thenation--2020-08-21--How to Dismantle White Supremacy

How to Dismantle White Supremacy

A few days after police lynched George Floyd , I , filled with grief , began writing what became the op-ed “ The Problem Is White Supremacy.
” I wrote because I needed to do something with my rage and pain .
I wrote because I was frustrated with public discussions about race that rarely mentioned—let alone examined—the root cause of this atrocity : white supremacy .
The reason these horrors continue century after century is that the system of racial domination that disadvantages people of color and privileges whites has not been broken .
The ruling class dismisses the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the unrestricted power and disproportionate wealth that they gain as a result .
After explaining in The Boston Globe that the nation ’ s racial quagmire does not result from negative attitudes and the behavior of “ a few bad apples ” but is instead caused by this overarching system of oppression , I asked the following question : In a country where millions deny the existence of systemic racism , including a cohort that enthusiastically supports white supremacy , it is difficult to imagine such a plan ’ s being realized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but one that would move the country closer to being a functional democracy , freed from the terror and hypocrisy that poisons life on both sides of the color line .
If roadblocks could be put aside , how might one begin this paradigm-shifting work ?
I would start by calling it the Hamer-Baker Plan .
Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker did as much to end white supremacy as any persons who ever lived .
It feels appropriate to evoke their legacies in the process of envisioning the completion of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Plan was to rebuild European nations that had been decimated by World War II and to align them politically as US allies in the Cold War .
Its goals were both economic and ideological , and the same should be true of the Hamer-Baker Plan , except that its ideological goal would be to consolidate justice , not power and empire .
Since white supremacy permeates every facet of life in the United States , the scope of the Hamer-Baker Plan would need to be even more sweeping than the Marshall Plan .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ repercussions for generations of people of color , economic interventions would be at the forefront of this project .
Eradicating poverty ; eliminating the racial wealth gap ; investing in the infrastructure of Black , brown , and Indigenous communities whose labor and natural resources have been stolen ; and guaranteeing full employment are some of the actions that must be taken to rectify centuries of economic exploitation .
The cancellation of student loan and medical debt , stricter sanctions against discriminatory lenders , a viable federal minimum wage , paid family leave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pro-union labor laws are examples of policies that can address economic inequality .
It also would make sense to explore reparations as part of the plan ’ s economic agenda .
Ending mass incarceration and shutting down the prison industrial complex would also go a long way toward destroying white supremacy .
Prison abolition , defunding the police , and ensuring that all neighborhoods have the level of resources that affluent communities take for granted are solutions that already exist .
As I thought about the possibilities of the Hamer-Baker Plan , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that would be effective in alleviating the day-to-day consequences of structural racism .
Here are some that come immediately to mind .
The Nurse-Family Partnership pairs first time , low-income mothers with visiting nurses who help families get a healthy start and work toward economic stability .
The Harlem Children ’ s Zone offers wraparound programs for children , from birth through college , assisting their families to overcome poverty and ensuring their academic success .
Cure Violence ( formerly CeaseFire ) uses a highly effective public health model , including violence interrupters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Green New Deal recognizes that environmental devastation disproportionately affects communities of color and that interventions in these communities need to be a priority .
It also would be a source of thousands of new infrastructure jobs .
Medicare for All would address racial health disparities resulting from the lack of access to affordable quality health care .
The severely disproportionate impact of Covid-19 upon communities of color shows the pressing need to establish health care as a human right .
Currently , initiatives that focus on inequality in specific sectors like education , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not aligned with one another , are seldom brought to scale so that they have maximum impact , and may not operate with the conscious goal of challenging white supremacy .
The Hamer-Baker Plan would close these gaps and encourage integrated approaches .
For example , if quality education were a priority , there would be an understanding that stable , affordable housing , safe neighborhoods , access to excellent , affordable health care , and minimal exposure to trauma are all critical components of children ’ s educational success .
A holistic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have a robust social safety net for the first time , benefiting people of every background .
The Hamer-Baker Plan would not only maximize the effectiveness of existing initiatives , but would also function as a catalyst for imagining new ways to challenge systemic racism .
After reading my op-ed , a friend told me that he was ready to sign up for the Anti–White Supremacy Peace Corps ( his own concept ) , and added that his city could really use some help .
He was joking , but imagine if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country to help communities figure out ways to rid their local schools , courts , workplaces , hospitals , and houses of worship of entrenched white supremacy .
It would be groundbreaking for Hamer-Baker to use an intersectional approach based on the fact that misogyny and heteropatriarchy are integral to the functioning of white supremacy .
The plan would consistently take gender , gender expression , and sexuality into account , and create solutions to address the specific impact of racism upon the lives of women , transgender , and queer people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Audre Lorde Project exemplifies this approach .
Founded in 1994 as a community organizing center for lesbian , gay , bisexual , two-spirit , trans , and gender-nonconforming people of color , it has been centrally involved in the fight against police brutality and in coalitions for racial , gender , social , and economic justice .
The White Left Needs to Embrace Black Leadership There are myriad paths that a Hamer-Baker Plan could take .
It is far easier to imagine what a plan to end white supremacy might look like than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would lead to a national consensus that this is what needs to be done .
There are more people than we care to admit who look at the video of George Floyd pleading for his life and assume that he did something to deserve being choked to death while handcuffed .
Less than three weeks after Floyd ’ s death , police shot Rayshard Brooks in the back as he was running away .
After he fell to the ground , the officers kicked him and stood on his body as he struggled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times , Breonna Taylor did not die immediately , but none of the medically trained officers at the scene made an effort to assist her .
As a society , we are a long way from committing to end this nightmare .
Our job is to do everything possible to make that day come sooner .
A few suggestions of how to get us to a time when a Hamer-Baker Plan could become a reality : • Name the problem .
Begin using the term “ systemic white supremacy ” to describe America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incisive terms that may feel more comfortable .
• Understand the scope of the problem .
Read Black history .
Read about the international impact of white supremacy reflected in US imperialism and militarism in non-European countries .
Read classic , non-contemporary Black authors besides James Baldwin and Toni Morrison .
Read social science research that provides statistical documentation and analysis of America ’ s rampant inequality .
• Do not accept it when the power structure ’ s response to this period of racial reckoning is platitudes and partial solutions .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil disorders concluded that the primary cause of urban rebellions was white racism .
That would have been a great time to launch a Marshall Plan to dismantle white supremacy , especially since the report provided extensive recommendations , but of course this did not occur .
• Using Hamer-Baker as a template , envision what a comprehensive , explicitly anti-racist plan to eradicate systemic racial oppression in your workplace or community would look like , and then work with others to make it happen .
We can be encouraged that one day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will not come from the top .
History indicates that it will come from the streets , from people organizing and demanding that every kind of dehumanization and carnage must stop , and that after more than 500 years , the system of white supremacy must end .

This article appears in the September 21/28, 2020 issue.
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A few days after police lynched George Floyd, I began writing what became the op-ed “The Problem Is White Supremacy.” Filled with grief, I wrote because I needed to do something with my rage and pain. I wrote because I was frustrated with public discussions about race that rarely mentioned—let alone examined—the root cause of this atrocity: white supremacy.
