[Note: hyperlinks and comments at the linked website article]

Coronavirus Racial Disparities Miss the Bigger Picture

By Heather Mac Donald • April 14, 2020

Public officials and activists are sounding the alarm about alleged racial disparities in the coronavirus death rate. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams claimed last week that the city’s official responses to the virus have “clearly” discriminated against black and brown New Yorkers, as evidenced by fatality data. Blacks make up 22 percent of New York City’s population. As of April 6, they made up 27.5 percent of virus fatalities where the race of the deceased was recorded. (Such data were compiled in 63 percent of all cases.) White New Yorkers are about 33 percent of the city’s population. They made up 27.3 percent of virus fatalities where the race was recorded.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that the black fatality rate for coronavirus in her city—68 percent of all such fatalities—was “among the most shocking things” she had seen. Blacks are a little under one-third of the city’s population. “Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” she said.

The chief equity officer of the American Medical Association invoked the “widely known history that American health institutions were designed to discriminate against blacks” as an explanation for the disparities.

The racialization of the coronavirus discourse is now pervasive. News outlets across the country are rushing to compile racial data on their local caseloads. President Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have all addressed the issue; questions about racial disparities are now an almost inevitable part of local or federal press briefings.

These black and Hispanic virus deaths are a tragedy, especially for the victims’ families and acquaintances. But many of the same politicians and race activists who are now so incensed by coronavirus deaths have been virtually silent for years about far greater disparities in black-white fatality rates: those that result from urban crime.

Black New Yorkers may be 27.5 percent of known coronavirus deaths, but they were 62.6 percent of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter victims in the city in 2018. The percentage of black coronavirus fatalities in Chicago may be “shocking,” in Lightfoot’s words, but she should be more shocked by blacks’ 83 percent share of Chicago’s homicide victim totals from April 7, 2019 through April 7, 2020, the day of the mayor’s remarks. As April 7 progressed, seven more people were killed in Chicago during a 24-hour shooting spree that claimed 28 victims, including a five-year-old girl.

Those homicide victimization disparities exist everywhere in the United States. Nationwide, blacks died of homicide in 2016 at nearly seven times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. Black males died of homicide at over eight times the rate of white and Hispanic males combined. The 7,756 black homicide victims in 2016 constituted 51 percent of the nation’s death toll, though blacks are only 13.4 percent of the population.

Politicians and the media ignore these disparities because they are not fruitful material for promoting the racism narrative. The popular argument that the criminal justice system is racist depends on concealing the crime that leads to higher black incarceration rates. Talking about black victimization would mean talking about black criminal offending, since black victims’ assailants are overwhelmingly other blacks.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Corey Booker (D-N.J.), joined by Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), suggested in a March 27 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that blacks may not be tested for COVID-19 because of the “implicit biases that every . . . medical professional carr[ies] around with them.”

Such an assertion of bias would surprise emergency room doctors and nurses who work desperately, sometimes in the face of abuse and threats, to save the lives of gangbangers gunned down by rivals, only to see those same rivals wheeled in the next night with equally life-threatening wounds. Public officials and community leaders should strive to reduce the minority virus death rate, just as they should try to reduce all groups’ death rates. But they would save many more black lives than are currently being lost to the coronavirus by supporting the proactive policing that deters violent street crime.

And they would do more to improve minority health by acknowledging that the underlying medical conditions that lead to higher rates of viral infections have a large behavioral component. Coronavirus disparities are a class and culture, not a race, problem. Poor people everywhere have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. If the incidence of infection among black New Yorkers and Chicagoans were compared not to that of Manhattanites and the denizens of the Magnificent Mile but to residents of southeastern Ohio and of areas around abandoned steel plants in West Virginia, those alleged race disparities would shrink markedly.

There may be “structural” elements to obesity and hypertension, but those conditions are largely the result of behavioral choices that individuals can control. Playing the race card during a pandemic is not just politically corrosive, it is medically unsound.

That article speaks volumes. How often do politicians (and the media) intentionally lie, distort, misrepresent; for self serving purposes, to further their own agenda.

Should’ve posted this in the Chinese Virus discussion.

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Should’ve posted this in the Chinese Virus discussion.

He is not posting to discuss anything about the virus itself, he is pointing out a political issue that just happens to be using the virus as a current platform.

^^^^ https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/7550029764

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Should’ve posted this in the Chinese Virus discussion.

Should Para have posted his If you're a struggling business owner in the Chinese virus thread? Forum member's businesses wouldn't be struggling except for the virus right? Wrong. The thread is about helping forum member's businesses out during an economic downturn.

Should the RIP John Prine thread have been posted in the Wuhan China thread? I mean, the virus supposedly killed him right? Wrong. The thread is about his songs, his career, and forum member who were moved by his life's work and seeing him perform.

...I can keep going if you need more examples...

Put your brain in gear and read the article...here's a clue Sherlock; this topic isn't about the damned virus, it is about the Left's hypocrisy in twisting statistics, in this case racial statistics, to serve their agenda while ignoring criminal statistics that contradict their agenda, ignoring the fact that they would save more black lives by addressing the underlying factors of the criminal component than exploiting virus statistics that have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the behavioral components that lead to health risks.

This topic isn't about the Wuhan China virus, it is about the Left's hypocrisy and political posturing while ignoring criminal statistics that are politically inconvenient for them.

Huh, so the Chinese Flu really is racist after all.

^^^No, Democrats and their accomplices in the Media are Racists!

Of course the Evil Queen of Michigan and her mini Obama has jumped on this bandwagon too.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that the black fatality rate for coronavirus in her city—68 percent of all such fatalities—was “among the most shocking things” she had seen. Blacks are a little under one-third of the city’s population. “Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” she said.



Ok Lori, my turn- and as the movie line goes: "You can't handle the truth"!
Let's start off by saying more black people have died of acute lead poisoning (aka gunshot wounds) then of Da Rona here in your city.

I can't figure it out. Why, in some parts of the city there is no violence, and in others, it's Bagdad.

In the parts where there's no violence, there seems to be lower numbers on Da Rona virus, and deaths related to Da Rona.

Where violence is more, so is Da Rona and death because of the virus...

Where the violence, and Da Rona is less, there is less people out. No one really throwing house parties, gathering in numbers on the corner, people there are maintaining some semblance of "social distance".

In the areas where violence and this virus seems to have hit the hardest are neighborhoods where its business as fucking usual. People hanging out in front of the liquor store, fast foot joint, selling dope, having 30 people in the small apartment for the birthday party. 20 people Hanging out on the front porch.


Damn those economically depressed communities that are being ravaged by gunfire and this racist virus! What they need is MORE MONEY! Thank you Lori for just tossing 6-7 million at them. That's gonna fix that problem!

Oh yeah, just bring your hair dresser to work so you can get yo hair did! We common folk totally understand that you're in front of the camera and need to look proper, because you all national and shit! You go girl!

Every other hair dresser in the state got a notification that if they are cutting hair, they are going to loose their state license, why not yours?

Fuck Lori, if YOU can't follow simple fucking rules, why should your people?


For the Sig Forum members, Chicago really hasn't had any "nice" weather. (With the exception of Tues, 7 Apr 20) Just wait until Chicago gets a sunny weekend in the mid to high 70's, and it's coming soon. This place is going to burn.

Don't forget to stack the numbers by saying the group makes up X percent of the victims in a metropolitan area, but Y percent of the population in the state.

Wait for it...


3...2...1... "WE MUST HAVE REPARATIONS!!!!"