Culture is most commonly defined as the beliefs, values, practices, and material objects shared by a people. Growing up, the only thing that I can think of as “my culture” was the religious practices my brothers and I were raised with. None of us continued down the path of the Christian Lutheran way, in fact, we are all either athiest or agnostic when it comes to religion now.

However, during Covid-19, I believe that religion impacted my perspective on my family and people as a whole. While I was growing up, I learned rather quickly that my beliefs and values were completely different from my parents, so when asked this prompt it was difficult to think about what my culture would be defined as. Even though I do not share the same beliefs as my parents, I do know that religion took up a majority of my life and is at least one thing that impacted me during the pandemic.

While the pandemic raged through the entire globe, church service was put to a halt. I couldn’t be more ecstastic during that announcement because for me, that meant no more church. It was a shallow mindset to hold in lieu of everything happening in the world but I had several problems with my church.

Problem 1: Old people… Yes, old people, specificlly stuck in the early 1900s where racism and the LGBTQ+ community were discriminated against.

Problem 2: Young people… Yes, young people, specifically raised with the same ideology as the old people, continuing a line of sheltered living, racism, and homophobia.

Problem 3: The church seeing that covid was fake. The ideology that if people were dying or becoming infected with this new found disease then it was because they were sinners or it was god’s will. That’s what everything was chalked up as. Yes, you heard me correctly… god’s will was the ultimate decision maker. Oh, and you can’t forget the sinners.

So, what did this have to say for the African Americans and Hispanic individuals that faced the most death and hardship during the pandemic year. Well, in the church’s eyes, they had a lot of repenting to do and quite simply just needed to find god.

Typing this right now brings a lot of rage to the forefront of my mind, but this is who my parents were being surrounded by, and pretty soon they had the same ideology. When I would argue about my thoughts and beliefs, it was like beating an old horse. I got nowhere.

Thankfully, my headspace was too strong for it to impact how I saw covid-19, but it did impact my opinion on religion and people. Unfortunately at the time, even though I did not know what a biomedical model was, I would say that I had that mindset. I knew that there was a pandemic and worldwide death, but I think my brain chalked it up to poor healthcare. I never took the time to research the sociological factors because, quite frankly, I was naive and scared to learn about something that was leaving so many dead bodies in it’s wake.

To an extent I would say that I have been socialed into Western medicine. There are times where I have an illness or am sick and immediately think that a simple medication can solve the problem instead of taking a step back and looking at it in a different light. I don’t think sociology perspectives jumped out to me because I lived in a redneck, small town full of die hard Republicans, crazy church goers, racists, and small minded individuals.

Sorry for being brutally honest, but those are the raw facts. I hated living there, especially during the time of the pandemic because my town was made up of the people who thought it was all a hoax and didn’t care about the people dying. My political stance got a lot of back lash from the people I surrounded myself with, but I always stood my ground. Even on topics that soared during the pandemic, such as Black Lives Matter and Pride Month. There can be a lot of hatred for others and those others would send it right back to me.

Personally I think that the pandemic created an even larger division between the United States, and it’s something that not all citizens are looking to open their eyes and realize. It’s a sad world we live in, but it’s only us who can make a change.