The reason these horrors continue century after century is that the system of racial domination that disadvantages people of color and privileges whites has not been broken. The ruling class dismisses the subjugation, exploitation, and violence because of the unrestricted power and disproportionate wealth that they gain as a result.
After explaining in The Boston Globe that the nation’s racial quagmire does not result from negative attitudes and the behavior of “a few bad apples” but is instead caused by this overarching system of oppression, I asked the following question:
What if we launched an initiative on the scale of the Marshall Plan or the space race to eradicate white supremacy? What if it were led by experts with the most detailed knowledge of how white supremacy in tandem with racial capitalism operates, that is, poor and working-class people of color? What if these experts partnered with researchers, advocates, and practitioners to provide exhaustive documentation, analysis, and comprehensive recommendations for ending the scourge of white supremacy once and for all? What if…?
In a country where millions deny the existence of systemic racism, including a cohort that enthusiastically supports white supremacy, it is difficult to imagine such a plan being realized. It would be a major struggle, but one that would move the country closer to being a functional democracy, freed from the terror and hypocrisy that poisons life on both sides of the color line.
If roadblocks could be put aside, how might one begin this paradigm-shifting work? I would start by calling it the Hamer-Baker Plan. Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker did as much to end white supremacy as any persons who ever lived. It feels appropriate to evoke their legacies in the process of envisioning the completion of that task.
The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to rebuild European nations that had been decimated by World War II and to align them politically as US allies in the Cold War. Its goals were both economic and ideological, and the same should be true of the Hamer-Baker Plan, except that its ideological goal would be to consolidate justice, not power and empire. Since white supremacy permeates every facet of life in the United States, the scope of the Hamer-Baker Plan would need to be even more sweeping than the Marshall Plan. Current Issue View our current issue
Because racial capitalism has had such grievous repercussions for generations of people of color, economic interventions would be at the forefront of this project. Eradicating poverty; eliminating the racial wealth gap; investing in the infrastructure of Black, brown, and Indigenous communities whose labor and natural resources have been stolen; and guaranteeing full employment are some of the actions that must be taken to rectify centuries of economic exploitation. The cancellation of student loan and medical debt, stricter sanctions against discriminatory lenders, a viable federal minimum wage, paid family leave, free quality child care, and pro-union labor laws are examples of policies that can address economic inequality. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
It also would make sense to explore reparations as part of the plan’s economic agenda.
Ending mass incarceration and shutting down the prison industrial complex would also go a long way toward destroying white supremacy. Prison abolition, defunding the police, and ensuring that all neighborhoods have the level of resources that affluent communities take for granted are solutions that already exist.
As I thought about the possibilities of the Hamer-Baker Plan, I realized that there are already innovative strategies that would be effective in alleviating the day-to-day consequences of structural racism. Here are some that come immediately to mind. The Nurse-Family Partnership pairs first time, low-income mothers with visiting nurses who help families get a healthy start and work toward economic stability. The Harlem Children’s Zone offers wraparound programs for children, from birth through college, assisting their families to overcome poverty and ensuring their academic success. Cure Violence (formerly CeaseFire) uses a highly effective public health model, including violence interrupters, to end gun violence. The Green New Deal recognizes that environmental devastation disproportionately affects communities of color and that interventions in these communities need to be a priority. It also would be a source of thousands of new infrastructure jobs. Medicare for All would address racial health disparities resulting from the lack of access to affordable quality health care. The severely disproportionate impact of Covid-19 upon communities of color shows the pressing need to establish health care as a human right.
Currently, initiatives that focus on inequality in specific sectors like education, health care, and criminal justice are not aligned with one another, are seldom brought to scale so that they have maximum impact, and may not operate with the conscious goal of challenging white supremacy. The Hamer-Baker Plan would close these gaps and encourage integrated approaches.
For example, if quality education were a priority, there would be an understanding that stable, affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, access to excellent, affordable health care, and minimal exposure to trauma are all critical components of children’s educational success. A holistic approach could make it possible for America to have a robust social safety net for the first time, benefiting people of every background.
The Hamer-Baker Plan would not only maximize the effectiveness of existing initiatives, but would also function as a catalyst for imagining new ways to challenge systemic racism. After reading my op-ed, a friend told me that he was ready to sign up for the Anti–White Supremacy Peace Corps (his own concept), and added that his city could really use some help. He was joking, but imagine if there were dedicated organizers fanning out across the country to help communities figure out ways to rid their local schools, courts, workplaces, hospitals, and houses of worship of entrenched white supremacy.
It would be groundbreaking for Hamer-Baker to use an intersectional approach based on the fact that misogyny and heteropatriarchy are integral to the functioning of white supremacy. The plan would consistently take gender, gender expression, and sexuality into account, and create solutions to address the specific impact of racism upon the lives of women, transgender, and queer people of color. New York’s Audre Lorde Project exemplifies this approach. Founded in 1994 as a community organizing center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans, and gender-nonconforming people of color, it has been centrally involved in the fight against police brutality and in coalitions for racial, gender, social, and economic justice. Related Article The White Left Needs to Embrace Black Leadership Barbara Ransby
There are myriad paths that a Hamer-Baker Plan could take. It is far easier to imagine what a plan to end white supremacy might look like than it is to imagine the conditions that would lead to a national consensus that this is what needs to be done. There are more people than we care to admit who look at the video of George Floyd pleading for his life and assume that he did something to deserve being choked to death while handcuffed. Less than three weeks after Floyd’s death, police shot Rayshard Brooks in the back as he was running away. After he fell to the ground, the officers kicked him and stood on his body as he struggled for life. Despite being shot eight times, Breonna Taylor did not die immediately, but none of the medically trained officers at the scene made an effort to assist her. As a society, we are a long way from committing to end this nightmare.
Our job is to do everything possible to make that day come sooner. A few suggestions of how to get us to a time when a Hamer-Baker Plan could become a reality:
Name the problem. Begin using the term “systemic white supremacy” to describe America’s racial morass instead of less incisive terms that may feel more comfortable.
Understand the scope of the problem. Read Black history. Read about the international impact of white supremacy reflected in US imperialism and militarism in non-European countries. Read classic, non-contemporary Black authors besides James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Read social science research that provides statistical documentation and analysis of America’s rampant inequality.
Do not accept it when the power structure’s response to this period of racial reckoning is platitudes and partial solutions. In 1968, the Kerner Commission report on civil disorders concluded that the primary cause of urban rebellions was white racism. That would have been a great time to launch a Marshall Plan to dismantle white supremacy, especially since the report provided extensive recommendations, but of course this did not occur.
Using Hamer-Baker as a template, envision what a comprehensive, explicitly anti-racist plan to eradicate systemic racial oppression in your workplace or community would look like, and then work with others to make it happen.
We can be encouraged that one day when a consensus does emerge, it will not come from the top. History indicates that it will come from the streets, from people organizing and demanding that every kind of dehumanization and carnage must stop, and that after more than 500 years, the system of white supremacy must end.


