Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

Clearly this is evidence that the Great Replacement is real.

EDIT: Ugh, fuck me. For context, whites are dying from covid more frequently than blacks now.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jun 9th 2022 at 8:11:58 AM

For more context Knowing about racial disparities in Covid outcomes reduces White Americans’ concern and support for safety precautions

This was when covid was killing black people more

That remind me a joke a friend told me that if you could sell the most hardcore comunism to conservatives as long yo promise them it would be white long.

Nevertheless is intersting because it can also explain the heavy anti vaxer phenomena in many ways.

Edited by unknowing on Jun 9th 2022 at 1:39:17 PM

^ Can't speak for the USA but in Italy quite a few people, doctors, associations spoke up about about side effects from vaccinations, and stories abound of reports not being sent to the health authorities, doctors dismissing people with side effects with stuff like "anxiety" and database not counting properly side effects from vaccinations.

They may be rare, but it's still an occurence, and it's offensive to reduce vaccine hesitacy to "conspiracy theorists".

Edited by gc10 on Jun 10th 2022 at 11:33:38 AM

No, it's absolutely correct. If people had rational risk prioritization they would realize that the risk caused by vaccine side-effects is inherently less then the risk of getting Covid.

They're either conspiracy theorists or listen to them, in neither case is their fear legitimate.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 10th 2022 at 4:40:39 AM

That's precisely why there's vaccine hesitancy. Because of this social darwinist idea that "if you run risks at taking the vaccine just take it, and if it hurts it means COVID would have done the same". Meanwhile you're ignoring the fact that, because of side effects being unrecognized, these people receive no financial relief, compensation, and still have their lives ruined. Also vaccine-exoneration procedures are well known and old, so it's also a lie to claim that all people indiscriminately risk either the same or more with COVID than with the vaccines.

That said I don't want to derail further the topic.

Edited by gc10 on Jun 10th 2022 at 1:54:22 PM

From my understanding of the article, it's about two parts, knowledge that the disparity exists, and knowledge of why the disparity exists.

According to the article, people who are knowledgeable that a racial disparity exists, but are either ignorant or disregard systemic factors that cause that disparity are more likely to not care about public safety measures. It seems like it's say "It's a disease that kills minorities, but I'm white so I'm fine." Same as when the AIDS epidemic in the US hit and most thought it was a gay disease, so they did nothing about it.

But knowledge of why there are systemic disparities (things like lack of drive through testing, under-resourced hospitals, very outdated medical knowledge that treat black and white people differently), and they suddenly start taking it seriously again, and I would assume it's because any of those systemic factors could apply to them. They don't see it as a minority disease, they see it as a "bad healthcare" disease and are more concerned if they have questions about their own healthcare.

Basically knowing the reasons for the disparity, allows people to psychologically connect easier than if it's considered a minority disease, as if they think it only affects minorities, they feel psychologically distanced from them. "It mostly affects black people, I'm white, so it's no big deal for me if I flaunt public safety measures".

Edited by HeyMikey on Jun 10th 2022 at 5:25:33 AM

It boils down to people being selfish asshats. If they think they will never have to worry about a disease they don't give a shit.

"So what if a bunch of gay people die of AIDS? I'm not gay, so what do I care? Oh shit, straight people can get AIDS too?"

"So what if a bunch of black people choke to death on their own lungs due to COVID-19? I'm white, so what do I care? Oh wait, white people also die of it?"

Edited by M84 on Jun 10th 2022 at 8:28:17 PM

Absurd, Social Darwinism is not the idea that even if an option has risks it's better because the alternative is much worse. That's basic logic. If option A has a 10% of killing you and option B has a 50% then all rational people will choose the former.

Vaccine hesitancy is based on ignorance and conspiracy theories, if it wasn't they wouldn't be hesitant.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 10th 2022 at 5:34:07 AM

That people have to be properly educated on how it affects them in order to take a health crises seriously, rather than understand that doing this will help people, even if it's people they don't emotionally or psychologically connect with is very disheartening. But better they do good for selfish reasons than be an asshole about it and negatively affect the lives of more people. More education for all.

If it wasn't social darwinism, people who had bad effects from the vaccine wouldn't have been abandoned to themselves. And you would be concerned by that.

The racial discrepancy in death rates is solved by improving healthcare standards for non-White folks rather than shifting blames on whites.

