Im-Politic: Race and the Virus

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African Americans, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, ethnicity, healthcare, Hispanics, hospitalization, Im-Politic, Latinos, mortality, Omicron variant, race, senior citizens, Wuhan virus

What role, if any, should race play in medically treating Americans who have contracted the CCP Virus or could be likely victims? The question has gotten awfully important given that the virus’ highly infectious Omicron variant is greatly multiplying the number of cases (though because of asymptomatic spread and a shortage of reliable tests, no one knows how greatly); because for reasons ranging from those much higher case (and therefore hospitalization) numbers to the impact of illness and vaccine mandates on healthcare workers, the hospital system is strained; and because of shortages in treatments.

And the answer that seems best supported by the data is “some role” – because the most comprehensive data does show that race (along with ethnicity) does significantly affect the odds of suffering the most serious infection outcomes (symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization, along with of course death). But by no means should race or ethnicity play a major role – because so many other factors, and above all age, are much stronger determinants of the worst virus consequences.

The argument for prioritizing age begins with the aggregate data – which comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Here’s what’s shown by the latest numbers measuring weekly CCP Virus deaths per 100,000 Americans for the week of January 15 by age group (for the most vulnerable) and by race and ethnicity for non-hispanic whites, non-hispanic blacks, and hispanics (the country’s three largest groups according to this typology).

By age group:

75-plus: 3.00

65-74: 0.79

50-64: 0.37

By race/ethnicity

non-Hispanic whites: 0.22

non-Hispanic blacks: 0.35

Hispanics: 0.41

As is obvious, senior citizens (65 and over) of all racial and ethnic groups are by far the most likely to die from the virus – which argues strongly for focusing prevention and treatment tightly on them.

The same holds for CCP Virus-related hospitalizations (keeping in mind what should be the well-known qualification that the government does a lousy job of making the critical distinctions between deaths and hospitalizations caused by the virus, and deaths and hospitalizations of infected victims that were caused by something else).

In this case, the CDC offers not weekly admissions figures per 100,000, but total statistics for the period March 1, 2020 to January 8, 2022 per identical numbers of Americans belonging to these categories. And helpfully, breakdowns are provided for both age and race/ethnic group. Here are the results:

non-Hispanic whites 65-plus years: 1,938.5 

non-Hispanic whites 50-64 years: 811.9

non-Hispanic whites 18-49 years: 287.4 8

non-Hispanic whites 0-17 years: 46.9

non-Hispanic blacks 65-plus years: 3,835.4

non-Hispanic blacks 50-64 years: 2,165.0 

non-Hispanic blacks 18-49 years: 886.3 

non-Hispanic blacks 0-17 years: 126.7

Hispanic or Latino 65-plus years: 3,550.1

Hispanic or Latino 50-64 years: 2,053.3

Hispanic or Latino 18-49: 924.6 6

Hispanic or Latino 0-17: 115.0

The clear conclusion is that a national public health policy focused on preventing CCP Virus-related hospitalization would focus not on any single racial or ethnic group as a whole, but on the following groups in this (descending) order: Non-hispanic blacks over 65, hispanics and latinos over 65, blacks between 50 and 64 years, hispanics and latinos between 50 and 64 years, and non-hispanic whites over 65.

But these figures make another, comparably important point: The differences between blacks over 65 and hispanics and latinos over 65 are pretty modest. So even between these highly vulnerable groups, targeting treatment or prevention strategies according to race and ethnicity doesn’t seem to provide very useful advice. The differences between blacks among blacks from 50 to 64 years of age, hispanics and latinos of the same age group, and white 65 and over are even smaller, and therefore focusing on racial and ethnic considerations seems that much less warranted.

The CDC has also presented mortality data by age and racial/ethnic group simultaneously, but in a slightly different way – with these statistics showing how their virus-related deaths as a percentage of all deaths for these categories compare with that group’s share of the U.S. population overall. Groups whose shares of virus-related deaths are higher than their shares of the population as a whole are more vulnerable than average, and groups whose shares of virus-related deaths are lower than their shares of the total population are less vulnerable than average. Here’s that breakdown for senior citizens (the over 65s), drawn from Figure 3b in the link above) along with their total numbers as of 2019 (from the Census Bureau according to Table 1 in this link):

85-plus years: 5.89 million

non-Hispanic whites: 0.6 percent below

Hispanics: 1.3 percent higher

non-Hispanic blacks: 1.0 percent higher

75-84 years: 15.41 million

non-Hispanic whites: 7.6 percent below

Hispanics: 5.0 percent above

non-hispanic blacks: 3.8 percent above

65-74 years: 31.49 million

non-Hispanic whites: 14.60 percent below

Hispanics: 8.5 percent above

non-Hispanic blacks 6.7 percent above

As should be obvious, when it comes to the oldest seniors, non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Hispanics are experiencing CCP Virus-related deaths closely related to their shares of the overall population, there’s little if any reason to discriminate along racial and ethnic lines for virus-fighting policymakers.