thenation--2020-08-21--Biden Cannot Win (or Govern) as a Deficit Hawk

Joe Biden finally got to accept the Democratic presidential nomination that he began seeking in the 1980s , and he did so with a graceful turn , promising , “ We can and will overcome this season of darkness.
” The former vice president ’ s address on the closing night of his party ’ s virtual convention was elegant , even poetic , in its outlining of an agenda for beating Donald Trump , tackling a pandemic , and renewing the economy .
But acceptance addresses are always aspirational , and voters know that candidates often promise more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work to do .
And so do the progressives who have provided so many of the ideas that Biden touched on in an address where he spoke of tackling Four historic crises .
All at the same time .
A perfect storm .
The worst pandemic in over 100 years .
The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression .
The most compelling call for racial justice since the ’ 60s .
And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change .
To meet those challenges , the federal government must spend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a predecessor who dramatically expanded the role of government : Nearly a century ago , Franklin Roosevelt pledged a New Deal in a time of massive unemployment , uncertainty , and fear .
Stricken by disease , stricken by a virus , FDR insisted that he would recover and prevail and he believed America could as well .
And he did .
And so can we .
These are appropriate and necessary ambitions—as was Biden ’ s June proposal for the $ 2 trillion investment in clean energy and infrastructure .
Unfortunately , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finishing touches on his speech , creating doubts about whether the nominee is prepared to match words with deeds.. “ When we get in , the pantry is going to be bare , ” longtime Biden aide Ted Kaufman told The Wall Street Journal in an article published Wednesday , the third day of the convention .
“ When you see what Trump ’ s done to the deficit…forget about Covid-19 , all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts .
So we ’ re going to be limited.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden and the Democrats Dissenting Delegates Send a Medicare for All Message to Joe Biden The Journal explained that Kaufman “ predicted…that a large increase in federal spending would be difficult to achieve in 2021.
” Ted Kaufman is not some Biden campaign hanger-on .
He ’ s the head of the transition team .
When someone in his position starts talking about limited options , alarm bells should go off .
This is the kind of talk you heard in 1993 when Bill Clinton , after winning the presidency with a campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would accomplish , suddenly became a deficit hawk .
Similarly , in 2009 , after George W. Bush handed Barack Obama a Great Recession , right-wing Republicans and centrist Democrats leaped in to tell the newly elected president everything he could not do .
When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders heard that Kaufman was laying the groundwork for another austerity , Sanders said , “ He is dead wrong.
” Americans have grown cynical about whether Democrats in government will address the fundamental challenges facing the nation .
Kaufman fed that cynicism .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be tripped up ; austerity won ’ t cut it this time .
Democrats and the party ’ s new leader , Biden , have to communicate that they are willing to spend what is necessary to provide health care , housing , and employment , and to ensure justice .
To that end , economist Dean Baker says , “ Biden ’ s people should be prohibited from ever whining about the government debt.
” The deficit hawk agenda is dangerous for the country .
“ We need massive investment in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is not a joke , ” argues Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
“ To adopt GOP deficit-hawking now , when millions of lives are at stake , is utterly irresponsible.
” It ’ s also utterly unnecessary , because , as AOC notes , the pantry that ’ s always got plenty of money to fund the military-industrial complex and tax breaks for the rich “ is absolutely not bare.
” “ Let ’ s be clear , ” says economist Stephanie Kelton .
“ The pantry is bare for millions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now .
Not ever.
” Kelton takes on deficit hawks in her new book , The Deficit Myth : Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People ’ s Economy .
The deficit hawk agenda is also dangerous for the Democrats .
Donald Trump won ’ t be campaigning this fall on an austerity agenda .
He ’ ll be promising the moon and the stars—including a mad scheme to defer the payroll taxes that sustain Social Security .
Trump just wants another term so that he and his wrecking crew can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ barter off the United States Postal Service .
If Democrats campaign on the Republican-lite promise of “ tightening our belts , ” they will undermine their own prospects .
Biden might still prevail , but his margin will narrow and prospects for taking the Senate will be diminished .
To achieve a meaningful victory in 2020 , Democrats must mobilize millions of disenchanted and disengaged Americans .
That won ’ t happen unless voters know that the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will lead to bold structural changes that address economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fate of the planet .
These are urgent times , reordered by the pandemic and spiking unemployment .
Biden ’ s campaign can ’ t afford to send mixed signals that lead people to fear that he won ’ t keep the promises he made on the last night of the convention .
The Democratic nominee must recognize that he has a moral and a practical duty to serve as a change agent , and he has to communicate that recognition to potential voters whose cynicism has been honed by too many betrayals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s people are sending the wrong signals .
The convention was light on content .
The party ’ s platform , which was drafted by a committee packed with Biden allies , pulled its punches by not embracing Medicare for All , a Green New Deal , legalization of marijuana , and criminal justice reforms as bold as those supported by Democrats in Congress .
That was a missed opportunity .
And now Ted Kaufman is running around talking about an “ empty ” pantry and “ limited ” government .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it is the sort of silly thing that no one in a Biden administration should ever be saying , ” says Baker , who explains : It takes some very deliberate head-in-the-ground economics to argue that we are somehow limited by the size of the government debt .
Japan provides a great model here .
Its ratio of debt to GDP is more than 250 percent , more than twice the current U.S. level .
Yet , the country is seeing new zero inflation and has a 0.03 percent interest rate on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its debt is near zero , since much of its debt carries a negative interest rate .
The idea that we would not address pressing needs , like climate change , child care , and health care because we are concerned about the debt burden is close to crazy .
As long as the economy is not near its capacity , there is zero reason not to spend to address these priorities , and even when it does approach its capacity , we can impose higher taxes on the economy ’ s big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kelton , whom Biden appointed to one of his pre-convention task forces , was even blunter about the danger in Team Biden ’ s making deficit hawk noises : “ Allow me to translate ‘ There will be no money ’ from beltway speak into everyday English : ‘ That is not a priority for us.
’ ” If Biden wants to convince voters that he intends to do what he talked about in his acceptance speech , he should tell his team to drop the deficit hawking .

Joe Biden finally got to accept the Democratic presidential nomination that he began seeking in the 1980s, and he did so with a graceful turn, promising, “We can and will overcome this season of darkness.”
The former vice president’s address on the closing night of his party’s virtual convention was elegant, even poetic, in its outlining of an agenda for beating Donald Trump, tackling a pandemic, and renewing the economy.
But acceptance addresses are always aspirational, and voters know that candidates often promise more than they deliver. So Biden still has work to do. And so do the progressives who have provided so many of the ideas that Biden touched on in an address where he spoke of tackling
Four historic crises. All at the same time. A perfect storm. The worst pandemic in over 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The most compelling call for racial justice since the ’60s. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change.
To meet those challenges, the federal government must spend money. Biden acknowledged this by referencing a predecessor who dramatically expanded the role of government:
Nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt pledged a New Deal in a time of massive unemployment, uncertainty, and fear. Stricken by disease, stricken by a virus, FDR insisted that he would recover and prevail and he believed America could as well. And he did. And so can we.
