Socio-structural Injustice, Racism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Precarious Entanglement among Black Immigrants in Canada

Abstract

As several commentators and researchers have noted since late spring -2020, COVID-19 has laid bare the connections between entrenched structurally -generated inequalities on one hand, and on the other hand relatively high degrees of -susceptibility to contracting COVID-19 on the part of economically marginalized -population segments. Far from running along the tracks of race neutrality, studies -have demonstrated that the pandemic is affecting Black people more than Whites in -the U.S.A. and U.K., where reliable racially-disaggregated data are available. While -the situation in Canada seems to follow the same pattern, race-specific data on -COVID-19 are hard to come by. At present, there is no federal mandate to collect -race-based data on COVID-19, though, in Ontario, at the municipal level, the City of -Toronto has been releasing such data. This paper examines the entanglements of race, -immigration status and the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada with particular emphasis -on Black immigrants and non-immigrants in Toronto, using multiple forms of data -pertaining to income, housing, immigration, employment and COVID-19 infections -and deaths. Our findings show that the pandemic has had a disproportionate negative -impact on Black people and other racialized people in Toronto and, indeed, Canada.