The Viral Underclass: How Racism, Ableism and Capitalism Plague Humans on the Margins

<i>“did we, the safely distanced, hear the noise and think we were dying? we, humans. we, citizens. we, neighbors, workers, parents, friends of friends. or did we breathe relief and autonomically think they are dying? they, the deserving. they, the disposable. they, the viral underclass.” - foreward by jonathan m. metzel</i><br/><br/>i saw this book for the first time on display placed front and center at the register in the gift shop at the missouri history museum in december of 2024, where i was coincidentally the only one masked. i’d spent the last couple of hours visiting the 1904 st. louis world’s fair exhibit, specifically to see judy garland’s red christmas dress from “meet me in st. louis.” with a cursory glance through the gift shop, i stopped to read the blurb on the way out. because of its placement in the gift shop, and no doubt my hours spent enjoying st. louis history, i was sure STL would be woven inexorably into the fabric of the book.<br/><br/><i>“who is considered a human animal or a nonhuman animal is also highly gendered, racialized, and ableist, with those closest to white, straight maleness being categorized as human, while the rest of us have historically been considered nonhuman to varying degrees.” - ch 10. ride-along: speciesism</i> <br/><br/>the viral underclass shows us the distinctions of identity that put specific demographics under increasingly higher risks for viral infection; among the most prominent are the isms that lead to dehumanization. the 1904 world’s fair to this day is known for having been one of the most racist and ableist iterations of the event. the fair had open air zoos made of black, brown, and disabled people often forcibly brought to the fair where they would be exposed en masse by the 19.7 million guests to disease, racism, ableism, and ridicule. among them were 1,100 filipino igorots who had been “acquired” along with the american acquisition of guam, philippines, and puerto rico following the spanish-american war. or ota benga, a mbuti man, who had been sold into slavery and put on display as a congolese pygmy at the worlds fair, later housed in monkey cages at the bronx zoo in 1906, then to ultimately to die from suicide in virginia in 1916.<br/><br/><i>“the myth of white immunity: the misconception that white people are totally exempt from health risks, particularly viral risk.” - ch 11. release: the myth of white immunity</i><br/><br/>far from the realities of the human zoos of the words fair in “meet me in st. louis,” we see the comfort and privilege of a well-to-do white family preparing for the fair who are seemingly untouched by viral infection, comfortable in their mystified white immunity. their greatest concerns lie in romance, the dance, having to move to high density housing in new york, and missing the fair at the center of the world. but they too know about disease and death as young tootie, meant to be a morbid comedic relief, tells mr. neeley the iceman that her doll has four fatal illness and won’t make it through the night—ultimately to be buried in a cigar box in garden with the rest of tootie’s dead dolls who have died from viral infections the family otherwise seem to be immune to.<br/><br/>this is all to say, while the viral underclass is about the entire world, for me it is about st. louis in such a fundamental way that it’s impossible to separate the two, and maybe it is for the author as well who traced the beginning of this story to st. charles, missouri just 30 minutes away. but the thing about viruses is that they don’t discriminate, they’re global and so anyone anywhere can see, read, and relate to thrasher’s novel. <b>it’s a candid look behind the politics and curtains that hide these class distinctions and begs us to see each other and the truth of the “isms” we let divide us. as to the quality of the book itself, it gets deep in the weeds and bogged down in statistics. thrasher presents us the hard numbers and data that others have tried to hide. the book doesn’t suffer for this inclusion, but the emotional thread that carries the reader page to page is lost somewhere in the numbers. at the heart of the book are the personal stories about michael johnson, michael brown, lorena borjas, ward harkavy, zak kostopolous, vito russo, alice wong, and sean strub. through them we see the humanity people like them are often denied leaving them cast aside into a viral underclass.</b>