These are appropriate and necessary ambitions—as was Biden’s June proposal for the $2 trillion investment in clean energy and infrastructure.
Unfortunately, even as the candidate was putting the finishing touches on his speech, creating doubts about whether the nominee is prepared to match words with deeds.. “When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare,” longtime Biden aide Ted Kaufman told The Wall Street Journal in an article published Wednesday, the third day of the convention. “When you see what Trump’s done to the deficit…forget about Covid-19, all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts. So we’re going to be limited.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
The Journal explained that Kaufman “predicted…that a large increase in federal spending would be difficult to achieve in 2021.”
Ted Kaufman is not some Biden campaign hanger-on. He’s the head of the transition team. When someone in his position starts talking about limited options, alarm bells should go off. This is the kind of talk you heard in 1993 when Bill Clinton, after winning the presidency with a campaign that talked big about all that he would accomplish, suddenly became a deficit hawk. Similarly, in 2009, after George W. Bush handed Barack Obama a Great Recession, right-wing Republicans and centrist Democrats leaped in to tell the newly elected president everything he could not do. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders heard that Kaufman was laying the groundwork for another austerity, Sanders said, “He is dead wrong.”
Dead wrong morally. Dead wrong economically. Dead wrong politically. Current Issue View our current issue
Americans have grown cynical about whether Democrats in government will address the fundamental challenges facing the nation. Kaufman fed that cynicism. If his thinking takes hold, the Democrats will be tripped up; austerity won’t cut it this time. Democrats and the party’s new leader, Biden, have to communicate that they are willing to spend what is necessary to provide health care, housing, and employment, and to ensure justice. To that end, economist Dean Baker says, “Biden’s people should be prohibited from ever whining about the government debt.”
The deficit hawk agenda is dangerous for the country. “We need massive investment in our country or it will fall apart. This is not a joke,” argues Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “To adopt GOP deficit-hawking now, when millions of lives are at stake, is utterly irresponsible.” It’s also utterly unnecessary, because, as AOC notes, the pantry that’s always got plenty of money to fund the military-industrial complex and tax breaks for the rich “is absolutely not bare.”
“Let’s be clear,” says economist Stephanie Kelton. “The pantry is bare for millions of families. Not for Congress. Not now. Not ever.” Kelton takes on deficit hawks in her new book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy.
The deficit hawk agenda is also dangerous for the Democrats. Donald Trump won’t be campaigning this fall on an austerity agenda. He’ll be promising the moon and the stars—including a mad scheme to defer the payroll taxes that sustain Social Security. Trump just wants another term so that he and his wrecking crew can cut more taxes for the wealthy and barter off the United States Postal Service.
If Democrats campaign on the Republican-lite promise of “tightening our belts,” they will undermine their own prospects. Biden might still prevail, but his margin will narrow and prospects for taking the Senate will be diminished.
To achieve a meaningful victory in 2020, Democrats must mobilize millions of disenchanted and disengaged Americans. That won’t happen unless voters know that the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will lead to bold structural changes that address economic pain, racial injustice, and the fate of the planet. These are urgent times, reordered by the pandemic and spiking unemployment. Biden’s campaign can’t afford to send mixed signals that lead people to fear that he won’t keep the promises he made on the last night of the convention.
The Democratic nominee must recognize that he has a moral and a practical duty to serve as a change agent, and he has to communicate that recognition to potential voters whose cynicism has been honed by too many betrayals.
The trouble is that some of Biden’s people are sending the wrong signals. The convention was light on content. The party’s platform, which was drafted by a committee packed with Biden allies, pulled its punches by not embracing Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, legalization of marijuana, and criminal justice reforms as bold as those supported by Democrats in Congress. That was a missed opportunity. And now Ted Kaufman is running around talking about an “empty” pantry and “limited” government.
“This is wrong big time, and it is the sort of silly thing that no one in a Biden administration should ever be saying,” says Baker, who explains:
It takes some very deliberate head-in-the-ground economics to argue that we are somehow limited by the size of the government debt. Japan provides a great model here. Its ratio of debt to GDP is more than 250 percent, more than twice the current U.S. level. Yet, the country is seeing new zero inflation and has a 0.03 percent interest rate on its long-term debt. The interest on its debt is near zero, since much of its debt carries a negative interest rate. The idea that we would not address pressing needs, like climate change, child care, and health care because we are concerned about the debt burden is close to crazy. As long as the economy is not near its capacity, there is zero reason not to spend to address these priorities, and even when it does approach its capacity, we can impose higher taxes on the economy’s big winners over the last four decades.
Kelton, whom Biden appointed to one of his pre-convention task forces, was even blunter about the danger in Team Biden’s making deficit hawk noises: “Allow me to translate ‘There will be no money’ from beltway speak into everyday English: ‘That is not a priority for us.’”
If Biden wants to convince voters that he intends to do what he talked about in his acceptance speech, he should tell his team to drop the deficit hawking.


thenation--2020-08-20--If Republicans Want a Fight Over the Post Office, Give It to Them

Donald Trump ’ s attack on the United States Postal Service is by design but not merely his design .
Republicans and their corporate allies have been after the post office for years , undermining its ability to function and mocking its more than 600,000 workers in hopes of clearing the way for the privatization of an agency that has , since the founding of the nation , provided essential infrastructure for American democracy .
It is the role that the Postal Service will play in the 2020 elections that has Trump and his allies agitated now , but their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What could be new , however , is the opening that Trump has created not just for the defense of the post office at this critical moment but for its expansion to address the challenges of the 21st century .
Democrats should seize that opening and make the promise of the post office ’ s renewal central to their fall campaign .
Trump ’ s jarring pattern of saying out loud what others in his partisan cabal have been thinking was on full display August 13 , when he revealed why he and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Service as an immediate threat .
The president trails in the polls , and the Republican hold on the Senate looks shaky .
A fairly conducted election with a high turnout could upend their political power .
They ’ ve sent plenty of signals that they ’ d prefer to make it hard for voters who are disinclined toward the GOP to cast ballots in fall elections that could be disrupted by Covid-19 outbreaks—and that are likely to see unprecedented levels of voting by mail .
Explaining why he objected to emergency funding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been stretched to the limit by the demands of this pandemic moment , he bluntly acknowledged , “ They want $ 25 billion—billion—for the post office .
Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.
” The blowback was so intense that Trump walked his remarks back a few steps that same evening , including suggesting that he might be open to negotiation .
But that didn ’ t change Republican antipathy .
While Democrats in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 25 billion in emergency funding to the Postal Service , Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell continued to block action .
And Trump ’ s new postmaster general , Louis DeJoy , was busy slowing down—and physically dismembering—the agency .
The crisis came to a head a day after Trump talked about holding up the money .
The Washington Post revealed that the Postal Service had warned 46 states and the District of Columbia it could not guarantee that all ballots cast by mail for the November elections would arrive in time to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports from across the country that curbside mail collection boxes and sorting machines in postal facilities were being removed .
