Skin Markings: Filtering COVID-19 Through Levitical and Black Lenses

What is it about?

Skin is the human body’s largest organ. Humanity shares this fact in common, and the array of skin pigmentations is as diverse as the world’s population. However, as Europeans began colonizing the world, skin became a “marker” to dominate, exploit, and oppress groups of people. Deploying moral, legal, and theological grounds, White supremacists marked the skin of Blacks or African Americans in the United States as dangerous, deviant, and depraved. Joel B. Kemp, utilizing the theological framework of the “mark of Cain,” proposes a “3Ds of Blackness” theory. In this article, I explain why Kemp’s theory is valid in America and warrants a critical amendment. I argue Black skin is treated as “diseased.” I build this argument by comparing the responses to various biblical skin diseases, namely leprosy and COVID-19. I discovered the disproportionate percentages impacting Blacks in four areas: mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare, and poverty. I conclude that the United States, like the Mosaic laws, uses skin markers upon Blacks to justify structural racism and keeps them on society’s margins.

Featured Image

Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash

Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash

Why is it important?

I argue Black skin is treated as “diseased.” I build this argument by comparing the responses to various biblical skin diseases, namely leprosy and COVID-19. I discovered the disproportionate percentages impacting Blacks in four areas: mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare, and poverty. I conclude that the United States, like the Mosaic laws, uses skin markers upon Blacks to justify structural racism and keeps them on society’s margins.

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