Racism associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected certain groups in Australia, for example Indigenous, Asian, Muslim and migrant communities (Kamp et al. 2021; Elias et al. 2021). The pandemic has highlighted the impact of structural racism in public health emergencies as evident in disparities in exposure, susceptibility and treatment of the novel coronavirus along racial lines (Yearby & Mohapatra 2020). Furthermore, public health measures adopted to mitigate the spread of the virus in NSW were also uneven. This disparity was particularly evident in Western Sydney, home to the largest Indigenous, Muslim and migrant communities in Sydney, which saw some of the strictest and longest lockdown regulations, received the most COVID-related fines, and saw a heightened police and enforcement presence that was not evident in other parts of Sydney. Western Sydney has been subjected to racial logics of inequality as a result of negative COVID-related impacts on employment, income, access to appropriate public health messaging, and mobility, as well as exposure to the virus and related deaths. Elias et al. (2020) talk of the “multidimensional nature of racism”, where those “who already face numerous social, economic and health vulnerabilities” also encountered intensified marginalisation and exclusion during the pandemic. The […]