As an MPH student, throughout my current life, from the moment I wake up, through all of my classes, and personal life, I experience the pandemic. Not only am I home a lot of the time and conducting my entire academic life via Zoom, but I am also actively learning about it while experiencing this traumatic event. It's difficult to try to separate academic learning from personal experience. I think the exposure of existing health inequities to a larger audience as a result of this pandemic feels extremely exhausting, because this is a way I have used my knowledge and privilege to be an activist. I am excited that more people are uncovering the many ways that health inequities manifest and are interconnected with other issues like poverty but I can't help but feel fatigued.

Racism is a public health issue

so seeing performative activists discuss these issues further exposed to me within my own social circles who is truly committed to undoing structural barriers that sustain inequities and who is not. I have learned how to really set boundaries (or at least attempting to) with social media, friends and what my limits are now as an activist during the pandemic. I used to feel that I really could "do it all" meaning, I could learn about these issues and engage with them consistently in my personal life. But as everything has become very blended since life happens all in one house, boundaries are essential to my well-being. I am experiencing my own decline in mental health, and thus have learned that it is okay to feel bad, but also to feel good when things around me feel bad. I am one to focus on the work that needs to be done and the negative impacts of pervasive systems of oppression. I am learning to allow myself to celebrate wins, even if I know that there is still work to do.

If anyone is to learn anything from my experience, I hope they learn to set boundaries, and I hope they learn that active activism in dismantling late-stage capitalism and modern day imperialism along with abolition of systems such as prison, modern policing and for-profit healthcare are essential in addressing chronic health problems and premature death for minority populations. It is clear how unstable our current systems are for humans and our planet.

More Info

Race, Racism, and Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Racism and Health, American Public Health Association
National Institute of Health: Ending Structural Racism

Sources
This ‘Imagine’ Cover Is No Heaven, NY Times March 20, 2020