The spreads are wider for Americans between 75 and 84, but mainly for non-hispanic whites. The difference between Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks is anything but dramatic.

The situation changes more dramatically for the younger seniors, but again, mainly for non-hispanic whites. Hispanics’ and non-Hispanic blacks’ seem in the same ballpark.

Interestingly, if you look at the charts, black over-vulnerability stays level from there on for the 55-64 and 45-54 age groups, but keeps rising for Hispanics until the 25-34-year cohort . Non-Hispanic whites’ under-vulnerability stabilizes at the same point.

Even more interesting – for a change, the (rightly) embattled CDC seems to have gotten it about right.  Although the agency notes urge healthcare providers and the state governments that regulated them to “carefully consider potential additional risks of COVID-19 illness for patients who are members of certain racial and ethnic minority groups,” it specifies that “Age is the strongest risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes” and its relevant guidance on major risk factors for severe virus outcomes concentrates on medical conditions.

CDC also recommends paying some attention to those who “live in congregate settings, and face more barriers to healthcare,” among other “social determinants of health” that can influence risk, and that “include neighborhood and physical environment, housing, occupation, education, food security, access to healthcare, and economic stability.” 

Such Americans of course are disproportionately black and Hispanic. At the same time, the agency also admits that “we are still learning about how conditions that affect the environments where people live, learn, and work can influence the risk for infection and severe COVID-19 outcomes.” Plus, there’s no shortage of whites facing similar challenges.

Given those uncertainties, the aforementioned healthcare provision shortages, and given that Census pegs the numbers of Americans over 65 at nearly 53 million, it’s clear that protecting the elderly – whatever they look like – should be the unquestioned Job One for U.S. healthcare policy and healthcare providers.              

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Those Stubborn Facts: Race, Class, and Crime in NYC

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"Defund the Police", African Americans, Bronx, class, crime, Democrats, Eric Adams, Latinos, law enforcement, Manhattan, New York City, police, police brutality, policing, progressives, race, subways, Those Stubborn Facts, whites

Share of college-graduate New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of non-college-grad New Yorkers wanting more policy on the subway: 80%

Share of New Yorkers earning $50K-plus per year wanting more police on the subway: 66%

Share of New Yorkers earning less than $50K per year wanting more police on the subway: 75%

Share of white New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of Latino New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 69%

Share of African American New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 77%

Share of Manhattan-ites saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 65%

Share of Bronx residents saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 43%

(Sources: “Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections,” by Zaid Jilani, Newsweek, July 14, 2021, Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections | Opinion (newsweek.com) )

Im-Politic: Why The New York Times Shouldn’t be Writing the History of Slavery – or Anything Else

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1619 Project, Dean Baquet, history, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, media bias, race, race relations, racism, Russia, slavery, The New York Times, Trump, Trump-Russia

It’s bad enough that The New York Times all but admitted last week that its news operations lately have been driven by over-arching missions and “visions” centering on specific issues. In the words of Executive Editor Dean Baquet at an internal “town hall” meeting of Times staff, the paper is now shifting from investigating “Did Donald Trump have untoward relationships with the Russians, and was there obstruction of justice?” to focusing on “what it means to be an American in 2019” and more specifically writing “about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years” because “America [has] become so divided by Donald Trump.”

Possibly worse is how The Times has also decided that this mission includes throwing much of its still considerable resources behind what Baquet called “the most ambitious examination of the legacy of slavery ever undertaken in [inaudible] newspaper….”

For although it’s disturbing that a news organization would in effect bet the house on probing an issue – and thereby create overwhelming incentives for its staff to assume continually that any and all appearances of smoke, even from clearly conflicted sources, add to the case of underlying fire – this Times decision at least dovetails generally with commonly used definitions of journalism that have long served the country and its democratic system well.

Not that the press should get into the habit of proactively designating issues as existential priorities well before the outcomes and implications are reasonably clear. But Baquet deserves some slack here given the charges that the President was a Manchurian candidate beholden to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – unmistakably an earth-shattering story at least potentially. Therefore, it’s hard to blame him for in effect establishing a major priority and allocating his resources accordingly, and it’s nitpicking to insist that he still might have gone somewhat too far.

Two possible and related qualifications to these conclusions, though, should be kept in mind. First, it’s painfully obvious from the meeting transcript linked above (and not disavowed by any participants) that any number of Times staffers are virulently anti-Trump – which logically raises suspicions about whether any of the paper’s reporters or editors cooperated with the equally virulent Trump opponents in the Obama Justice Department and intelligence agencies to keep the story artificially alive through publishing obviously selected leaks selectively, and even through knowingly trafficking in sheer rumor and innuendo.

