A Crisis of Privilege

Reflections in the Time of COVID-19

In the summer of 1967, I bought corned beef sandwiches at The Pastrami King on Queens Boulevard — in the shadow of the West Side Tennis Club, a few miles from the Elks Club at which my pregnant mother abandoned a Washington’s Birthday dance to bring me into the world. The man who made my sandwiches had a number tattooed on his forearm. He was not in a grainy, black and white video or an…