The USA's insane desire to interject race in to just about anything is a fun little game. Whenever a story starts to become an issue that you know will be in the media for a while I like to make an "over / under" bet with a couple of friends of how many days it will take before someone in the media links whatever it is they happen to be talking about to racism. I would imagine if the murder hornet story had any sort of follow up - I am sure the media could have made it a racial issue as well.
This isn't the first time this silly correlation has been brought up in the media but it is hanging on by a thread. The Covid-19 virus disproportionately affects African Americans because: racism.
It hasn't been turned into a lawsuit just yet but you can go ahead and bet the farm that it will be. The question is who are they going to sue? A group of people in Mississippi who had some family members die from Covid-19 are claiming that they had poor access to testing because of the fact they were black and not wealthy. It doesn't really seem to matter than during the time period they were referring to pretty much everyone had difficulty accessing testing in the United States.
Cassandra Rollins is the mother of Shalondra Rollins, who recently died WITH Covid-19. While the ABC news story does in-fact put this information in the article (well done ABC!) it is buried in the middle of an 800 or so word article. That "hidden information" is that Shalondra Rollins was extremely overweight, and had a wide array of health issues including diabetes and asthma.
The article also does everything it possibly can to basically accuse Mississippi government, and its citizens of being racist. Mostly, it is a piece that attempts to paint the state's governor Tate Reeves, who just so happens to be a Republican and a white person, as being a racist without directly saying so.
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He also just so happens to be a vocal supporter of you know who
I would say that there is a very good chance that the African American population in Mississippi, who are primarily not very wealthy, would have less access to medical care. However, this has everything to do with a lack of finances and would apply to anyone who is poor, anywhere in the world.
Whether or not the USA should have universal health care is a different matter entirely, and not one that I am attempting to address in this post: I am merely saying that I find it detrimental to the cause to attempt to paint really anything as racist - when the media does this, it detracts from actual racism that may exist because people get tired of hearing how it seems almost anything can be considered racist.
This article by ABC is categorized as "dumb" by me for two reasons: It is trying to interject race into a situation about a virus which doesn't care what color your skin is...and also because it is a not-so-well-disguised hit piece an a Republican governor masquerading as a medical story.
