This volume takes an anti-racism focus to look at the ways in which COVID-19 affected racialized communities in terms of mental health and addiction. Such a racial focus on mental health and COVID 19 brings to bear the social issues that racialized people faced and the ways in which they were able to resist and negotiate themselves. In the middle of the pandemic, it became clear that Black and other racialized bodies were faced with compounded effects of the pandemic. While narratives of ‘we are on this together’ became a clarion call for facing the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives found themselves closed out of this togetherness. This is because many Black people had to contend with major historical trauma and structural modes of anti-Black racism. While the rest of the world was sheltering in isolation, Black women and men were out there working to make sure they had enough to sustain themselves. To isolate was a privilege many Black people could not afford. If they do not work, they die. If they work, they die. This had an immense mental health effect on Black essential service workers and contributed to disproportionate deaths in many Black households. This chapter seeks to engage with the effects of COVID-19 on marginalized communities and the ways in which various quantitative interventions (Hass, Being human during COVID. University of Michigan Press, 2021; Van Oorschot et al., Production and Operations Management 32:1345–1361, 2023) that were employed to flatten the curve work in complex ways to disremember marginalized communities; more so Black Lives (Hassoun Ayoub et al., Journal of Social Issues 79:667–693, 2023; Yang et al., Infant and Child Development 32, 2023). Such quantified measures to COVID-19 disremembered the various ways through which marginalized communities faced catastrophic impacts of the pandemic and how they employed their community resources and spiritual power to navigate the challenges brought about by the pandemic (Hass, Being human during COVID. University of Michigan Press, 2021). Marginalized communities faced the pandemic in disproportionate, compounded, and unique ways, all informed by their values, realities, and histories (Gaynor and Wilson, Public Administration Review 80:832–838, 2020). Of course, the key element of quantifying the measures to flatten the curve was business-oriented and meant to return the world to normal life. That normal had already impacted marginalized communities in various ways, ranging from police brutality, unemployment, and many other institutionalized forms of violence against marginalized communities such as Black Lives (Collins, The Hastings Center Report 52:S63–S65, 2022). These forms of anti-Black violence seemed to escalate even amid the pandemic. Case in point was the death of George Floyd under a police chokehold. This is one of the many forms of anti-Black racism that continued to exist throughout the pandemic, making it more disproportionate for Black communities to navigate the pandemic compared to other communities. On top of historical injustices against Black communities, they had to contend with the consequences brought about by the pandemic. This made it harder for Black communities to exist as part of what seemed to be a normalized sentiment of being “in this together”. Our existence was in question before, during, and post-pandemic. Even with what seems to be regarded as post-pandemic, Black life continues to exist with the after effects of the pandemic. The trauma of slavery and other historical anti-Black hate continues to be compounded by COVID-19. Black trauma was and continues to be compounded in various ways and forms.