CDC - "Racism is a serious public health threat"


NeedleinA
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CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Their Mission Statement:

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Mission: To promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability.

The organization supposedly helping us overcome the Covid 'Pandemic' is off worried about racism now?

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Today, Rochelle P. Walensky MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), declared racism a serious public health threat. Adding action to words, she highlighted several new efforts CDC is leading to accelerate its work to address racism as a fundamental driver of racial and ethnic health inequities in the United States.

Gee, thanks.
Next we will need face masks to fight racism.

Edited by NeedleinA
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Just now, Godless said:

It's easy to mock what you don't understand. Have you bothered to investigate the reasons why people of color have more health problems than their white counterparts? Or why there's a deep-rooted distrust of the healthcare system among the black community? 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/racism-in-healthcare#pain-treatment

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.  I don't think anyone here says that racism has no impact on the Black Community, which has the potential to affect black people's health.  

The point here is that the CDC is about COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. 

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1) a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.

2) any abnormal condition in a plant that interferes with its vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, parasites, unfavorable environmental, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.

Since its inception, the CDC has been about these definitions.   But now it is going to be used as a tool for social engineering.

If you want to defend someone from a racist or sexist who is doing them harm or engaging in criminal behavior against someone else, then I'm right there with you.  I'll march right along side you.

But take the "racist" out of it and ask if you'd do anything different.  For me?  No, nothing different.  Wrong is wrong no matter who is doing it or to whom it is being done to.  Wrong is wrong.  The "hate crime" to me makes no sense.  Anyone who does something criminal to another person either hates them (for whatever reason) or is so self-absorbed that they don't even think about the other person.

So, why is it any different when the motive is "racism"?  Why aren't we trying to protect crime-ridden areas no matter what race?  If there is a crime-ridden white area (and believe me there are many around here) why aren't we doing more outreach to that area?  Why doesn't that area get a "public health" flag on them?

We have interesting ward boundaries.  There are two wealthy areas sandwiching several separate slums.  We minister to several families in that area.  It isn't easy.  They don't have it easy.  But they're all white.  So, the government doesn't care about them.

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Guest Godless
1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.  I don't think anyone here says that racism has no impact on the Black Community, which has the potential to affect black people's health.  

The point here is that the CDC is about COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. 

We're on the tail end of the deadliest global pandemic of our lifetime, in which a COMMUNICABLE DISEASE disproportionately affected black communities and other racial minorities. Is that not relevant to the CDC's mission? How about the fact that there was documented inequity in the initial distribution of the COVID vaccine? Addressing the systemic problems at the root of this inequity is a public health issue. Sure, it stretches far beyond the CDC's area of expertise. But if we can reduce racist practices in other areas of the healthcare system, then we'll be better prepared to give ALL Americans the care they deserve if another pandemic rears its head in the future.

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20 hours ago, Godless said:

We're on the tail end of the deadliest global pandemic of our lifetime, in which a COMMUNICABLE DISEASE disproportionately affected black communities and other racial minorities. Is that not relevant to the CDC's mission? How about the fact that there was documented inequity in the initial distribution of the COVID vaccine? Addressing the systemic problems at the root of this inequity is a public health issue. Sure, it stretches far beyond the CDC's area of expertise. But if we can reduce racist practices in other areas of the healthcare system, then we'll be better prepared to give ALL Americans the care they deserve if another pandemic rears its head in the future.

You're still conflating ideas that are in reality separate.

COVID affected those communities.  That is the communicable disease. That is what is within the CDC's mission.

I'm all for racial equality.  I'm all for the equal access to the distribution of the vaccine to all those who want it.  But I don't see anything in the "documented inequity" that you refer to that says "This individual was not given a vaccine because some racist decided that because he's black, he shouldn't get the vaccine before these white people do."  Never seen that.

Remember, correlating numbers do not necessarily indicate a causal relationship.  That is what a lot of these claims ignore.  They see a numerical correlation that could be explained by a million different causes.  But they immediately jump to racism as the culprit.  Show me that it was indeed due to racism, and I'll be right beside you.

I know just a few black people in poverty and many black people who are middle class or better.  Guess what?  All the middle class black people had the same access to the vaccine as middle class white people.  And you know what else?  All the lower class white people had the same difficulty getting the vaccine as did poor black people.

Do you think that maybe it is because poor people tend not to have access to some things regardless of race?  Do you think that maybe poor people in general tend not to have the mindset of getting the vaccine in the first place?

Could one make an argument that racism may promote poverty?  One could.  Could one then say that poverty affects access to healthcare?  One could.  But the statement from the CDC says that racism "DIRECTLY" affects Black People's physical health.  The reality is that virtually all links to racism are at least a few degrees removed from disease.  But they want us to believe that "racism causes black disease" as a DIRECT relationship.

