American Identity Amidst COVID-19

     American identity in our global health crisis of COVID-19 has proven the insufferable truth of the misconstrued American superiority complex. The United States GOP has proven its own fruitless nature. The pandemic was met with a lack of preparation as the virus was believed to be insignificant. As the respiratory disease characteristically seemed to inflict the elderly and the lungs, the United States regarded the virus as trivial because of claims such as youthful citizens, healthier citizens, and lower smoking rates in comparison to the demographics of other countries that were affected previously. However, as George Bush had stated in 2005, “if we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.” Consequently, that is was has already happened.

Johns Hopkins University; April 6, 2020, 9:03 a.m.

    The historical notions of American identity only fueled the justifications for our lack of precaution. Being one of the most powerful nations of the world, we believed ourselves to be immune and to be in better standing. The notion of being above others only served as the forerunner to our downfall as we didn’t believe such a thing could affect a country of our fortunate nature. This could be similarly seen in the superiority complex of white people in relation to black people as it was experienced by the Invisible Man, written by Ralph Ellison. Those of white status assumed themselves to be above others and were ultimately unaffected by the ongoings around them. Their society was curated to cater to those only within their own demographic in such a way that their benefit led to the disadvantage of others. Considering both of these reasons, one could surmise that Americans believed we would be ultimately unaffected due to our younger generations and healthy population, and this lack of fear on the basis of false pretenses led to the death of thousands of Americans across the nation. Despite believing America was above the virus similarly to being above a race or class, we have become ultimately affected in ways that were unimaginable, in ways that continue to affect those who had no part in our government’s incompetence.  This can be compared to the same essence of the Harlem Riots in the Invisible Man, where business owners were affected by looters at unimaginable losses due to the ineffective and discriminatory reality the government imposed in spite of the loss never being fully faced by the government which implemented it.

The 1964 Harlem Riots;  July 22, 1964

The Wall Street Journal; March 16, 2020, Fulton st. Station

Further, it is the notion of American officials being above its people as this narrative is directed by those with status who are often not as affected because of their financial or political standing. The lack of caution displayed by the GOP has caused the United States to be one of the global epicenters of COVID-19 where we are struggling to provide the population with masks and gloves and have to choose between who is worthy of medical attention and those who will not receive any care at all in our already strained medical system. Ultimately, America’s ineptitude has cost the lives of thousands of its citizens who had no say in the matter. Countries that regarded the virus as severe and implemented severe precaution continue to report infection at rates that are much lower than in other countries. One can only wonder, now that we are past the point of no return, that if the President of the United States regarded the situation as seriously as it was being treated overseas we would not be in the situation we are being faced with today.