Biden Can not Win ( or Govern ) as a Deficit Hawk Milwaukee Has a Lot to Teach Joe Biden and the Democrats House Oversight Committee members demanded that DeJoy , a major GOP donor and fundraiser , explain himself .
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called members back from vacation to address the issue , and state attorneys general prepared to take action .
These are necessary reactions , but there must also be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Postal Service ’ s fiscal problems : a draconian congressional mandate that it fund pensions 75 years into the future and severe restrictions on how it can operate in competitive markets .
Democrats have begun to embrace proposals to ease the burden on this enormously popular and vital agency .
This fall they should go all in , with robust support for visionary reforms such as postal banking , which would allow post offices to provide basic financial services in underserved communities .
Donald Trump and His Postmaster General Are Sabotaging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fight over the future of the Postal Service that Trump and the Republicans want , give it to them .
People in rural towns and urban neighborhoods don ’ t just want to vote by mail .
They want to vote for a future that will keep the mail moving for generations to come .

This article appears in the September 7/14, 2020 issue.
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Donald Trump’s attack on the United States Postal Service is by design but not merely his design. Republicans and their corporate allies have been after the post office for years, undermining its ability to function and mocking its more than 600,000 workers in hopes of clearing the way for the privatization of an agency that has, since the founding of the nation, provided essential infrastructure for American democracy. It is the role that the Postal Service will play in the 2020 elections that has Trump and his allies agitated now, but their targeting of it is nothing new.
What could be new, however, is the opening that Trump has created not just for the defense of the post office at this critical moment but for its expansion to address the challenges of the 21st century. Democrats should seize that opening and make the promise of the post office’s renewal central to their fall campaign.
Trump’s jarring pattern of saying out loud what others in his partisan cabal have been thinking was on full display August 13, when he revealed why he and so many other Republicans see the Postal Service as an immediate threat. The president trails in the polls, and the Republican hold on the Senate looks shaky. A fairly conducted election with a high turnout could upend their political power. They’ve sent plenty of signals that they’d prefer to make it hard for voters who are disinclined toward the GOP to cast ballots in fall elections that could be disrupted by Covid-19 outbreaks—and that are likely to see unprecedented levels of voting by mail. Explaining why he objected to emergency funding for the Postal Service, which has been stretched to the limit by the demands of this pandemic moment, he bluntly acknowledged, “They want $25 billion—billion—for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”
The blowback was so intense that Trump walked his remarks back a few steps that same evening, including suggesting that he might be open to negotiation. But that didn’t change Republican antipathy. While Democrats in the House voted in May to get $25 billion in emergency funding to the Postal Service, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell continued to block action. And Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, was busy slowing down—and physically dismembering—the agency. The crisis came to a head a day after Trump talked about holding up the money. The Washington Post revealed that the Postal Service had warned 46 states and the District of Columbia it could not guarantee that all ballots cast by mail for the November elections would arrive in time to be counted. Meanwhile, there were reports from across the country that curbside mail collection boxes and sorting machines in postal facilities were being removed. More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
House Oversight Committee members demanded that DeJoy, a major GOP donor and fundraiser, explain himself. Speaker Nancy Pelosi called members back from vacation to address the issue, and state attorneys general prepared to take action. These are necessary reactions, but there must also be a big-picture response that addresses the roots of the Postal Service’s fiscal problems: a draconian congressional mandate that it fund pensions 75 years into the future and severe restrictions on how it can operate in competitive markets. Democrats have begun to embrace proposals to ease the burden on this enormously popular and vital agency. This fall they should go all in, with robust support for visionary reforms such as postal banking, which would allow post offices to provide basic financial services in underserved communities. Protect USPS Donald Trump and His Postmaster General Are Sabotaging Democracy in Plain Sight John Nichols
If it is a fight over the future of the Postal Service that Trump and the Republicans want, give it to them. People in rural towns and urban neighborhoods don’t just want to vote by mail. They want to vote for a future that will keep the mail moving for generations to come.


thenation--2020-08-24--The Color of Contagion

The Color of Contagion

As of the first week of August , there have been at least 160,000 deaths in the United States from Covid-19 .
There is data indicating race and ethnicity for approximately 90 percent of these deaths ; in age-adjusted numbers analyzed by the American Public Media Research Lab , the widest disparities afflicted Black , Indigenous , Pacific Islander , and Latinx populations .
Black mortality rates range from more than twice to almost four times as high as for white people .
Among Indigenous people , the rates are as much as three and a half times as high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latinx people .
The death rate for predominantly Black counties is six times that of predominantly white ones.1 It is telling that all racial groups marked as minorities in the United States , including Asians and Pacific Islanders , are more likely than whites to die from Covid .
And the true picture may be much worse .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weights its calculations in ways that omit areas that have few to zero deaths—which,2 coincidentally , happen to be largely white .
According to an article in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this weighted counting “ understates COVID-19 mortality among Black , Latinx , and Asian individuals and overstates the burden among White individuals.
” 3 On the basis of these statistics , a federal committee advising the CDC is reportedly considering who should be put at the head of the line upon the release of a vaccine .
There is relatively little disagreement that “ vital medical and national security officials ” ( as they were described in a recent New York Times article ) would be first , as well as others considered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Teachers ?
Poll workers ?
Grocery store clerks ?
Housekeepers ?
Mortuary staffers ?
Bus drivers ? )
4 Will Covid-19 Be a Turning Point in the Fight Against Racial Disparities in Health Care ?
More contentious is whether especially vulnerable populations should be fast-tracked—and in particular whether those identified as Black or Latinx should be prioritized .
The controversy centers on the use of race and ethnicity as proxies for all the prejudices and vexed social conditions that render raced bodies as more susceptible to begin with .
One may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minorities ’ disproportionately lower survival rates couldn ’ t be more accurately attributed to homelessness or dense housing or lack of health insurance or inadequate food supplies or environmental toxins or the ratio of acute care facilities to numbers of residents in the ghettoized locations that have become such petri dishes of contagion.5 This is not to suggest that the discrimination suffered by Black and Latinx people is simply about class .
In a nation shadowed by eugenic intuitions , race is its own risk .
American prejudices about color and race are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and untouchability .
The propinquity of dark bodies—sometimes merely eye contact—incites anxiety and a fear of social contamination that operates a bit like the bestowing of “ cooties ” among children .
Even to doctors , color can be an unacknowledged source of revulsion if they have grown up in all-white environments ; it can operate affectively and aversively , like stigmatizing witchery .
One can understand why racially prioritized vaccinations may be attractive to some as an attempted reversal of that acculturated sorcery and its death-enhancing consequence.6 There are surely no easy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a disease whose tragic boundlessness is still revealing itself .
Regardless , I am convinced it will not end well to build public health architectures that use race or ethnicity to signify innate vulnerability—or , for that matter , invulnerability .
There is already global panic about which of us will live or die .
One might anticipate vaccine eligibility by race turning into an unseemly competition over blood .
How , precisely , would race or ethnicity even be determined ?
By how you look ?
Who you grew up with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Would the whole thing end up being an economic boondoggle for sketchy DNA testing companies ?
