Downsview mourns the loss of a frontline hero: Race and COVID-19

By: Janelle Brady

The impacts of COVID-19 on racialized and disenfranchised communities have been well-documented. The results thus far paint a stark picture regarding the effects on Black and Latino communities, particularly from the United States in states that track race. There has been a hesitance to measure race in Canada by many health officials despite a push in the opposite direction of countries and jurisdictions. Black Health Leaders, including Downsview’s Black Creek Community Health Centre’s Executive Director, Cheryl Prescod, issued a statement which highlights COVID-19’s impacts on Black Communities in Ontario. Jurisdictions such as the City of Toronto and Peel have committed to race-based data, and the province has finally followed suit.

Dr. Carl James, York University, Faculty of Education Professor and Jean Augustine Chair recently partnered with Dr. Allen Upton, Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto and Endowed Chair at SickKids Hospital in a study which examines immunity to COVID-19. Together, they will work with President of the Jamaican Canadian Association, Adaoma Patterson, to collect race-based data and measure the impact of COVID-19 on Black people.

In a working-class community that is as diverse as Downsview, it is imperative that we pay attention to how race and gender and other experiences are intertwined. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many community members still take the 36, 106 and 108 buses. These are the frontline essential workers who cannot work from home. 

Who are these front-line workers traveling to on from work each day on transit? One group of these essential workers are PSWs. I, like many people from a Caribbean background, can name several family members who are or have been Personal Support Workers (PSWs). This is not unique, because PSWs are often working-class, women, and/or racialized.

Presently, PSWs are recognized and celebrated as frontline essential workers. PSWs have now come to the fore of mainstream conversation, but for many of us they are our aunties, mothers, grandmothers, and friends. Members of this largely ‘feminized’ and racialized workforce lack proper protection (or PPE- Personal Protective Equipment) that some have stated is symbolic of the systemic barriers that PSWs face. PSWs account for a high proportion of women in Canada and additionally women make up more than half of the COVID-19 deaths. That is because alongside gender, race and class can also explain the large number of PSWs who occupy low-paid positions on the front-lines. For years, the long-term care system has been neglected, and this is well amplified now with COVID-19.

Unions such as SEIU have called for better protections and for the government to implement the Long-Term Care Homes Act. We have witnessed and been heartbroken by PSWs who have lost their lives like Christine Mandegarian in Scarborough, Arlene Reid in Peel, and Leonard Rodrigues just south of us in York.

I would also like to recognize Sharon Roberts who was a PSW for more than 24 years in our community at the Downsview Long Term Care Centre whose life was lost to COVID-19. Downsview currently mourns this frontline hero. Arlene Reid’s daughter, Antoinette Bryden, stated that better protections would have prevented the early loss of life for the first two PSWs who died from COVID-19 . 

Police surveillance is another big problem in our community. Emergency orders announced by the province which include stopping and carding people have implications on communities which are already over-policed. Scholars, legal advocacy groups and MPP Laura Mae Lindo, the Ontario Critic for Anti-racism, argue that race-based data ought to be made public for greater accountability.

Dr. Vidya Shah, York University Faculty of Education faculty member provides an important snapshot about race-based data as a first step, however, that it ought to be used critically.

Some would say that Coronavirus has nothing to do with race or inequities, however it pinpoints systemic failures such as those worsened by years of systemic racism, lack of accountability and the erosion of public systems. Dr. Roberta Timothy, University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health Faculty Member, states that Coronavirus is not the great equalizer. We mourn the loss of local frontline worker, Sharon Roberts, and the many others who are impacted by COVID-19.

Janelle is the Director and Co-Founder of the Downsview Advocate. She lives in the Downsview community and is a PhD Candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. She is a Coordinator at the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies (CIARS) at the University of Toronto. She enjoys bike rides along the Black Creek trail.