COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate by race, yet it has still laid bare the brutality of racism in the United States.
— Patrice Peck, The Atlantic
All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk, but as Black people in America, we still feel a connection with one another. A reciprocated smile as we pass one another on the street; a spontaneous, but still synchronized, “Swag Surfin’” dip at the club; a “Cupid Shuffle” kick at the cookout. Small moments like these reinforce the bond I feel with other Black people. But these days, as I quarantine at home, the Black faces sparking that sense of familiarity are not nodding in solidarity or swaying in unison. They stare back, frozen in photographs accompanying obituaries that announce yet another Black life lost to the coronavirus. I do not know these people. I am not even one of the 31 percent of Black people in America who personally knows someone who has died of COVID-19. But in these faces I see my loved ones. I see myself.