7 There are so many absurd assumptions about embodied racial difference abroad in our land .
“ They ” can ’ t swim because their bodies don ’ t float .
“ They ” can jump higher , thanks to an extra muscle in their legs .
The imagined Black body has a smaller brain , a bigger butt , a longer penis , saltier blood , wider feet , thicker skin , extra genes for aggression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To this day , the spirometer , a machine to assess breathing function in asthma treatment , uses different scorings for black and white patients , based on a more than 200-year-old assumption that slaves had a biologically unique lung volume.8 Even now , American medical students are taught that Black people have greater muscle mass than whites .
This is a fiction that dates to the days of slavery , yet it informs how kidney disease is treated today , for creatinine levels are used to measure kidney function , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ creatinine in blood .
But rather than assess individual patients ’ muscle mass , most hospitals rely on an algorithm that automatically lowers Black patients ’ scores below the level measured—thus delaying treatment in some instances by making all Black people appear healthier than they might be.9 A test developed and endorsed by the American Heart Association weighs race in determining the risk of heart failure .
The algorithm automatically assigns three extra points to any “ nonblack ” patient ; the higher the score , the greater the likelihood of being referred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no rationale for making race a lesser risk factor for heart disease in some people , and the AHA provides none .
Needless to say , Black and Latinx patients with the same symptoms as their white counterparts end up being referred for specialized care much less often.10 Many dangerously unscientific beliefs about racial difference are baked into present-day pharmaceutical titrations and point-based algorithmic calculations , altering the diagnosis of everything from the incidence of skin cancer to diabetes to the likelihood of developing osteoporosis to tolerance for pain .
Underserviced , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re at death ’ s door with “ sudden ” or “ aggressive ” versions of common diseases .
With endless irony , that is when those neglected bodies may become the exception that proves the rule of “ genetic difference.
” Medical historians like Harriet Washington , Dorothy Roberts , Lundy Braun , Troy Duster , and Evelynn Hammonds have been complaining about such stereotypes and biases for decades , but perhaps it has taken the convergence of Black Lives Matter , a global health crisis , and a diverse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this topic to finally be taken seriously.11 I raise these stereotypes in order to consider the medical consequences of such epistemic foolishness , particularly at a moment when Covid-19 ’ s disparate toll on Black and brown bodies has directed attention to underlying conditions .
Careful observers will point out that underlying conditions are not the same as innate predisposition : There is no known human immunity to this coronavirus .
Our universal susceptibility to it is underscored by the virus being labeled “ novel.
” But it bears repeating that underlying conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asthma , crowded living conditions , and having a risky job are factors directly accounting for greater rates of infection .
This much is not a mystery.12 Attention to the fate of people of color , in particular , is both overdue and double-edged : It highlights inequities but also risks reinforcing them as somehow innate .
If the US rates of infection are wildly off the charts compared with other nations ’ , we do not generally blame it on the innate or underlying conditions of a peculiarly American biology ; we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor policy decisions .
Just so , disproportionate deaths in communities of color must not be attributed to an imagined separateness of Black or Latinx biology .
Yet that is the risk when , as just one example , half of white American medical students believe in medical myths about race.13 Amid a welter of misguided fantasies , we forget at our peril that the traumas and social factors disproportionately affecting people of color are also driving death rates among whites , even if not to the same degree .
Trap white people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public assistance , and they die too.14 The proposal to use race or ethnicity as a marker of vulnerability to Covid-19 does one kind of work in the context of vaccine prioritization .
But how it might intersect with the procedures that govern triage in hospital settings is not yet known .
Recognizing the risks of bias in such emergency circumstances , the Department of Health and Human Services ’ Office for Civil Rights issued a bulletin on March 28 restating a federal commitment to protecting “ the equal dignity of every human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans With Disabilities Act and the Affordable Care Act , people “ should not be denied medical care on the basis of stereotypes , assessments of quality of life , or judgments about a person ’ s relative ‘ worth ’ based on the presence or absence of disabilities or age.
” 15 Discrimination against those with loosely defined disabilities is quite common .
The University of Washington Medical Center , for example , has argued for “ weighing the survival of young otherwise healthy patients more heavily than that of older , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of race as a debilitating , resource-consuming morbidity risk worsens the situation .
Disability rights advocates have been working hard to push these concerns to the front burner , urging Congress to ban triage based on “ anticipated or demonstrated resource-intensity needs , the relative survival probabilities of patients deemed likely to benefit from medical treatment , and assessments of pre- or post-treatment quality of life.
” On July 22 , the advocacy organization Disability Rights Texas filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services against the North Central Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a rigid , point-based , algorithmic scoring system that can automatically exclude from intensive care people with a range of preexisting conditions and disabilities without resort to an individual assessment .
Other states have begun to reexamine their crisis rules in response to such concerns.16 Perceptions of disease and deviance and feelings of disgust have always enabled the timeworn constructions of embodied difference to be carried forward .
When Donald Trump speaks of “ the China virus , ” he not only gives the disease a race and a place ; true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives it distance .
It ’ s over there , not here , well removed from the conceptual possibility of our susceptibility .
If we are afflicted , it is not just the illness that debilitates us but our anger that we have been invaded by “ them.
” 17 It is this form of displaced animus that emerged in spikes of anti-Asian prejudice that arose in the wake of outbreaks of smallpox in San Francisco .
The epidemic was blamed on the residents and culture of Chinatown in the 1800s , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act of 1882 .
Anti-Semitic nativism targeted Jews after bouts of typhus in 1892 .
Mary Mallon , better known as Typhoid Mary , was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever ; her arrest in 1907 on public health charges galvanized anti-Irish sentiment in New York City , depicting them as immigrants importing unsanitary and slovenly habits .
When the AIDS epidemic started in the 1980s in the United States , some people told themselves it was a disease conveniently localized to the bodies of gay men .
And when the Zika virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ riding the waves of climate change , New York City health officials began spraying insecticides by zip code ( focusing on neighborhoods like East Flatbush , Bedford-Stuyvesant , Crown Heights , and Brownsville in Brooklyn , as well as the neighborhood in upper Manhattan once known as Spanish Harlem ) , as though those pesky , identity-politicking insects could simply be redlined.18 Instead of coming together around our shared vulnerability , time and again we have created a set of golems to stand in for the virus , divisive demons that direct our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and leechlike parasitism .
Asians .
Aliens .
Anarchists .
Reporters .
Media .
Social media .
Dr. Anthony Fauci .
California .
Chicago .
“ That woman ” who is the governor of Michigan .
People who wear masks .
People who don ’ t wear masks .
It is not by accident that Trump ’ s targeted rhetoric to white suburban housewives so neatly suture race , riot , and disease as a way to channel the existential fear to which we are all so vulnerable right now : If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of your neighborhood , everything is going to be all right.19 Americans are not raised to believe in the entanglements of a common fate .
The very notion of public health has been undermined by ingrained brands of individualism so radical that even contagious disease is officially regulated by the vocabulary of “ choice , ” “ freedom , ” and “ personal responsibility.
