According to the first breakdown of COVID-19 cases by race from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30% of patients whose race was known were black. And while federal data didn’t include any demographic breakdown of death, an Associated Press analysis of available state and local data revealed that nearly one-third of those who have died are African American, with black people representing about 14% of the population in the areas covered in the analysis.
None of that will come as a surprise to regular readers of This Life, but there it was, repeated in news reports early this week.
Also repeated were the reasons I cited for the disproportion a week ago: health conditions — obesity, diabetes and asthma — that exist at higher rates in the black community and the fact that African Americans are more likely to be uninsured, and often report that medical professionals take their ailments less seriously when they seek treatment.
As an African American, I have a problem with that. Indeed, it occurred to me that, based on my own personal experience, any one of those people could’ve been me or someone I love.
Some of you read that as simply my love for playing the race card and my refusal to call black folk to task for not taking better care of themselves, for skirting the rules.
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You said that I was once again blaming others for the plight of African Americans who instead of acting like responsible adults were gathering for parties, still regularly attending church services and funerals, and showing up at grocery stores without wearing masks.
Those weren’t just the sentiments of white readers, by the way. Some African Americans wrote to point out the same and to say I failed to take into account the shortcomings of blacks who are simply being irresponsible.
Tracy Neely, a native Atlantan now living in Denver, noted I’d “eloquently painted” a vivid picture of the despair in the black community but that it followed a “predictable” script, casting “us as perpetual victims and away from individual responsibility.”
“Nowhere in the piece could I find one sentence describing what blacks could do to help themselves, and of course there are many things we can do to improve our lot,” Neely wrote. “I believe this line of thinking keeps blacks focused on the illusion of deliverance by others, which — once again — places whites and others in charge of our upward mobility. We agree that racism still exists today, but I think we would also agree that it is no longer the barrier that it once was … and certainly not the greatest barrier to our uplift.”
I’m all for people taking responsibility for their actions. If you don’t believe that, you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting my daughters, Jamila and Asha.
I’m also willing to concede that racism isn’t what it used to be. But racism still is out there and does negatively impact black life — where we live, the quality of education, access to and the quality of health care that many of us receive.
To believe otherwise, you’d also have to believe that the vast majority of African Americans who have been infected and/or died from the coronavirus were simply being irresponsible.
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That might make these numbers easier to swallow, but that just isn’t the case. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top government official on infectious diseases, has attributed the numbers in more than one television interview to “failings of our society.”
Black Americans, particularly in the Southern states like Georgia that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, are more likely to be uninsured. They’re more likely to work low-paying jobs. They’re more likely to suffer from heart disease, asthma, cancer and other conditions, not because of biology and bad habits but because of sociopolitical decisions related to where toxic dumps end up, where new highways get built, and where they live.
Feel free to deny the impact of those things to keep the peace, but I will not.
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are there some African Americans who make bad choices, whose lives could be better had they made better decisions? Sure. That’s true of all of us.
The difference is because of the actions of a few, the entire African American community gets labeled dysfunctional, trifling, lazy. Notice no one has said whites are contracting the virus because of their behaviors and no one will.
Randall Newton knows what I’m talking about.
“If I did not believe in white privilege it would be easy to blame game people,” he wrote to me in an email. “Until white people realize that we have privileges that others don’t have we will continue to blame, ignore, and even participate in keeping African Americans down.”
Newton not only agrees there are structural inequalities in place that keep blacks from reaching their full potential, that keep them sicker than most, but he also agrees they still exist and the time has come to finally address them.
That was my point exactly.
I didn’t call anyone a racist. I cited racist policies and structures, which by the way, could’ve been put in place by another African American.
But rather than hearing, trying to understand, some would rather see me as the racist.
One man went so far as to say he “despises people like me” and suggests I be fired.
Well, he can hate me and he might even get me fired, but neither of those things can change the facts.
Find Gracie on Facebook (www.facebook.com/graciestaplesajc/) and Twitter (@GStaples_AJC) or email her at gstaples@ajc.com.
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