on a ton of activities. We did attend a drive through graduation, though, and he got to wear his cap and gown, pick up his diploma and take pictures. (JN)
I live with two immunocompromised parents so I always have to do a seemingly neurotic routine every time I step in and out of the house. Simple tasks like grocery shopping have become something of a quest that isn’t fun at all, as I constantly have to remind myself not to touch my face while out and to wear my mask correctly while being careful what I touch. (KM)
Being undocumented has made it difficult to find a job. At the beginning of my second year at UCI, I found a job in my city that would pay me under the table. Commuting helped me put in more hours at my job and keep up with school work but it distanced me from the school environment. Finals week of winter quarter, my boss texted me that the store would be closed for two weeks because of the coronavirus. When it was announced that our spring quarter would be remote, I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to focus at home. Last week, my boss texted me again to let me know that the store was closing down due to the pandemic, leaving me unemployed. I have been living off my savings since I am unable to apply for unemployment because of my immigration status. Luckily my father is still employed so we have been meeting our rent and other expenses. (AP)
I have come to find a new passion in birth work that I look forward to pursuing in the coming months, and that has helped me keep my spirits up. Since the announcement of fall classes being online, I have personally been in disbelief since I had continued to hold out hope I would have my senior year on campus. Now I am further disappointed and have a feeling of being in limbo for longer than I expected. The events of the last few weeks have been particularly difficult for me as a black student and campus life and self-sufficiency used to be a getaway for me and my mental health. (NG)
As a low-income student, working is obviously really important. I lost my job when the social distancing guidelines got really strict. I was able still being paid but not as much as I was before, so financially this was when I have been the most stressed. When I moved back home, I got a job offer, but they would only hire me if I worked full-time, five days a week. Considering that unemployment is the highest it has been in a very long time, I did not want to take my chances and took the job. So not only was I a full-time student, but I was also working full-time. This situation definitely affected me academically. I fell behind for a while but I am glad that most of my professors were understanding of my situation and were lenient with deadlines and making up late or past due assignments. Although I never want to go through a situation like this again, I did learn to ask for help and contact my TAs more often, which is something I rarely did before. Additionally, I am a bit of a procrastinator, working full-time definitely pushed me to start my assignments ahead of time and also challenged me to improve my organization skills. (MC)
Issues of race and ethnicity have always been an issue in the United States, however with the recent murderer of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, many people have mobilized to address the still existing issue of racism in America. These students describe their different experiences and or opinions on the issue of racism:
The intersectional issues that plague the US are becoming increasingly difficult to articulate in this climate especially with the underlying issue of COVID-19. Enduring this cascade of police brutality against black Americans has brought to light the metastasizing of racism within US systems of oppression, and the outright neglect of protection for these vulnerable communities. The criminal justice system is anything but just and because it’s rooted in racialized injustice inflicted upon black people, it is an essential and underlying reason for the need to reimagine its organization from the ground up all the way through to incarceration. I was not surprised by George Floyd’s murder, and the system needs to change. The fact that black people have had to endure this suffering for so long in our brutal world history and the fact that they have to protest police brutality, a problem that is disproportionately killing black people during a pandemic that is disproportionately killing black people, is insane! Racism has been alive and well in the United States, and has been coming out more from the shadows. It’s very disturbing to see and hear about police brutality so often, and it angers me every time. Not only George Floyd but many other victims have been wrongfully killed or imprisoned because of systemic racism that lies within our institutions. The #BlackLivesMatter movement is something that has been bubbling for a while, and people have had enough. I’m incredibly proud to see so many people stand up to racism, especially in a time like this. Black and non-Black are risking their lives for their civil rights and doing what’s right. To see the government respond so quickly with curfews, and militarizing the police, in a protest against police, was honestly appalling considering how there was a lack of medical equipment and gear. To also see white people totally at ease, even armed with weapons protesting against quarantine wanting to get haircuts and eat inside a restaurant, in comparison to #BLM protestors being tear gassed and getting shot at with rubber bullets was horrible. Again, racism and privilege have been exposed.