We're not talking about water evaporating from the ocean eventually causes our lands to be irrigated (this distant relationship is something I could find as plausible).  We're talking about "I shoot a gun at you and you die." Such a direct, immediate causal relationship is what I find implausible.

And even if I'm completely wrong.  Even if we found that racism causes this germ to travel to more black people than white people.  And we further find that it was genetically engineered by white people (not Chinese people) to specifically target Blacks, how is the CDC going to cure "racism"?  They can do what they can to treat the virus and the disease that goes with it.  But how exactly does the CDC "cure" racism?

If you remember how racism was in the 50s and 60s, you know true racism.

If you remember how it was in the 70s and 80s, you MAY know true racism, and you certainly saw inequalities of opportunity. 

Yes, it was systemic.  Today, racism still exists.  And it always will exist.  But it is certainly not "systemic".  We are at a point that we've gotten it about as low as it really can be in any earthly, flawed society.  Now the CDC will move away from its mission to work, spending time, means, and energy on getting it to stay about where it is, and possibly make it worse.

Is that what you really want?

Edited by Carborendum
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Apparently (according to UCLA Op-Ed) automatic soap dispensers are racist.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/ucla-students-claimed-soap-dispensers-are-proof-of-systemic-racism-heres-my-rebuttal/

When racism is so easily blamed as the source of all evil, I have to wonder how this is not a religion.  It certainly has more to do with faith than science.

With religion, we believe in a higher being that guides what happens on this earth.  The level of 'guidance' is variable in various religions.  But we believe in some source of power that will be behind things happening.  We tend to see a pattern and we give glory to God for those patterns we've come to expect from God.

With the boy who cried racism, what pattern does he see?  ANYthing that presents even the most remotely negative thing for a black person must have been designed with white supremacy in mind.  If there is ANY effect or event that impacts anyone of a particular race, then the cause MUST be racism.

With no real proof (and quite a bit of evidence to the contrary) they still have faith that the unseen force called "racism" guided that event or effect.  It seems to even have a consciousness about it that is so all-powerful that an entire Congress and White House is powerless to fight against it. 

How is this different than religion?

Edited by Carborendum
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From a TV show:

A police investigation comes across a perpetrator who, by all accounts, appears to be a ninja.

Hispanic and Black police officers ask their Asian co-worker what he knows about ninjas.

Asian: What?  Just because I'm the only Asian in the office, I'm the resident expert on ninjas?

Hispanic: Yeah.

Asian: OK...  So... ninjas were the historical Japanese assassins dating back to the...

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18 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

From a TV show:

A police investigation comes across a perpetrator who, by all accounts, appears to be a ninja.

Hispanic and Black police officers ask their Asian co-worker what he knows about ninjas.

Asian: What?  Just because I'm the only Asian in the office, I'm the resident expert on ninjas?

Hispanic: Yeah.

Asian: OK...  So... ninjas were the historical Japanese assassins dating back to the...

I'm glad you're here to tell us about ninjas and other fascinating aspects of your native culture.

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57 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

When racism is so easily blamed as the source of all evil, I have to wonder how this is not a religion. 

As of late, we seem to see the cry of 'racism' flung around for at least a couple of reasons:

1. Easy way to raise money for race hustlers. "Racism over there! Look!". Money starts pouring in from those that are especially 'woke'.
Inside BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullor's million dollar real estate buying binge.
2. Political parties can use it to secure voters. Demonize conservatives and portray the left as racial saviors.
3. My favorite: You don't have to take accountability for your own choices since it is the racial systems fault, not yours.

From the Church's website on self-reliance: "Taking Personal Responsibility"
1. Don't blame others
2. Don't make excuses
3. Apologize when you make mistakes
4. Let go of the past and move on

Edited by NeedleinA
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To @Godlessand others.  The most evil concept put forward with racism is the effort to convince intelligent thinking people that it is a good idea to divide the human race into any number of artificial sub-races.  The only logical way to end racism is the exact opposite of such thinking - That the reality is that racism can only exist when people think it so.

The trouble with recognizing racism as an actual problem regardless of the imagination that congers it - is that once racisms is accepted as something realistic, then anything anyone does to try to recognize it, fix it or reconcile it - will only make it more pronounced and thus worse.   We can recognize individuality based on whatever creates individuality - but when we assign or blame all individuals of a group to be of a type based on factors over which no human has control - is at its core - the worse kind of racism in the hearts and minds of those that accept racists thinking at whatever level and for whatever reason.  

Thus those that believe in racism or can be convinced of racism - are the world's worst racists. 

 

The Traveler

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The other week I was reading an article on how to encourage more Black people to become homeowners. 

