@VanJones68 sees 2 solutions for eliminating health disparities: "ending. . racism" and Black people taking "more responsibility for our individual health choices."
In other words, Jones is expressing both antiracist and racist ideas. Let me explain. 1/17 cnn.com/2020/04/24/opi…
In other words, Jones is expressing both antiracist and racist ideas. Let me explain. 1/17 cnn.com/2020/04/24/opi…
To claim the choices Black people make are partially responsible for health disparities, for why Black people as a group are more likely to have diseases that make COVID-19 deadly, is to say Black people as a group are making inferior health choices than White people. 2/17
It is saying if Black people only make as good choices as White people, then Black people would be as healthy as White people. That we can’t blame the coronavirus disparities all on racism, we must blame some of it on inferior Black health choices. 3/17
There are many Black individuals who would be healthier if they changed their lifestyles. Urging them to do so can be helpful to those individuals. But urging Black people as a group to change their lifestyles as a solvent to health disparities between groups is not helpful. 4/17
There are many White individuals, too, who would be healthier if they changed their lifestyles, too. Why isn’t Jones lecturing them? Among those Black and White individuals making poor health choices, why are Black people dying at higher rates? 5/17
What makes the racial groups equal is there are individuals of all races making bad and good health choices. Where is the evidence White people generally make better health choices than Black people (controlling for factors like class, location, insurance, and healthcare)? 6/17
I mention those factors because environment shapes individual choices. It is much harder for some Americans to make healthy choices. It is cruel to blame them—no matter their race—rather than recognizing and changing the conditions that make healthy choices easier. 7/17
It is much harder for someone like me to be vegan in a food desert. It is much harder for me to cook and eat non-processed healthy food if I’m working longer and harder hours than most. 8/17
It is much harder for me receive disease-saving preventative care if I can’t afford insurance. It is much harder for me to receive life-saving trauma care for my heart problems if my White doctor views me as biologically different than him. 9/17
For the record, personal anecdotes can tell the story of faceless evidence about a group or anything else. But personal anecdotes, in and of themselves, are not evidence of group behavior. Personal anecdotes are evidence of individual behavior. 10/17
It is not surprising Jones would use a personal anecdote of his poor lifestyle choices, but provide no data that proves his personal story is representative of what’s wrong with Black people. 11/17
Throughout this pandemic, people have been using anecdotes of individuals as those individuals are representative of Black people—and castigating Black people for not taking the virus seriously, for not social distancing, for poor lifestyle choices. 12/17
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
And we all should know why: the racist idea that transforms every Black individual acting in a negative fashion into a representative of the inferior Black race. There are many things wrong with individuals of all races. But none of us are race representatives. 13/17
Black people aren’t diseased and dying at higher rates because we’re not taking enough responsibility for our health, because there’s something behaviorally wrong with us. To say something is wrong with Black people is to say something is inferior about Black people. 14/17
To say something is inferior about Black people as a group is to say a racist idea. The only thing wrong with Black people is that we think something is wrong with Black people. 15/17
I believe Jones sincerely wants to help Black people, and I champion anyone who is striving to save Black lives, to save American lives in general. Jones is not like those wholly racist Americans attacking him for not wholly pointing to Black behavior as needing to change. 16/17
Jones thinks racism and Black behavior are the problem. I respectfully disagree. The problem is racism. The solution to health disparities is transforming society, not transforming Black people. 17/17