I strongly support the movement, and while I cannot protest because of immunocompromised family members, I’ve been trying to do my part through social media activism, petition signing, and donations. Through this some things I have certainly learned are the impact of silence, how there are those around me who choose to ignore what’s going on, and the anti-blackness from family and those within my community. In the words of Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” (JN)
The prejudices in my family were my first exposure to this. Growing up in a Hispanic household I witnessed colorism towards my father and sister by my family members as they joked about their skin complexion. I know that the Latinx community prefers those with lighter skin tones because of the obsession of wanting to be accepted by white people. I have been signing petitions and sharing information to help educate people on social media while trying to encourage people to keep pushing for justice. I attended a peaceful protest in the city of Orange when a white man came to disturb our movement by shouting “all lives matter.” He was immediately removed but it just reminded me that the same way police brutality is so blatant, so are the racist remarks. The criminal justice system has been incarcerating and killing black people unjustly without being held accountable. The system was created to serve white people and it can only be changed if it destroys itself. (AP)
As a black college student, the current uprisings around the US have impacted me severely. Waking up each morning to look at social media to see how people who are fighting for my right to live without the threat of police brutality are being treated, especially in the midst of a pandemic, is increasingly difficult and traumatizing. These historical protests provide a monumental exposure to the system of police violence that black people have been experiencing since the beginning of this country. Although I am grateful for this to have finally come to light to the broader American base, it has been exhausting to have been seeing this violence against people that look like me for years. Being exposed to this level of violence by the state that is encouraged by the establishment and government on a daily basis is traumatizing and difficult to see, especially since so many of us have been seeing these murders on film since elementary school. However I feel this attention and exposure is necessary to get the message across that it is a systemic issue that affects everyone in this country regardless. (NG)
I am Latinx, so racism and discrimination are definitely not new topics and are something that I grew up being aware of. I think we are in a critical turning point where people are realizing how predominant racism is in almost every aspect of society. I am truly in awe of how much movement has been happening and I think it definitely inspires me to be more vocal about what I think and stand for. As a Latinx person, I think I have a responsibility of addressing anti-blackness in my community. While the protests have definitely brought some sort of unity, they have also exposed a lot of anti-blackness within other marginalized groups and communities. As a political science major I have learned about race and ethnicity, I have read a lot of research papers, policies, and history, so I think it is my responsibility to not only call out the anti-blackness in my community but also to educate. Education is crucial. I see a lot of school districts finally requiring high schoolers to take ethnic studies which is important because a lot of what I know now about race and ethnicity is because of college. Hypothetically, if I did not attend college, perhaps I would not know what I know now. Addressing racism and anti-blackness at a young age is truly what needs to be done. (MC)
The experience of a Black person in America is one of terror. The pandemic stopped business as usual in all spheres aside from the weekly murdering of Black people by the police (who are successfully doing their job by killing us). In this country, Black people are three times as likely to die from COVID-19 than white people. Black babies are twice as likely to die than white babies. Black women who bear children are four times as likely to die than white women. As a Black woman bearing two Black children right now, I am constantly scared — now for my little black babies because if our medical system does not fail me, I will soon have them to worry about, too.
I get angry when I think about how much people suddenly care about the way that Black bodies — men to be specific (since people either don’t know or don’t care about the same things happening to Black women) — are disregarded in our country because this is nothing new to me. Every single day I experience trauma again and again from the constant circulation of videos of my people being murdered. Every day I am reminded that African peoples were brought to this land as a source of labor and that, since slavery was outlawed, we are taking up space in this country. The United Nations called on the US Government to address these issues that are now so hard to ignore on June 5th, 2020, but nothing has been done. I do not believe that anything will be done.
I studied abroad in Ghana last year with some peers from UC Davis. I was the only Black student. There was a girl who was asked what her ethnic background was. She responded by saying that her mother is a mix of European backgrounds and her father is just American. I asked her what she meant by “he is American.” I forced her to explain that her father is a white American, and I tried to explain to her the differences between nationality and ethnicity, and more specifically that white should not be the default for Americans. All of our peers jumped in to her defense. My time in Ghana was riddled with microaggressions with a few instances of blatant racism. I really do wonder what my peers from that trip think about what is happening in our nation right now. (KG)
The students collectively answer the question: Does humanitarianism have anything to learn from these experiences?[1]
Humanitarian aid should direct its focus to black communities and donate to groups like Black Lives Matter, foundations that fight racism, reform policing and the judicial system, and promote the well-being of black people. The many humanitarian issues of health care, state violence, and sexual violence are all interrelated in this time of COVID-19 and police brutality, and it is essential that we address them as such. We are in the worst case scenario and must make change for a better future. The National Guard was brought in and the President even threatened martial law. Protests have erupted all over the globe, and have become a huge humanitarian issue. The United States needs to be held accountable, with the NAACP even asking for United Nations intervention.
Humanitarianism can learn from the injustices in our health and criminal justice system. The United States can no longer pretend it is free and fair as the whole world is witnessing the peaceful protests taking place and the momentum that the movement has. The hypocrisy has come to light as western powers are constantly pushing for human rights yet African-American people are treated inhumanely. COVID-19 hurt the most vulnerable communities very hard because they don’t have the resources to work from home or even health insurance. Funds should go to health care professionals who are risking their own health during a pandemic instead of going to police officer riot gear. Humanitarian aid should go to low-income communities because they are the most affected by these things that are out of their control.
This class has been helpful for seeing the international issues of Africa that often parallel experiences that happen in the US now, especially the corruption of government officials leaving us essentially to fend for ourselves. We think there is an important argument to make — that we are in a humanitarian crisis of our own. The domestic support that the federal and local governments provide does not meet the need that is truly in these communities. Racism takes on new forms within different generations, which is why maybe it is hard for some people to identify it as such. It morphs and changes shapes, but nonetheless it is still there. Racism and humanitarianism very much intersect, and they shape the way we not only view one another but how we chose to help each other and who we choose to help. It shapes our policies which affect other countries around the world, creating destabilization and thus creating more humanitarian crises. COVID-19 proves that we live in still very unequal times because the data shows that it is those in marginalized communities who have suffered the most in this pandemic.
The work of uncovering our failing capitalist system is a crucial step to moving towards something greater. Now we are ALL able to see that the way things have been run has truly not been for the benefit of everyone who runs it. We think it is time to take a good look at restructuring our system to benefit the majority of people who have been suffering unnecessarily under the greed of the elite, political or otherwise.
(And a final point by one student:) BIPOC in America know very well that Americans should be the last people trying to provide humanitarian aid to other countries when they fail even to acknowledge the injustices that are happening in their very own country. I thought for a few days before finishing up this assignment what humanitarians might learn from current events in America and, to be honest, I really do not know. I don’t think that anything could be done until there is a recognition of how we even got to this point….but I am not sure how one can convince Americans to do that. (KG)
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[1] This section is written jointly by students.