The article makes sense overall, but I can't say that such attitude is so racially-twisted as you're describing. What I see in general people making discourses along the lines of "it's mostly poor people/people with no access to healthcare who die of COVID" and when the racial disparity is pointed out, they'll say "of course, because generally non-whites are poorer than whites". But I never heard once of whites saying stuff along the lines of "COVID is the disease of Black people" and the freaking out when whites die.

Edited by gc10 on Jun 10th 2022 at 2:39:50 PM

This is getting more into the COVID thread's territory, but: what are you citing when you say people who do suffer side-effects from the vaccines aren't getting any help for it? Like, I don't find that an inherently unbelievable idea with the American health "system" at least, but this isn't something I'm aware of even outright anti-vax nuts talking about.

Interesting assumption, in reality I'm a socialist. I believe that healthcare should be available to everyone at all times. Same with any other form of socioeconomic support. If they're being abandoned it has nothing to do with me or my beliefs.

Your presupposition that a lack of sympathy for anti-vaxxers (and yes, if someone is refusing to get a vaccine even after all this time then they're defacto an anti-vaxxer) indicates a lack of concern for people suffering from vaccine side-effects is a baseless non-sequitur. It's more then possible to care about the latter while disliking the former.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 10th 2022 at 5:51:53 AM

I don't wanna take anymore space, so I'll be very quick and superficial and folderize the answer.

If it was along class lines, than class would be the primary delineation for things like vaccine hesitancy and support for public health measures. If it was along self-preservation from the disease, the highest deaths per capita would have higher vaccine rates as a means to protect themselves against their lower hospital resources (in the US, we are not suffering a shortage of vaccines, we actually had to toss them out by the millions because they expired). In the US, that's not the case, biggest determining factor for support for either public health measures or getting vaccinated is political party and the Republicans are very racist. They won't out and say "It's a Black disease" (most of the time), but they will say that attributes associated with minority cultures are the cause of their issues, and since white communities don't have those attributes, in their minds, they're fine. That or blame the Democrats for subsidizing dirty minorities or letting them into the country.

Edited by HeyMikey on Jun 10th 2022 at 5:57:19 AM

> "So what if a bunch of gay people die of AIDS? I'm not gay, so what do I care? Oh shit, straight people can get AIDS too?"

First thing that came to mind was how a bad blood transfusion claimed the life of Isaac Asimov and his family kept this secret due to the stigma of the AIDS virus at the time

It never occurs to some people that it's possible to contract the AIDS outside of unsafe sex

Ok, race can be a factor, but it can't be the only one. For example: in the USA Blacks are less vaccinated than whites. What should that indicate? That there's still a strong racial discrepancy in vaccination access (but still, Hispanics are more vaccinated than Whites)? Or that the extent vaccine hesitants are aligned to the right wing is overblown?

And to be honest I think you're describing something that is not the mindset of the majority of US Whites, or most Republican voters for what matters. The most common mindset I've seen along Us Whites/right wing voters towards the pandemic is just apathy. Very generic apathy along the line of "leave me alone, I don't need to give up anything for this pandemic". Then I do believe you that many people say hypocritically that they're not afraid of COVID, but then look down on minorities as "spreaders of diseases", but I doubt that's the prevalent mindset.

Edited by gc10 on Jun 10th 2022 at 3:16:46 PM

Race is not the only component, but I would argue it's a major component. Similar to how cancer isn't the only cause of death in adults, but it would be a major one. And I've stated that party affiliation are a more likely higher predictor for vaccination hesitancy than race.

Do realize that party alignment with races are not equal in the US. And party affiliation tends to inform a lot of people's views on racial politics. 81% of Republicans or Republican leaning voters are white in 2020, compared to 59% amongst Democrats according to Pew Research polling. Compared to Black voters who are 90% Democrats. There is a minority discrepancy with healthcare access, and that include vaccinations (I've known a few who would refuse vaccines or boosters, because there was the possibility of being taken out of work if they got vaccinated due to side affects and that meant they would have to lose money they couldn't afford), but doing straight race comparisons doesn't take into account that political discrepancy. For instance, Black Americans who have received at least one shot as of Apr '22 in America is 57%. Republicans who have received one shot (the vast majority of which are white) is 55%. So even with their privilege, Republicans are doing statistically the same as Black Americans. And this article has found a correlation between thinking that there is a racial disparity and supporting health measures, and the Republican party in terms of policy care little about addressing racial disparity, while at the same time flaunting public measures to keep them safe, just as the article stated. It might not be causal (maybe people who are educated already care about insuring public health for the masses rather than education causing their empathetic concern), but they're heavily correlated.