” Many of us live in bubbles of belief that conceptual walls will protect us from things that are not easily walled off : Guns will bring peace , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moms , segregated schools will serve up stable geniuses , and owning an island in the Caribbean will seal us off from child molesters , Mafia dons , and domestic abuse.20 These comforting bromides are akin to naive beliefs that disease invariably marks people ’ s bodies in visible ways .
“ Surely we ’ ll be able to see it coming.
” “ You ’ re fine if don ’ t have a fever.
” “ You can ’ t spread it if you ’ re not coughing.
” “ You won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re asymptomatic.
” Well before this pandemic hit , we Americans were blinded by the walls of our private bunkers .
Yet the sense of entitlement that supposes disaster will strike over there but not in my backyard guarantees an amplification of misdirected resources and relative disparities from which everyone will suffer eventually.21 I don ’ t have an answer for any of this , although I truly wish I could think my way to a happy ending .
So I read and study and reread those statistics about how ethnic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are dying at higher rates .
I am not an epidemiological statistic , yet I have no doubt that my body will be read against that set of abstracted data points .
I—and we all—will be read as the lowest common denominator of our risk profiles at this particular moment .
Not only are we no longer a “ we , ” but I am also no longer an “ I ” in the time of the coronavirus.22 Meanwhile , Covid-19 makes snacks of us .
The fact that there may be variations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exposure or preexisting immunological compromise should not obscure the epidemiological bottom line of its lethality .
Covid-19 kills infants ; it kills teenagers ; it kills centenarians .
It kills rich and poor , Black and white , overworked doctors and buff triathletes , police and prisoners , fathers and mothers , Democrats and Republicans .
We can divide ourselves up into races and castes and neighborhoods and nations all we like , but to the virus—if not , alas , to us—we are one glorious , shimmering , and singular species.23

This article appears in the September 7/14, 2020 issue.
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As of the first week of August, there have been at least 160,000 deaths in the United States from Covid-19. There is data indicating race and ethnicity for approximately 90 percent of these deaths; in age-adjusted numbers analyzed by the American Public Media Research Lab, the widest disparities afflicted Black, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, and Latinx populations. Black mortality rates range from more than twice to almost four times as high as for white people. Among Indigenous people, the rates are as much as three and a half times as high and are two times as high for Latinx people. The death rate for predominantly Black counties is six times that of predominantly white ones.1
It is telling that all racial groups marked as minorities in the United States, including Asians and Pacific Islanders, are more likely than whites to die from Covid. And the true picture may be much worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weights its calculations in ways that omit areas that have few to zero deaths—which, coincidentally, happen to be largely white. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, this weighted counting “understates COVID-19 mortality among Black, Latinx, and Asian individuals and overstates the burden among White individuals.”3
On the basis of these statistics, a federal committee advising the CDC is reportedly considering who should be put at the head of the line upon the release of a vaccine. There is relatively little disagreement that “vital medical and national security officials” (as they were described in a recent New York Times article) would be first, as well as others considered essential workers—however unclearly that’s defined. (Teachers? Poll workers? Grocery store clerks? Housekeepers? Mortuary staffers? Bus drivers?)4
More contentious is whether especially vulnerable populations should be fast-tracked—and in particular whether those identified as Black or Latinx should be prioritized. The controversy centers on the use of race and ethnicity as proxies for all the prejudices and vexed social conditions that render raced bodies as more susceptible to begin with. One may wonder, in other words, why minorities’ disproportionately lower survival rates couldn’t be more accurately attributed to homelessness or dense housing or lack of health insurance or inadequate food supplies or environmental toxins or the ratio of acute care facilities to numbers of residents in the ghettoized locations that have become such petri dishes of contagion.5 unequal Will Covid-19 Be a Turning Point in the Fight Against Racial Disparities in Health Care? Zoë Carpenter
This is not to suggest that the discrimination suffered by Black and Latinx people is simply about class. In a nation shadowed by eugenic intuitions, race is its own risk. American prejudices about color and race are rooted in powerful long-term traditions of anti-miscegenation and untouchability. The propinquity of dark bodies—sometimes merely eye contact—incites anxiety and a fear of social contamination that operates a bit like the bestowing of “cooties” among children. Even to doctors, color can be an unacknowledged source of revulsion if they have grown up in all-white environments; it can operate affectively and aversively, like stigmatizing witchery. One can understand why racially prioritized vaccinations may be attractive to some as an attempted reversal of that acculturated sorcery and its death-enhancing consequence.6 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
There are surely no easy answers to managing scarce resources when dealing with a disease whose tragic boundlessness is still revealing itself. Regardless, I am convinced it will not end well to build public health architectures that use race or ethnicity to signify innate vulnerability—or, for that matter, invulnerability. There is already global panic about which of us will live or die. One might anticipate vaccine eligibility by race turning into an unseemly competition over blood. How, precisely, would race or ethnicity even be determined? By how you look? Who you grew up with? Your name? Your neighborhood? Would the whole thing end up being an economic boondoggle for sketchy DNA testing companies?7
There are so many absurd assumptions about embodied racial difference abroad in our land. “They” can’t swim because their bodies don’t float. “They” can jump higher, thanks to an extra muscle in their legs. The imagined Black body has a smaller brain, a bigger butt, a longer penis, saltier blood, wider feet, thicker skin, extra genes for aggression. Nor is this just ancient history. To this day, the spirometer, a machine to assess breathing function in asthma treatment, uses different scorings for black and white patients, based on a more than 200-year-old assumption that slaves had a biologically unique lung volume.8 Current Issue View our current issue
Even now, American medical students are taught that Black people have greater muscle mass than whites. This is a fiction that dates to the days of slavery, yet it informs how kidney disease is treated today, for creatinine levels are used to measure kidney function, and greater muscularity can increase the release of creatinine in blood. But rather than assess individual patients’ muscle mass, most hospitals rely on an algorithm that automatically lowers Black patients’ scores below the level measured—thus delaying treatment in some instances by making all Black people appear healthier than they might be.9
A test developed and endorsed by the American Heart Association weighs race in determining the risk of heart failure. The algorithm automatically assigns three extra points to any “nonblack” patient; the higher the score, the greater the likelihood of being referred to a cardiology unit. Yet there is no rationale for making race a lesser risk factor for heart disease in some people, and the AHA provides none. Needless to say, Black and Latinx patients with the same symptoms as their white counterparts end up being referred for specialized care much less often.10
Many dangerously unscientific beliefs about racial difference are baked into present-day pharmaceutical titrations and point-based algorithmic calculations, altering the diagnosis of everything from the incidence of skin cancer to diabetes to the likelihood of developing osteoporosis to tolerance for pain. Underserviced, too many Black patients go unnoticed till they’re at death’s door with “sudden” or “aggressive” versions of common diseases. With endless irony, that is when those neglected bodies may become the exception that proves the rule of “genetic difference.” Medical historians like Harriet Washington, Dorothy Roberts, Lundy Braun, Troy Duster, and Evelynn Hammonds have been complaining about such stereotypes and biases for decades, but perhaps it has taken the convergence of Black Lives Matter, a global health crisis, and a diverse new generation of outspoken medical professionals for this topic to finally be taken seriously.11
