Abstract
It's a truism in Sociology that nothing happens in a vacuum: the actions of one group affect another, the current age is informed by what came before. But during the COVID-19 pandemic especially—when even billboards and celebrities reminded us that we're "all in this together"—the idea that current inequalities draw from generations of inequities became even more salient.
The Pandemic Divide: How COVID Increased Inequality in America, edited by Gwendolyn L. Wright, Lucas Hubbard, and William A. Darity Jr., draws on eleven chapters to discuss the context of the pandemic and its impact on Americans. The book is divided in four parts: context, institutions, financial disparities, and educational disparities. As the editors note, the goal of the book is to ask—and answer—"why did these groups, particularly blacks and Latinos, suffer so much in America during the COVID-19 pandemic . . . [and] how can we prevent suffering and inequity in the next outbreak" (pp. 3–4)? As a result, each chapter is charged with three obligations: to outline the inequalities that have made the population more vulnerable to the pandemic; how the population is frustrated and further marginalized as a result; and the remedies needed to alleviate inequities, during both pandemic and non‐pandemic times.
The opening chapter, "How Systemic Racism and Preexisting Conditions Contributed to COVID-19 Disparities for Black Americans," by Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards, Melissa J. Scott, and Paul A. Robbins argues that the virus is "a unique threat to the health of black Americans" due to "ongoing systemic health disparities" including health care access and preexisting conditions (p. 30). Meanwhile Joe William Trotter Jr.'s chapter, "Labor History and Pandemic Response: The Overlapping Experiences of Work, Housing, and Neighborhood Conditions," provides an overview of the "life and labor experiences" of low‐income Blacks in the United States from "the advent of the transatlantic slave trade to the early twenty‐first century" (p. 46).
While the first two chapters are all‐encompassing, later chapters are generally more focused. Chapter Five, "Housing, Student Debt, and Labor Market Inequality: COVID-19, Black Families/Households, and Financial Insecurity" by Fenaba R. Addo and Adam Hollowell, summarizes work on household financial vulnerability. The strength of this chapter lies in its recommendations, which include a federal jobs guarantee, programs to alleviate or cancel student loan debt, improvements to the Small Business Association's lending program, and an Economic Fair Housing Act. Likewise, Chapter Eight, "Closing Racial Economic Gaps during and after COVID-19," by Jane Dokko and Jung Sakong, also provides a comprehensive overview of suggested policy changes.
While most of the chapters are relatively succinct, if packed with information, Chapter Six, focused on "Black Small-Business Survival" by Henry Clay McKoy Jr. is a considerable outlier at more than fifty pages. While data regarding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from the U.S. Treasury are important, this chapter also includes the stages of Black-owned firms in the United States, dating back to 1619. The following chapter, by Chris Wheat, Fiona Greig, and Damon Jones, also addresses the impact of the pandemic on "Black Business-Owner Households." The resulting eighty pages on entrepreneurship and business ownership felt at times like it would have been better served by becoming its own short book.
The final section of the book is focused on educational disparities. Chapter Nine, on "Latinx Immigrant Parents and Their Children," by Marta Sánchez, Melania DiPietro, Leslie Babinski, Steven Amendum, and Steven Knotek draws on two of the authors' personal experiences with families, studies conducted by the authors, reports from other programs, and preliminary survey data. Adam Hollowell and N. Joyce Payne's chapter, on higher education, is a comprehensive overview of the campus closures that occurred in 2020 amid the initial outbreak and later surges of fall 2020 and winter 2021. The final chapter, by Kristen R. Stephens, Kisha N. Daniels, and Erica R. Phillips, examines the rebirth of K–12 public education, suggesting it may be the "silver lining" of the pandemic. This chapter details a "systemic process (in phases) by which a new educational model can be born with equity at its heart" (p. 276).
Overall, the context provided is valuable, providing a one‐stop‐shop for background information. I could easily see myself referencing this volume when writing about the longer‐term implications of the pandemic. But at the same time, the focus on context—while useful as a reference—also left the book feeling a bit light on research findings. Some chapters draw almost entirely from newspaper and magazine articles, and there are times when the contents of one chapter or the flow between chapters feels somewhat disjointed.
It's admirable that the authors and editors were able to able to publish such a volume in early 2023, especially given the timeframe needed for production, but few of the chapters actually provide pandemic‐focused data. Sandra Barnes's chapter, "God Is in Control," is a multigenerational case study on the effects of COVID on a 13‐person Black family; and Arvind Krishnamurthy's "COVID-19, Race, and Mass Incarceration" uses data on coronavirus spread from the New York Times and the Marshall Project. As a result, the book's subheading, “How COVID Increased Inequality in America,” doesn't exactly deliver. It's obvious from the book that Americans entered the pandemic differently and experienced it differently as a result. But with little by way of on‐the‐ground research findings, there's less on how that inequality increased. I don't doubt that it did, but it may simply take more time to see the full impact of that increase.
I would feel remiss if I didn't note that this is the type of book that may be best purchased or accessed digitally. I personally found that the font size was a touch too small for comfortable reading. Other readers may not be troubled.
This book is perhaps best used as background, providing a focus on the context of the pandemic. With chapters on education, entrepreneurship, religion, and mass incarceration, at least a chapter of the book could work well in a variety of classes. I could easily see a Freshman Seminar on the COVID pandemic being taught using this book as its primary textbook. Likewise, this could be a useful accompaniment in an Introduction to Sociology section focused on public health.