I'm aware that different races orientates to different politcal parties. That's why, on the low vaccination rates of Blacks, I said "maybe the extent vaccine hesitants are aligned to the right wing is overblown", because I know well the overwhelming majority of Blacks is not aligned to the ideas of the Republican party. On the other hand: also Hispanics generally form the lower classes of society (thus hindering their access to good healthcare/possibility of vaccination) and politically are pretty much Democrats, yet they're more vaccinated than Whites. Is the discrepancy in access to vaccination so steep between Hispanics and Blacks, or we may take in consideration that there's vaccine hesitation among Blacks that isn't tied with being politically right wing? Genuine question.

And to be honest, I don't say it's your case, but I intensely dislike this constantly conflating criticism of how pandemic was handled with the right wing. And I'm absolutely convinced that also Democrats played on mandates, vaccine passports and scaremongering against the unvaccinated to distract the people from important problems such as lack of universal care and racial inequality, which Democrats aren't so interested in resolving as they say.

Hispanic Americans are more vaccinated than whites as a whole, but only just barely (65% Hispanic compared to 63% to Whites have had at least one shot, based on ethnic groups). White Democrats and Asian Americans are still more likely than Hispanic Americans to get vaccinated.

As for why Black Americans would lag behind compared to say Hispanic Americans with regards to healthcare in general, and Covid vaccine in specific is multi-faceted. For one, the wealth associated with Black and Hispanic families while still low compared to White households are not the same. According to data in 2019, median Black households have household net wealth of $24K, compared to Hispanic median household of $36K and all that may imply[1] Second, there has been a history of Black Americans being screwed over by the US government with regards to public health, between things like environmental racism like environmental lead, proximity to manufacturing, upending black neighborhoods for infrastructure, to things like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and belief that the US government flooded black neighborhoods with crack and there is generational trauma that causes a cultural distrust of the government. Third, depending on which state you're located in also means a difference in vaccine infrastructure or cultural outreach and support to get vaccinated. If you consider the top 10 states with the highest Hispanic population by concentration, two of them are red (Texas and Florida), rest are blue. Compare that with Black population hotspots, a lot of that is is concentrated in the South and Southeast and a lot of them are red (Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia until recently, South Carolina, Alabama are major Black population centers). So just by physical location, those in Republican strongholds will have less access because their states are not treating the Covid virus with urgency in comparison. And despite this, Black Americans are still overcoming their hesitancy faster than White Republicans, thanks to a political machine that cares more about public health (though that's an admittedly low bar) and a large community outreach program.

And the unfortunate thing is that there isn't a solid progressive party in the US, there is a far right party and a tent pole party. And a lot of progressives and leftwing associated people throw their hats in with the Democrats because the only way we would have any political will is to join our numbers with the closest associated with us, as is the nature of the US political system. Democrats as a whole won't pass universal healthcare reform, but the vast majority who support it, enough to form a visible political wing within said party, is Democrat. Unless the Republican party suddenly either collapses or reforms itself into a form that would be unrecognizable compared to its current form, the Democrats are our currently only viable path towards progress of healthcare reform.

Edited by HeyMikey on Jun 10th 2022 at 8:29:21 AM

Who do you think is the major factor to non-whites not receiving better healthcare standards?

Ok, thanks a lot for the long and nuanced answer, that was what I was hoping to read.

Because by "white" people I don't mean "the people in power who historically have been mostly white and created a system that greatly hurts non-white people". I mean "whites" in the sense of "common folk". Because every time racial inequality is brought on while discussing COVID, it always degenerates in redundant stuff like "evil white folks who don't want to wear mask, don't want to get vaccinated, etc...". This is really annoying at this point. As long as people will keep advocating for vaccine passports and hatemongering against unvaccinated, people (most of whom non-Whites, as we've seen) will keep dying of COVID because the true responsable for the pandemic (horrible healthcare and prevention) will remain unaddressed. And that's precisely what's been happening for two years.

Edited by gc10 on Jun 10th 2022 at 6:43:32 PM

Who do you think votes for the people who refuse to improve healthcare though?

Sorry, is it an "all whites are like this" argument?

"White people are the primary demographic that votes against healthcare benefits" and "all white people are against healthcare" are not the same statement, period.