Racialized Health, COVID-19, and Religious Responses


Book Description

Racialized Health, COVID-19, and Religious Responses: Black Atlantic Contexts and Perspectives explores black religious responses to black health concerns amidst persistent race-based health disparities and healthcare inequities. This cutting-edge edited volume provides theoretically and descriptively rich analysis of cases and contexts where race factors strongly in black health outcomes and dynamics, viewing these matters from various disciplinary and national vantage points. The volume is divided into the following four parts: Systemic and Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Black Health Ecclesial Responses to Black Health Vulnerabilities Public Education and Policy Considerations Spirituality and the Wellness of Black Minds, Bodies and Souls Part I explores ways social and cultural factors such as racial bias, religious conviction, and resource capacity have influenced and delimited black health prospects. Part II looks historically and contemporarily at denominational and ecumenical responses to collective black health emergencies in places such as Nigeria, the UK, the US, and the Caribbean. Part III focuses on public advocacy, particularly collective black health, both in terms of policy and education. The final section deals with spiritual, psychological, and theological dimensions, understandings, and pursuits of black health and wholeness. Collectively, the essays in the volume delineate analysis and action that wrestle with the multidimensional nature of black wellness and with ways broad public resources and black religious resources should be mobilized and leveraged to ensure collective black wellness. "The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license."




Religion, Race, and COVID-19


Book Description

Examines how the dynamics emerging from the pandemic affect our most vulnerable populations and shape a new religious landscape The COVID-19 pandemic upset virtually every facet of society and, in many cases, exposed gross inequality and dysfunction. The particular dynamics emerging from the coronavirus pandemic have been felt most intensely by America’s most vulnerable populations, who are disproportionately people of color and the working poor, the people whom the Bible refers to as “the least of these.” This book makes the case that the pandemic was not just a medical phenomenon, or an economic or social one, but also a religious one. Religious practice has been altered in profound ways. Controversies around religious freedom have been re-ignited over debates concerning whether government can restrict church services. Christian white supremacists not only defied shelter in place orders, but found new ways to propagate racist attacks, with their White Christian identity fueling their reactions to the pandemic. Some religious leaders, including those in communities of color, saw the virus as an indicator of God’s wrath, or as a divine test, and viewed altering their traditional practices to mitigate the virus’s spread as a weakening of faith. Religion, Race, and COVID-19 argues that there is a religious hierarchy in US society that puts “the least of these” last while prioritizing those who benefit most from white privilege. Yet these vulnerable populations draw on theological and religious resources to contend with these existential threats. The volume shows how social transformation occurs when faith is both formed and informed during crises, offering compelling insight into the saliency and lasting impact of religiosity within human culture.




Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises


Book Description

Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises explores various dimensions of the interrelations between the individual, community, and religion. With their global scope, the contributions to this volume represent reflections on the rich and multifaceted spectrum of human responses in a variety of different religions and cultures to the current SARS-2-COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises in the past. The contributions are organized in three thematic parts focusing on strategies, rituals, and past and present responses to pandemics and crises. They reflect on the intersection of personal or communal responses and state-mandated policies relative to SARS-2-COVID-19 while outlining different strategies to cope with the pandemic crisis. Timely questions explored include: How do individuals connect with or disconnect from religious and spiritual communities during times of personal and collective crises, including pandemics? How do religious practices such as rituals bridge individuals and communities? How do religious texts from past and present highlight and represent crises and pandemics? Dynamic and multidisciplinary in its inquiry, this volume is an outstanding resource for scholars of religion, theology, anthropology, social sciences, ritual theory, sex and gender studies, and contemporary medical science.