I raise these stereotypes in order to consider the medical consequences of such epistemic foolishness, particularly at a moment when Covid-19’s disparate toll on Black and brown bodies has directed attention to underlying conditions. Careful observers will point out that underlying conditions are not the same as innate predisposition: There is no known human immunity to this coronavirus. Our universal susceptibility to it is underscored by the virus being labeled “novel.” But it bears repeating that underlying conditions like stress, age, diabetes, asthma, crowded living conditions, and having a risky job are factors directly accounting for greater rates of infection. This much is not a mystery.12
Attention to the fate of people of color, in particular, is both overdue and double-edged: It highlights inequities but also risks reinforcing them as somehow innate. If the US rates of infection are wildly off the charts compared with other nations’, we do not generally blame it on the innate or underlying conditions of a peculiarly American biology; we know these numbers are the product of poor policy decisions. Just so, disproportionate deaths in communities of color must not be attributed to an imagined separateness of Black or Latinx biology. Yet that is the risk when, as just one example, half of white American medical students believe in medical myths about race.13
Amid a welter of misguided fantasies, we forget at our peril that the traumas and social factors disproportionately affecting people of color are also driving death rates among whites, even if not to the same degree. Trap white people in crowded, poisoned contexts devoid of public assistance, and they die too.14
The proposal to use race or ethnicity as a marker of vulnerability to Covid-19 does one kind of work in the context of vaccine prioritization. But how it might intersect with the procedures that govern triage in hospital settings is not yet known. Recognizing the risks of bias in such emergency circumstances, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights issued a bulletin on March 28 restating a federal commitment to protecting “the equal dignity of every human life from ruthless utilitarianism.” Under the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Affordable Care Act, people “should not be denied medical care on the basis of stereotypes, assessments of quality of life, or judgments about a person’s relative ‘worth’ based on the presence or absence of disabilities or age.”15
The vulnerable and the dead: Protester Alice Gaskins joins a memorial procession for essential workers who have suffered or died from Covid-19. (Misha Friedman / Getty Images)
Discrimination against those with loosely defined disabilities is quite common. The University of Washington Medical Center, for example, has argued for “weighing the survival of young otherwise healthy patients more heavily than that of older, chronically debilitated patients.” The reconfigured overlay of race as a debilitating, resource-consuming morbidity risk worsens the situation. Disability rights advocates have been working hard to push these concerns to the front burner, urging Congress to ban triage based on “anticipated or demonstrated resource-intensity needs, the relative survival probabilities of patients deemed likely to benefit from medical treatment, and assessments of pre- or post-treatment quality of life.” On July 22, the advocacy organization Disability Rights Texas filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services against the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council for its use of a rigid, point-based, algorithmic scoring system that can automatically exclude from intensive care people with a range of preexisting conditions and disabilities without resort to an individual assessment. Other states have begun to reexamine their crisis rules in response to such concerns.16
Perceptions of disease and deviance and feelings of disgust have always enabled the timeworn constructions of embodied difference to be carried forward. When Donald Trump speaks of “the China virus,” he not only gives the disease a race and a place; true to his outsize colonial imagination, he gives it distance. It’s over there, not here, well removed from the conceptual possibility of our susceptibility. If we are afflicted, it is not just the illness that debilitates us but our anger that we have been invaded by “them.”17
It is this form of displaced animus that emerged in spikes of anti-Asian prejudice that arose in the wake of outbreaks of smallpox in San Francisco. The epidemic was blamed on the residents and culture of Chinatown in the 1800s, a pattern that culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Anti-Semitic nativism targeted Jews after bouts of typhus in 1892. Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever; her arrest in 1907 on public health charges galvanized anti-Irish sentiment in New York City, depicting them as immigrants importing unsanitary and slovenly habits. When the AIDS epidemic started in the 1980s in the United States, some people told themselves it was a disease conveniently localized to the bodies of gay men. And when the Zika virus was carried from equatorial regions by mosquitoes riding the waves of climate change, New York City health officials began spraying insecticides by zip code (focusing on neighborhoods like East Flatbush, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and Brownsville in Brooklyn, as well as the neighborhood in upper Manhattan once known as Spanish Harlem), as though those pesky, identity-politicking insects could simply be redlined.18
Instead of coming together around our shared vulnerability, time and again we have created a set of golems to stand in for the virus, divisive demons that direct our fears of inherent virulence, murderous voraciousness, and leechlike parasitism. Asians. Aliens. Anarchists. Reporters. Media. Social media. Dr. Anthony Fauci. California. Chicago. “That woman” who is the governor of Michigan. People who wear masks. People who don’t wear masks. It is not by accident that Trump’s targeted rhetoric to white suburban housewives so neatly suture race, riot, and disease as a way to channel the existential fear to which we are all so vulnerable right now: If you can keep “them” out of your neighborhood, everything is going to be all right.19
Americans are not raised to believe in the entanglements of a common fate. The very notion of public health has been undermined by ingrained brands of individualism so radical that even contagious disease is officially regulated by the vocabulary of “choice,” “freedom,” and “personal responsibility.” Many of us live in bubbles of belief that conceptual walls will protect us from things that are not easily walled off: Guns will bring peace, housing discrimination will bring bliss to soccer moms, segregated schools will serve up stable geniuses, and owning an island in the Caribbean will seal us off from child molesters, Mafia dons, and domestic abuse.20
Scientific racism: An illustration from an 1830 book based on a lecture on facial angles by the Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper. In the 18th century, medical science was distorted for the purposes of racial classification.
These comforting bromides are akin to naive beliefs that disease invariably marks people’s bodies in visible ways. “Surely we’ll be able to see it coming.” “You’re fine if don’t have a fever.” “You can’t spread it if you’re not coughing.” “You won’t give it to anyone if you’re asymptomatic.” Well before this pandemic hit, we Americans were blinded by the walls of our private bunkers. Yet the sense of entitlement that supposes disaster will strike over there but not in my backyard guarantees an amplification of misdirected resources and relative disparities from which everyone will suffer eventually.21
I don’t have an answer for any of this, although I truly wish I could think my way to a happy ending. So I read and study and reread those statistics about how ethnic minorities, Black people, Black women are dying at higher rates. I am not an epidemiological statistic, yet I have no doubt that my body will be read against that set of abstracted data points. I—and we all—will be read as the lowest common denominator of our risk profiles at this particular moment. Not only are we no longer a “we,” but I am also no longer an “I” in the time of the coronavirus.22
Meanwhile, Covid-19 makes snacks of us. The fact that there may be variations in death rates based on age or exposure or preexisting immunological compromise should not obscure the epidemiological bottom line of its lethality. Covid-19 kills infants; it kills teenagers; it kills centenarians. It kills rich and poor, Black and white, overworked doctors and buff triathletes, police and prisoners, fathers and mothers, Democrats and Republicans. We can divide ourselves up into races and castes and neighborhoods and nations all we like, but to the virus—if not, alas, to us—we are one glorious, shimmering, and singular species.23