Structural racism and the experience of “tightness” during the COVID-19 pandemic

Research has established the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of colour. Drawing on three waves of in-depth interviews with 36 college students (for a total of 94 interviews), we extend the conceptual metaphor of “tightness” (derived from the sociology of punishment) to understand the experiential dimensions of structural racism in America, especially during periods of crisis. We argue that tightness intensified for Black and Latinx participants as they struggled to cope with the loss of loved ones, fears surrounding their own health, financial challenges, and concerns about police surveillance. We also find that the demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd represented a brief release from the suffocating tightness that Black participants experienced during the pandemic. Using the tightness metaphor to capture the compounding hardships endured by vulnerable populations, we build on existing research that has largely focused on isolated measures of harms associated with the pandemic.