Second, as I’ve written, given the abundance of Never Trump-ers in the federal bureaucracy and in the D.C. Swamp generally speaking, and given how commonplace leaks of even the most sensitive material had become, long before the release of Special Counsel Mueller’s report, it was becoming increasingly apparent that if no smoking guns had yet been found, chances are they didn’t exist. But there’s no reason to believe that the paucity of genuinely damning evidence ever gave Baquet any second thoughts about his initial decision – which indicates troubling stubbornness at best and even more troubling bias at worst.

But I can’t prove either of the these two points. Moreover, just as I can’t legitimately fault Baquet for per se focusing, at least for a serious period of time, tightly on the Trump-Russia story, I can’t fault him per se for deciding subsequently to devote much of the paper’s attention to race relations. For times change, and news coverage priorities need to change with them – although Baquet’s link of the decision to a Trump record that he plainly views as uniquely and dangerously divisive strongly indicates that he’s prejudging the results awfully early in the game.

The examining slavery thing, however – that’s fundamentally different. It’s the kind of endeavor, after all, that can’t be squared with any longstanding tradition of American journalism. Instead, the “1619 Project” at its heart is nothing less than an effort to change the way Americans view their history, and how it’s been impacted down to the present by slave-holding. (1619 was the year in which the first enslaved African blacks arrived in North America – specifically, near British-held Jamestown, Virginia.  Just FYI, African slaves didn’t arrive in French-held North America until a decade later.) If you’re skeptical about this 1619 project claim, check out how it’s described by The Times:

“The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400^th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”

For good measure, the paper tells us that “it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.”

Any thinking person understands the need for continual reassessments of history – and all fields of knowledge – if only because new information is constantly coming to light. In addition, you don’t need to fall prey to “present-ism” (judging or merely viewing past events and works through the prism of contemporary standards) to recognize that standards do change; that they can change for legitimate and considered, as well as for faddish and/or partisan, reasons; and that whenever such circumstances warrant, reassessments are needed. Indeed, these exercises are especially important when engaged in the always hazardous but ultimately needed effort to identify the past’s lessons.

And what thinking, informed person doubts that the nation’s professional historians fully understand this imperative, and that in fact their discipline isn’t in a constant state of reassessment?

But even if these scholars were failing their country and academe’s best traditions and practices, why would any thinking person consider The Times institutionally qualified to fill the gap competently? What evidence has the paper presented that it can carry out satisfactorily a project that even it describes as “unprecedentedly ambitious” and that’s surely more accurately described as “unprecedented” period? And as a result, from where does The Times draw its confidence in declaring that it’s able to “finally…tell our story truthfully.”

My answers to all these questions: “Beats me.”

And if you believe that the paper is up to this task, you really need to read the full transcript of the town hall meeting. For it makes distressingly clear that many of the paper’s staffers have no use for notions like sticking to the facts and enabling readers to make up their own minds – at least not since the civilization-menacing emergence of the Trump presidency. (Or was it the Trump candidacy?) As for views of race and its proper role in Times journalism, take a look at these remarks from one staffer:

“I’m wondering to what extent you [Baquet] think that the fact of racism and white supremacy being sort of the foundation of this country should play into our reporting. Just because it feels to me like it should be a starting point, you know? Like these conversations about what is racist, what isn’t racist. I just feel like racism is in everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our national reporting. And so, to me, it’s less about the individual instances of racism, and sort of how we’re thinking about racism and white supremacy as the foundation of all of the systems in the country. And I think particularly as we are launching a 1619 Project, I feel like that’s going to open us up to even more criticism from people who are like, ‘OK, well you’re saying this, and you’re producing this big project about this. But are you guys actually considering this in your daily reporting?’”

His boss’ response (in part)?

“I do think that race and understanding of race should be a part of how we cover the American story. Sometimes news organizations sort of forget that in the moment. But of course it should be. I mean, one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that.”

Translation: “You’re right. And the 1619 Project is aimed at persuading Americans to think ‘a little bit more’ like you.” P.S. The transcript records zero pushback against this wildly distorted, reductionist view. That is, like too much of the rest of the Mainstream Media, The New York Times has drifted dangerously far from the notion that journalism amounts to “writing the first draft of history.” It’s going to start writing that history itself. And it’s firmly convinced that it has a monopoly on wisdom.

And that’s fine in principle – if the paper wants to turn itself into something like an opinion publication, a think tank or a lobby group. For a newspaper, however, it represents a bright and dangerous line crossed, and is certain to further erode the public’s confidence in journalists – thereby adding to a list of dangers facing American democracy that’s already far too long.

