HIV. Ebola. COVID-19—Three very different viruses with different trajectories and even more divergent outcomes. What links these epidemics together, however, is the recurrent theme of blame directed towards entire ethnoracial groups as an etiological explanation for deadly diseases and their spread. This presentation explores racialized blame in times of epidemic uncertainty, and interrogates the role of public health institutions in perpetuating this age-old phenomenon.

Elizabeth Adetiba (she/her) is an early career researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. Dr. Adetiba earned her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, where she specialized in historical sociology, science, knowledge, and technology, and medical sociology. Her research career extends from the U.S., to South Africa, to New Zealand, where she was a 2018 U.S. Fulbright Fellow. Her work has also been supported by National Science Foundation. Above all, Dr. Adetiba is a critical writer, having worked as a journalist and fact-checker prior to pursuing her doctoral studies. Her writing has been featured in HuffPost, Slate, The Nation, Salon, SB Nation, and The Black Youth Project, and you can find her most recent public articles here. Dr. Adetiba’s work investigates how historical constructions of Blackness—and more so anti-Blackness— shape scientific thinking across a range of social domains, from medical and epidemiological scholarship, to athletics, to intergovernmental organizations. Her current book project explores the presence of anti-Black sentiment in the medical scholarship concerning the origins of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and its widespread impact on global AIDS policy.

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