As he recovered from COVID-19, President Trump tweeted out to Americans “Don’t let it dominate you.” For him — and too many other macho leaders in the world today — you either dominate or are dominated.

From Trump’s worldview, getting sick seems to be a sign of weakness rather than a cause for compassionate concern. The attempt by the White House to conceal the fact that several people in Vice President Mike Pence’s inner circle tested positive for COVID-19 last weekend shows the perceived need to hide this weakness.

As the pandemic is flaring with no end in sight, we are all suffering. We are suffering not only the devastating losses from COVID-19, but also from a patriarchal leadership that has failed to acknowledge systemic racism. This is proving to be very bad for our health. The United States is leading the world in the total number of cases — over 8.4 million Americans have contracted the virus — and we also have the highest death toll, which is projected to grow to 410,000 by the end of 2020.

Read the entire opinion piece here.