COVID While Black
Stefan Roots
I was having drinks in Center City Philadelphia, celebrating a friend’s birthday, when the ticker scroll on the bottom of the TV announced that NCAA’s March Madness was cancelled due to the coronavirus. We all sat in stunned silence.
That was the moment that made the COVID-19 pandemic real for me. Before the next round of drinks made it to the bar, I decided the only topic I’d blog about from then on would be the coronavirus. Since my target audience is the people of the majority black city of Chester, I’d create content geared to the African-American reader.
At that point, black folks were just beginning to realize they weren’t immune to COVID-19. Actor Idris Elba and a few NBA players had recently come forward with positive test results. I assumed someone was already aggregating black coronavirus content online, but after hours searching the web, I couldn’t find a single site.
One of the trickiest aspects of starting a website can be claiming a name. But not this time. Every idea I had — every combination of relevant words — was available. I settled on BlackCovid19.com.
I’m not a web developer, but I had a good idea what I wanted the site to look like, and I was willing to struggle through an online crash course in WordPress, the open source website platform. It didn’t take long to get the site running and load it with relevant posts I was already writing for my blog, Chester Matters. I added in some of the articles, videos, podcast episodes, and jokes I was sharing with my Facebook friends to try to keep folks smiling through these rough times.
I had no idea how fast news would flood in. There were pieces about disproportionate health impacts of the virus; systemic policies that make the crisis worse for blacks; misinformation circulating in black communities regarding the virus; the under reporting of African-American COVID-19 cases; COVID-19 testing disparities for blacks and non-blacks; and the ways the virus impacts the social, mental, financial, and family aspects of black life. We are all in this together, but we’re all not going through it the same way.
I’m just one guy who can follow only a limited number of sources. But my hope is this site gets traction across America and people submit content telling their own stories of African-Americans and coronavirus in their own home towns.
Visit BlackCovid19.com and learn something new every day.