Religious Responses to the Pandemic and Crises


Book Description

"Religious Responses to the Pandemic and Crises explores various dimensions of the interrelations between the individual, community, and religion. With their global scope, the contributions to this volume represent reflections on the rich and multifaceted spectrum of human responses in a variety of different religions and cultures to the current SARS2-COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises in the past. The contributions are organized in three thematic parts focusing on strategies, rituals, and past and present human practices in response to medically induced crises. They reflect on the intersection of personal or communal responses and state-mandated policies relative to SARS2-COVID-19 while outlining different strategies to cope with the pandemic crisis. Timely questions explored include: How do individuals connect with or disconnect from religious and spiritual communities during times of personal and collective crises, including pandemics? How do religious practices such as rituals bridge individuals and communities? How do religious texts from past and present highlight and represent crises and pandemics? Dynamic and multidisciplinary in its inquiry, this volume is an outstanding resource for scholars of Anthropology, Religion, Social Sciences, Ritual Theory, Sex and Gender Studies, and contemporary Medical Sciences"--




COVID-19 and Health System Segregation in the US


Book Description

This book highlights and suggests remedies for the racial and ethnic health disparities confronting people of color amid COVID-19 in the United States. Racial and ethnic health disparities stem from social conditions, not from racial features, that are deeply grounded in systemic racism, operating through the White racial frame. Race and ethnicity are significant factors in any review of health inequity and health inequality. Hence, any realistic end to racial health disparities lies beyond the scope of the health system and health care. The book explores structuration theory, which examines the duality between agency and structure as a possibly potent pathway toward dismantling systemic racism, the White racial frame, and racialized social systems. In particular, the author examines COVID-19 with a focus on the segregated health system of the US. The US health system operates on the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’, whereby the dominant group has access to quality health care and people of color have access to a lesser quality or zero health care. ‘Separation’ implies and enforces inferiority in health care. Through the evidence presented, the author demonstrates that racial and ethnic health disparities are even worse than COVID-19. As in the past, this contagion, like other viruses, will dissipate at some point, but the disparities will persist if the US legislative and economic engines do nothing. The author also raises consciousness to demand a national commission of inquiry on the disproportionate devastation wreaked on people of color in the US amid COVID-19. COVID-19 may be the signature event and an opportunity to trigger action to end racial and ethnic health disparities. Topics covered within the chapters include: Introduction: Segregation of Health Care Systemic Racism and the White Racial Frame Dismantling Systemic Racism and Structuration Theory COVID-19 and Health System Segregation in the US is a timely resource that should engage the academic community, economic and legislative policy makers, health system leaders, clinicians, and public policy administrators in departments of health. It also is a text that can be utilized in graduate programs in Medical Education, Global Public Health, Public Policy, Epidemiology, Race and Ethnic Relations, and Social Work.




Doing Theology in Pandemics


Book Description

The COVID-19 era will be remembered not only for the tragic global public health crisis, but also for the continued police violence against persons of color, the courageous activism that continues to rise up to confront racialized violence in all its forms, and the perpetuation of white nationalist rhetoric from the highest government elected offices. Everywhere we look, we find trauma and pain, and we find resilience and resolve. This volume, featuring leading theological scholars and religious leaders, is rich in analysis of the plagues we are facing and equally rich in the resources, practices, and inspirations that will carry our efforts to build a more just world.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.







Race in the Marketplace


Book Description

This volume offers a critical, cross-disciplinary, and international overview of emerging scholarship addressing the dynamic relationship between race and markets. Chapters are engaging and accessible, with timely and thought-provoking insights that different audiences can engage with and learn from. Each chapter provides a unique journey into a specific marketplace setting and its sociopolitical particularities including, among others, corner stores in the United States, whitening cream in Nigeria and India, video blogs in Great Britain, and hospitals in France. By providing a cohesive collection of cutting-edge work, Race in the Marketplace contributes to the creation of a robust stream of research that directly informs critical scholarship, business practices, activism, and public policy in promoting racial equity.




Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities


Book Description

What effect does racism have on the spiritual component of human existence? How does the spiritual impact of racism contribute to disease? How can both the oppressor and the oppressed heal from racist behaviors and attitudes? Racial & Ethnic Health Disparities: Building Bridges of Hope through the Holy Spirit explores these questions. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Reverend Dr. Lynda Jordan examines the relationship between the spiritual component of human existence and the onset of disease due to the disparate treatment of racism for the oppressed and the oppressors. She also discusses how the healing power of the Holy Spirit can be employed.