YOUNGSTOWN — Most people feel the COVID-19 health crisis first made its presence felt in this country at the beginning of the year, but for many blacks, the seeds had been planted centuries ago, some local health experts contend.

“Blacks were seen as cheap labor by white Europeans,” who took them from their homes, tore apart their families and sold their children during slavery, said Dr. Lashale D. Pugh, a medical geographer who was one of the presenters for a communitywide virtual forum Thursday evening.

The 90-minute informational meeting, “Conversation on Racial Disparities,” looked at what many see as linkage between COVID-19 and racial disparities. The gathering also examined how certain societal structures established long ago, most notably racism, connect with some of today’s most pressing challenges, namely the coronavirus pandemic.

Hosting the online session was the Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods organization, or ACTION.

Hundreds of years ago, many white people viewed blacks as animals and subhuman, Pugh said. While those perceptions, along with the types of mistreatment many blacks suffered, may have changed or morphed into other types of maltreatment, they essentially laid the groundwork for a variety of societal ills that disproportionately affect many black people today, such as limited access to healthful foods, transportation, health care, affordable housing and decent employment opportunities, Pugh explained.

In addition, many black people work as nurses, as well as in the food and transportation industries, all of which have been considered essential jobs during the pandemic. That places them at greater risk for developing COVID-19, Pugh continued.

Blacks are overrepresented in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. They make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet their death rate from the coronavirus is significantly higher than that of whites, Asians, Latinos and other races, noted Dr. James Baber, ACTION president.

Carol L. Bennett, Youngstown State University’s assistant provost for diversity and inclusion, discussed post-traumatic slave syndrome, a theory sociologist Dr. Joy DeGruy developed about 15 years ago that examines many adaptive survival behaviors in black communities. PTSS is trauma that is the result of longtime oppression against Africans and their descendants carried down through the generations, and was further exacerbated by institutionalized racism, DeGruy explains in her book, “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing.”

Some black people deal with biases in health care delivery and with their own doctors, said Bennett, who noted that some black women in the 1950s and 1960s also suffered from forced sterilizations.

Leigh A. Greene, a licensed social worker with the Youngstown Office on Minority Health, discussed COVID-19’s impact on children, who were initially thought to be asymptomatic. Nevertheless, a factor that makes black children more susceptible to the virus is that many live with multiple generations of family members, making it harder to self-isolate, she noted.

Also, many minority children live in poverty and in older homes, which can expose them to lead and other environmental toxins, all of which correlate with a greater susceptibility to COVID-19, Greene continued.

She also praised Gov. Mike DeWine for forming the Minority Health Strike Force in April, a working group of health care practitioners, elected officials and others tasked with coming up with recommendations to address why black communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and have less access to health care.

“We must help small-business owners come back or sustain themselves,” said Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, who added he is working with the city and private investors to help such businesses, many of which received little or no federal help during the pandemic because they lacked personal lenders.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland, praised the state’s democratic lawmakers for proposing legislation to declare racism a public health issue in Ohio, amid continued nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis.

The Ohio Legislative Black Caucus introduced the resolution earlier this week.

Ryan also repeated his support for a “hero fund” that would provide additional hazard pay for cashiers, health care employees and other front-line workers at greater risk for COVID-19.

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