Was the article about the rampant racism that prevents Black people from owning homes? How they are driven from neighborhoods or thrown out of banks by wicked mortgage lenders?

No, the article pretty much amounted to the notion that Black people don't buy homes because Black people don't buy homes. It was a culture thing. In it were quotes from people doing fairly well for themselves, but because they were raised by family who rented, it had never even crossed their mind to buy a home. The article then delved into tactics about spreading tips of homebuying. 

Yet so many of the comments, clearly not having read the article, wanted to blame big bad racist mortgage lenders and none of this was in the article.

Did systemic racism in the past contribute to the lack of homebuying? You could probably make an argument there. But that's not what the article was about for the current situation and it was ridiculous to try to argue otherwise.

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On 4/21/2021 at 2:48 PM, Godless said:

It's easy to mock what you don't understand. Have you bothered to investigate the reasons why people of color have more health problems than their white counterparts? Or why there's a deep-rooted distrust of the healthcare system among the black community? 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/racism-in-healthcare#pain-treatment

 

Godless, thanks for that link.  I doubt we’d agree as to the remedy (and the degree to which some of the disparities are solely race-based or merely reflections of broader class differences); but the statistics in the article are troubling.

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On 4/21/2021 at 4:32 PM, Godless said:

We're on the tail end of the deadliest global pandemic of our lifetime, in which a COMMUNICABLE DISEASE disproportionately affected black communities and other racial minorities. Is that not relevant to the CDC's mission? How about the fact that there was documented inequity in the initial distribution of the COVID vaccine? Addressing the systemic problems at the root of this inequity is a public health issue. Sure, it stretches far beyond the CDC's area of expertise. But if we can reduce racist practices in other areas of the healthcare system, then we'll be better prepared to give ALL Americans the care they deserve if another pandemic rears its head in the future.

I don’t know that I’d call it a “public health” issue.  If we have a population of 100 blacks and 900 whites, and 200 vaccines to go around—from a statistical/epidemiological standpoint, I don’t know that it matters *which* 200 people get the vaccine.  Any way you slice it, you’re going to wind up with 20% immunity.

Now, I’d agree that it’s certainly an equitable issue if a disproportionate share of vaccines is consumed by folks of any race.  But I would worry about a CDC that is so obsessive about reserving at least 10% of vaccine doses for the right group that significant quantities of the vaccine wind up going unused; or about a CDC-imposed regimen that says “yes, you are at this clinic and you are ill and the clinic has the cure sitting on the shelf, but they cannot give it to you because of the color of your skin”; or about a CDC that destroys whatever’s left of the market-based health care system that we have in favor of a command-style system that is less effective for most Americans than what preceded it.

I’d like to see the CDC (and everyone, really) focus on genuinely improving the parts of the system that need it without wrecking the parts that are working well; rather than papering over the issues by trying to redistribute the suffering more “equitably”.  But the latter approach tends to be much easier than the former, and my suspicion is that the CDC, and government in general, will tend to move primarily in that direction.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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20 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I don’t know that I’d call it a “public health” issue.  If we have a population of 100 blacks and 900 whites, and 200 vaccines to go around—from a statistical/epidemiological standpoint, I don’t know that it matters *which* 200 people get the vaccine.  Any way you slice it, you’re going to wind up with 20% immunity.

Now, I’d agree that it’s certainly an equitable issue if a disproportionate share of vaccines is consumed by folks of any race.  But I would worry about a CDC that is so obsessive about reserving at least 10% of vaccine doses for the right group that significant quantities of the vaccine wind up going unused; or about a CDC-imposed regimen that says “yes, you are at this clinic and you are ill and the clinic has the cure sitting on the shelf, but they cannot give it to you because of the color of your skin”; or about a CDC that destroys whatever’s left of the market-based health care system that we have in favor of a command-style system that is less effective for most Americans than what preceded it.

I’d like to see the CDC (and everyone, really) focus on genuinely improving the parts of the system that need it without wrecking the parts that are working well; rather than papering over the issues by trying to redistribute the suffering more “equitably”.  But the latter approach tends to be much easier than the former, and my suspicion is that the CDC, and government in general, will tend to move primarily in that direction.

Your example is - what I think is a primary problem in our society.   If we look at all the factors we would realize that out of 1,000 individuals - even if the entire population was infected by the virous less than 10 would die.  We have a reasonable idea who those 10 are.  They should for sure receive the gene therapy.   About 100 would would end up in the hospital and we have a good idea who they are - and likewise they should receive the shot (and this number includes the initial 10).  After that it really does not matter who gets the last 100 shots - except for the politics - the science is that in reality we only needed 100 individuals (if properly selected) to receive the therapy.

 

The Traveler

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