Blindspotting and COVID: The Gentrifcation of Racism

The novel Coronavirus is not only exposing old patterns of racism and systemic inequalities, but deepening them as well. The notion of blindspotting, as described in the flm by the same name, is used to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the "spiritual emergency" or crisis of racism in America. "Blindspotting" is an image or situation that can be interpreted in two ways but is understood by some in only one way, thereby producing a blind spot. In 2020 and 2021, we see segments of American society, from politics to white Christian nationalism, upholding a sacred canopy of exceptionalism by blindspotting, equivocating, or denying two uniquely collocated issues disproportionately impacting communities of color: frstly, racism and police brutality, emblematized in 2020 by George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; and secondly, COVID-19 - not only the very nature of the virus but also its effects on people of color. Just as Blindspotting depicts the oppressive architectures of police violence and gentrifcation's effects on a community, the denial of these two separate yet related crises can be seen as a type of sacrifce and "gentrifcation" of both the reality and the narrative of communities of color. Keywords Black Lives Matter (BLM), Christian nationalism, COVID-19, discursive gentrifcation, epistemic oppression, flm, gentrifcation, heterotopia, pandemic, race, racism, sacrifce