Much has been written on how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought longstanding structural inequities into sharp relief. Like in all crises, the effects of the pandemic have not been evenly distributed. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by the virus. Low-wage workers—largely workers of color and immigrant workers—are deemed essential yet deprived of basic health and safety protections and, in the case of undocumented workers, excluded from vital sources of relief altogether. The state’s response to the pandemic altogether ignored the risks facing incarcerated people and unhoused people. One way to understand how COVID-19 has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities is through Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s definition of racism: “the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death.”[1]
But in the gaps left by the state’s profound failure—or calculated indifference toward the suffering of certain groups—organizing efforts have surged. The work of organizers has recast demands once demonized as radical, from rent cancellation to universal healthcare, as necessary; it has begun to denaturalize carceral systems like prisons, jails, and detention centers. Communities have established mutual aid networks, continuing the long legacy of people of color cultivating their own resources and methods of keeping each other safe.
As Dean Spade frames it, mutual aid as a broader project requires that “people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions[.]”[2] The articles in this series seek to lift up the work of organizers, advocates, and scholars who engage with what it means to take this project seriously on a daily basis. How do immigrants’ rights advocates build strategic alliances with organizers fighting to end mass incarceration? What does it look like to pursue a vision of collective care that is rooted in Black radicalism? How does viewing institutional racism and anti-Blackness as a public health crisis sharpen our understanding of these systems? How do we challenge conditions that keep workers in constant precarity?
Recent months have seen more widespread and urgent engagement with questions of abolition, prompted in part by the continued murder of Black people—including Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Rayshard Brooks—at the hands of police. The insights of abolitionists remind us that the possibility of a better world hinges on more than just dismantling our current institutions. It also demands that we actively participate in envisioning and creating the future we want to live in. As Mariame Kaba says, abolition is a “project of building, and making, and constantly iterating ideas and using our imaginations all the time.”[3] We hope that the articles included in this series will contribute to this important work.
[1]. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California 28 (2007).
[2]. Dean Spade, Solidarity Not Charity, 38 Social Text 131, 136 (2020).
[3]. Critical Resistance, On the Road with Abolition: Assessing Our Steps Along the Way, YouTube (June 12, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHdg4dqBMyk.
Introduction Much has been written on how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought longstanding structural inequities into sharp relief. Like in all crises, the effects of the pandemic have not been evenly distributed. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by the virus. Low-wage workers—largely workers of color and immigrant workers—are deemed essential yet...
Abstract Mail voting has emerged as the top policy solution to voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But not all mail voting schemes are created equal. Implemented improperly, vote-by-mail can disproportionately disenfranchise many of the same voters at highest risk of contracting and subsequently dying from the virus. From voter identity verification to language access, jurisdictions...
The following letter from the UCLA School of Law chapter of the Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association was sent to UCLA School of Law administrators on April 13, 2020, in response to anti-Asian statements by a professor. This was not an isolated incidence of hateful language in the UCLA Law community. Earlier in the school year, other UCLA Law professors used the n-word in academic...
Abstract In this Article, we employ the terms Health (as a white supremacist mode of being) and social health to demystify how race and health are mobilized by the state and its representative bodies to shift accountability away from their role in crafting an anti-Black world, contain and quell Black protest, and how Black communities have dreamt and practiced alternative definitions of health...
Abstract This Article discusses the criteria for abolitionist reforms and assesses whether current immigrants’ rights demands move us towards a more transformative agenda, one that questions the legitimacy of the state. The Article argues that calls to invest in immigrant communities and to release immigrants from detention can be radical reforms that move us closer to abolition if they are...
Abstract States hostile to reproductive freedom have weaponized the COVID-19 pandemic to ban abortion in the name of public safety. Relying on heightened power the state typically exercises during an emergency, it can capitalize on public panic to achieve its policy goals. By laying bare the racial inequities of our healthcare systems and the opportunistic banning of abortion by an emergency...
Abstract During just the first four months the COVID-19 pandemic, 50 million people applied for unemployment insurance. The COVID-19 economic crisis has exposed a frayed social safety net that simply does not work for working people. In this Article, we describe how the unemployment insurance system punishes working people, rather than supporting them, in times of crisis; excludes many vulnerable...
Abstract In the midst of worldwide efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to detain noncitizens in dangerous conditions that create a high risk of infection. This Article explores the dire situation facing detained noncitizens as a result of the government’s decision to imprison tens of thousands of people in civil confinement during an...
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on the public health crisis faced by people experiencing homelessness, and particularly those with mental illnesses. The lack of clean, safe, and affordable housing in the United States’s largest cities, and the limited access to supportive care for people experiencing symptoms of mental illness, is emblematic of not just this current...
Abstract Criminal record clearing remains an important tool to combat the overrepresentation of Black and Latinx people in unemployment and homelessness statistics that is a consequence of systemic racism. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these barriers by making it harder to clear criminal records while increasing the demand for employment and housing. Specifically, the...
Resumen El personaje principal del pequeño escrito es Balam, él sobre los acontecimientos que ha vivido a lo largo de su vida. Balam fue un niño con muchas restricciones debido a su cultura. Balam se separa de su madre a su corta edad y es ahí donde empezó a entender que el sufrimiento, la tristeza es parte de la vida. Balam va narrando conforme a las etapas de su crecimiento y dentro de estas...
Abstract COVID-19 has completely refashioned our healthcare landscape and day-to-day lives. During the pandemic, we have all transitioned to a new normal which includes remote work, navigating health insurance options after losing employment or becoming underemployed, and partaking in cautious outings outside of our homes equipped with face masks, gloves, and antibacterial gel or wipes. The...
Abstract While COVID-19 is not the root cause of housing insecurity, the pandemic has pulled hundreds of thousands of Californians to the precipice of housing loss. This Article describes the existing eviction process that values individual property rights over the human right to housing, and describes proposed legislative solutions to prevent evictions en masse before considering urgent long...
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic casts into sharp relief a number of questions relating to reparations. In particular, the COVID-19 crisis highlights the medical vulnerability of the Black community, illustrating the very real physical harm caused by slavery and racism in the United States. At the same time, government responses to the crisis demonstrate the ability to distribute money to large...