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As I write these words, over 630,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19 — a number that marks us as the epicenter of failure on the planet, uniquely awful at responding to one of the most extraordinary public health emergencies in world history.
Years from now, scholars will ask, as will our kids and theirs, how could we have bungled this so badly?
Some will retreat to an easy and politically partisan explanation, insisting it was a failure of leadership on the part of the Trump White House. And they won’t be wrong.
But that answer will, at best, offer a partial truth. The deeper meaning of our national tragedy is worse.
Sadly, I fear that we will avoid confronting the more profound meaning. Because to admit we were brought low by the prejudices of large segments of Americans will be too much for some to bear.
But it is inarguable, and I can prove it.
A combination of racism, classism, ageism, and ableism — all connected in that they all rely on a hierarchy of human value — and the indifference to the suffering of certain groups’ members is at the heart of our failures.
