Page 38 - IJPS-9-2

International Journal of
Population Studies COVID-19 and intersectionality in Brazil

valuable insights into the intricate interplay between inequalities, acting as a social technology that organizes
social class and race, which shapes the healthcare- and controls society. This system shapes relationships and
seeking behaviors of vulnerable populations. During the hierarchies among racial groups, much like how technology
early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, public utilizes knowledge, skills, and tools to achieve specific
healthcare systems predominantly focused on managing objectives. Therefore, technology should be understood
SARS cases. However, it is conceivable that black men beyond tangible devices such as computers, machines,
with higher incomes gravitated toward private healthcare or tools in this context. It encompasses organizational
services, potentially encountering additional barriers to systems, production processes, concepts, and ideas that
access compared to women who, due to prevailing gender shape how individuals perceive and experience the world.
inequalities, predominantly rely on public health-care Racism carries values, perspectives, and socioeconomic
provisions. Nevertheless, it is imperative to conduct further impacts. Considering racism as a social technology is a
rigorous research to delve deeper into these findings and valid approach because it acknowledges its complexity in
validate them through future investigations. constructing subjectivities, spatial segregation, violence,

This study is one of the few to assess the combined denial of opportunities, and the maintenance of privilege.
effects of gender, race, and social class in the context of As a social technology, racism can be refined and adapted,
COVID-19 in Brazil. However, other investigations have manifesting in various ways to produce inequalities. This
also indicated the disproportionate risks faced by black and perspective highlights the intricate nature and broad reach
ethnic minority groups. For example, a study published of racism as a social issue (Almeida, 2018; Staudigl, 2012).
in Respiratory Medicine by The Lancet found that, in the Following that logic, the creation of the category of a
United Kingdom, mortality rates were 3.5 times higher black race establishes a separation between those deemed
among black individuals of African descent, 1.7 times fully human and those considered incapable of self-
higher among black individuals of Caribbean descent, government, and all kinds of conceptions, prejudices,
and 2.7 times higher among individuals of Pakistani and racism are projected onto the latter. This separation
descents compared to white individuals. Similarly, black produces modern humanity guided by the logic of neo-
Americans were found to have a mortality rate 2.04 times colonialism, which naturalizes the exercise of power over
higher than white Americans. These factors have direct and government of the other (Mbembe, 2018).
effects on clinical practice and should thus be taken into
consideration by health professionals (Kirby, 2020). Racism is a social technology that systematically uses,
whether consciously or unconsciously, race as a foundation
Another study conducted in the United States for managing the regulatory economy and the distribution
highlighted the “color of COVID-19” by examining the of death in favor of the exercise of biopower, enabling
COVID-19-related death rates among individuals older the murderous functions of the government, providing
than 65 years, a group considered to be at higher risk. the conditions for naturalizing the government’s right to
The findings revealed that the death rate among black allow to live or let die. In this context, racism functions
Americans in this group was 2.9 times higher compared as a structural and pervasive strategy within capitalist
to white Americans. That study reinforced the idea that societies, stemming from political, economic, legal, and
these differences transcend purely biological aspects interpersonal dynamics that determine the value placed
by comparing mortality rates among Latino and white on the lives of specific population groups, such as black
Americans, where it found a ratio of approximately 2:1 individuals (Almeida, 2018).
(Garcia et al., 2020).
This construction rests on the myth of racial democracy,
A prominent complicating factor in the Brazilian adopted historically in Brazil to reduce race tensions. Thus,
context is the way that certain population groups, such invisible subordinate relations operate through an idea of
as black people, are exposed to healthcare access barriers. symmetrical miscegenation and a society free from racism.
Race is a concept that emerged through a socio-historical This ideology has delayed the race debate in Brazil and
process known as the racialization of black people. The impeded progress in discussing and implementing public
reproduction of the logic that determines social divisions policies for specific population groups (Almeida, 2018;
based on the existence of races is a social technology Mbembe, 2018). The authors believe this construction
developed by capitalist sociability with the intention of plays a major role in social dynamics and affects even
strengthening differences and establishing domination by the production of public policies and health measures
means of the reductive objectification of black people. – in the specific case of this manuscript – producing
Racism in Brazil extends beyond individual beliefs disproportionate and race-specific actions during the
and actions. It is a complex system that perpetuates racial COVID-19 pandemic.

Volume 9 Issue 2 (2023) 32 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.0865