Im-Politic: What the Hell Many Black Voters Really Have to Lose

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2008 election, 2016 election, African Americans, Bill Clinton, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Donald Trump, Employment, government jobs, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, race, race relations, racism, subsidized private sector

Even by the off-the-wall standards of this presidential campaign, one of the most stunning spectacles has entailed the reactions by many African-Americans (and many of their supposed leaders) to Donald Trump’s appeal for their votes. The Republican presidential candidate’s insistence that Democratic politicians like his rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton, have failed blacks, and therefore don’t deserve the overwhelming support they enjoy, has been met with everything from howls of bitter laughter to outbursts of outrage. And this despite an almost non-stop litany of complaints from these same voices about how too many African-Americans still lag economically and face debilitating racism.

Major reasons for the blowback triggered by Trump’s appeal have already been widely highlighted – ranging from the claim that his pitch has ignored black progress that has been made to the sluggishness with which he has failed to disavow support from a former Ku Klux Klan leader and other white supremacists to (unproven) charges that his family’s real estate ventures discriminated against black tenant applicants. Then add to these Republicans’ reluctance to use government to solve this community’s biggest problems and what leading conservative lights often admit is the GOP’s decades-long failure to court African-American voters systematically.

As a result, it’s easy to see why so many African-Americans apparently have decided to overlook criticisms raised (often by African Americans) about the race relations record of Clinton and her husband, the former president. These include Clinton administration welfare reform and policing measures unpopular with much of the minority population, and both Clintons’ use of supposedly insensitive racial rhetoric during her 2008 Democratic primary race versus then Senator Barack Obama.

But there’s one possible factor behind African-Americans’ evident mass support for Clinton, and their equally evident alarm that Trump might win, that deserves more attention. And this consideration is especially important since it looms as a major barrier to future Republican success with blacks as long as the GOP remains the party of limited government, and no matter how lousy the economy or the state of much of Black America gets.

It has to do with African-Americans’ outsized dependence on jobs both in the public sector and in parts of the economy heavily subsidized by government spending. What the data shows is that American blacks have good reason to view government not only as a provider of many essential services and resources, but as an engine of jobs (and therefore financial stability) and opportunity. Perhaps equally important – this government role has grown steadily during the economy’s generally weak recovery under President Obama.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data could not make these conclusions clearer. Take its “public administration” jobs category. In 2002 (the first 21^st century year for which data exist), African Americans made up 10.9 percent of Americans over the age of 16 employed either in the public or private sectors. But their share of “public administration” jobs was much higher: 16.5 percent. Moreover, that category doesn’t include government groupings like “urban transit” (where African-Americans comprised 28.1 percent of all workers. Or the U.S. Postal Service (23.1 percent).

Blacks were also over-represented in the government-subsidized industries like healthcare services and social assistance agencies. There are no 2002 statistics combining the most conspicuous of these together. But African-American workers accounted for 16.7 percent of all the nation’s hospital workers that year, 15.1 percent of healthcare workers outside hospitals, and nearly one in five employees at social assistance agencies.

During the year the Great Recession ended, 2009, blacks’ share of all adult U.S. workers fell to 10.7 percent – indicating how hard they were hit by the downturn. But here’s their representation in the public and government-subsidized sectors:

Public administration: 15.6 percent (surely because public payrolls started shrinking)

Subsidized private sector total: 14.0 percent

Urban transit: 28.3 percent (an increase)

Postal Service: 20.3 percent (a decrease)

The cuts in government employment accelerated for most of the time through 2015 (the last year for which data is available). Thanks to the economic recovery, the African-American share of total U.S. adult employment regained a full percentage point, to 11.7 percent. But blacks’ share of falling government employment grew as well:

Public administration: 16.9 percent (despite the continued cuts in overall government employment)

Subsidized private sector total: 14.8 percent

Urban transit: 30.5 percent

Postal Service: 24.2 percent (back above 2002 levels)

Not that this African-American employment pattern is a first in U.S. history. Far from it. Especially in northeastern cities, new European immigrant groups used the patronage and overall powers won via political victories to employ their former fellow compatriots. These government jobs, in turn, became pillars of the nation’s rapidly growing middle class and the widespread prosperity it helped foster.

These data, however, also show what a mortal threat at least in principal Small Government conservatives and Republicans pose to government employment’s role in the advances the black community has achieved. The Right may have completely valid points in contending, for example, that this recipe for economic and financial success has left too many sidelined and outright failed too many others; resulted in huge opportunity costs even for the beneficiaries; encouraged attitudes of dependency; or (at best) run out its string for all the black wealth it has generated.

But especially to a population whose sense of economic security is understandably fragile, and whose faith in the career potential available in private industry is understandably limited, Small Government conservatism amounts to a proposal to exchange a bird in the hand for two in the bush. (On top of the reduced services implicitly promised to the less well-off.) So unless Republicans change their philosophy significantly, or more convincingly argue that African-Americans should take this kind of chance, the answer they’ll get from most blacks to Trump’s question, “What the hell do you have to lose” will continue to be “More than you can know.”