Racial Disparities and the Pandemic: Looking Past the Rhetoric of ‘Racism’
It’s hard not to notice the effort to place racism against black Americans at the center of the coronavirus story. In pursuit of its 1619 Project thesis, the New York Times has featured much coverage on the subject. In a front-page April 8 article titled, “Black Americans Bear the Brunt as Deaths Climb,” it highlighted black deaths in a number of cities. On an MSNBC telecast, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project’s coordinator, claimed, “It’s not surprising that black Americans are bearing the brunt of coronavirus.”
While it is unquestionable that black Americans have been disproportionately adversely affected, it is uncalled for to claim that they bear the brunt. Outside of urban central cities, white Americans account for an overwhelming share of deaths. For example, 30 percent of New York State deaths are outside of New York City. Among these, 60 percent have been white, while 17 percent have been black. In New York City, blacks make up 28 percent of coronavirus deaths, but all those over 65 years old compose over 70 percent. Indeed, nationally, senior citizens continue to bear the brunt of deaths.
Nor are black Americans the most affected by the economic effects of coronavirus. Immigrant communities bear much more of the economic impact of the lockdown. Latinos own 2.5 times as many businesses with paid employees as black Americans. Though only one-third of the black population, Asians own nearly five times as many businesses. And yet the national media has followed the Times’ lead. 60 Minutes and then Forbes highlighted the plight of the black owner of the Harlem restaurant Melba’s. Obviously this business and its pain are real, but using its singular struggles to try to make a broader point is misleading.
When the Times adjusted the New York City deaths to reflect each group’s age distribution, it highlighted that the adjusted black rate was double the white rate. Even though the Latino adjusted death rate was 15 percent higher than the black rate, Hannah-Jones’ claim came directly after this data was presented. In response to the data, Mayor de Blasio opened up five testing sites. The Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island sites were in black neighborhoods, while the other two were in mixed black and Latino communities in the Bronx and Queens.
It is important to note that, while keeping the national focus on black deaths, the Times has ably covered the Latino community’s plight when reporting on New York City. It correctly noted that blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of “janitors, home health aides, delivery people, grocery and farm workers and sanitation workers [and] much of the municipal work force is black or Hispanic.” In particular, Latinos make up 60 percent of cleaning-service workers and 39 percent of grocery and convenience-store workers.
More contentious is the claim by Good Morning America reporters that the high death rates in Latino-dominated Bronx are caused by respiratory problems that are, in turn, linked to the borough’s long history of high rates of air pollution. “The Bronx contains seven of the city’s top-10 neighborhoods for asthma rates,” they note. “The Morrissiana/Highbridge neighborhood, home to the city’s second-highest asthma rate, is now among the city zip codes worst hit by the coronavirus.” Bronx air-pollution rates reflect the highways that crisscross the borough and the toxic industries that populate its southeastern corridor.
Measures of air pollution in NYC neighborhoods over the past decade tell a more nuanced story. Between 2009 and 2017, the three most dangerous pollutants — fine particles, nitrogen dioxide, and black carbon — all declined by about 30 percent; and the declines were greatest in Bronx neighborhoods. While pollution in the Bronx is above the city average, rates were consistently higher on all three pollutants in many wealthier white neighborhoods — Stuyvesant Town, Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights, and Williamsburg — than in either the Morrissiana/Highbridge or Hunt’s Point areas of the Bronx. This suggests that underlying health conditions are exacerbated by air pollution.
But what causes these underlying health deficits? We are told that poverty limits health-care access, allowing chronic problems to develop. No doubt poverty is important in understanding health vulnerabilities. But it cannot be the only important reason. Asian Americans have the highest poverty rate in New York City. It is most pronounced in Chinatown, where families live in cramped, congested places. Chinatown also has among the highest air pollution rates in the city, more than 20 percent above the Bronx rates. And yet the age-adjusted Asian-American coronavirus death rate is only 42 percent of the adjusted black rate.
The Asian-American community’s outcome suggests that dietary choices must be looked at. Ten years ago, when it was found that 10 percent of food stamps were being spent on sugary soda, many politicians, including Mayor Bloomberg, recommended food-stamp use restrictions. Michelle Obama refused to support these restrictions and instead promoted adjustments to the food-stamp program that gave discounts for purchasing fresh vegetables and fruits. The Times reported on a research study that compared whether banning sugary drinks or incentivizing fruits and vegetables would be more effective in combating obesity rates. The researchers found that the incentive program would not. By contrast, banning sugary drinks, they said, “would be expected to significantly reduce obesity prevalence and Type 2 diabetes incidence, particularly among ages 18 to 65 and some racial and ethnic minorities.” Yet now, when Surgeon General Jerome Adams suggests consumption adjustments should be part of the response, he is condemned for raising issues of personal responsibility.
It would be cruel to focus on personal behaviors, including dietary choices, as the primary cause of black and Latino disproportionality. We must address the housing and income deficits substantially responsible for the differential impacts of the coronavirus. However, ignoring personal decisions and placing the entire burden on structural racism will not help us find the solutions to improve future well-being.
