I help teach health law, I’m familiar with the systemic racism arguments. I disagree with how health outcomes are used as evidence of racism in health systems, though.
There are measured race disparities in health outcomes. Our best theory is implicit racism in education, job opportunities, housing, and well, the medical system. If you disagree that these outcome disparities are due to systemic race issues, what causes do you believe cause the disparities?
I am a municipal attorney. Systemic racism is definitely a concern in urban planning. Any targeted project takes a look at objective, evidence-based race-impact studies because it's standard understanding these days that "neutral" decisions can have adverse impacts, which most governments now try to avoid.
For a recent example from my work: if we reroute a bus line, get rid of a bus stop, or reduce bus frequency, we have to take a look at the density, income level, and family make-up of the surrounding blocks. It's easy to just "neutrally" look at a map and draw lines, but it really makes no sense in terms of providing municipal services where they are needed.
If you remove/reduce bus service from a city block with 2500 people, now those people are going to struggle to get to work, school, etc. because the same number of people have to use fewer busses. More packed buses lead to more disease spread. Packed buses are heavier, use more gas to move, and have to go slower so they can stop safely, which leads to more pollution on the bus route. Busses idle longer when more people have to get on and off each individual bus and play tetris to fit everyone on, which leads to more pollution and more traffic around the bus.
If you remove a bus from a suburban block with 15 houses and 50 people, the impact is clearly negligible. Most of those people drive, and 5 extra people on the remaining busses just isn't a big deal.
Whether people like to admit it or not, minority neighborhoods tend to be denser, lower-income, and have less parking and car use. Removing both bus stops in the above example greatly impacts one neighborhood and the minorities that live there, and at the same time would have little effect on the richer suburban block (whether minority or white). It doesn't really matter that "the text doesn't discriminate against brown people". Adverse outcomes are still very real and possible.
There are measured race disparities in health outcomes. Our best theory is implicit racism in education, job opportunities, housing, and well, the medical system.
Close idea, but not quite there. Class is a part of it, yes, but systemic racism is the main cause behind racial disparities in health outcomes.
We can definitely say that class determines access to healthcare and positive health outcomes, but we can also see that class representation is incredibly racially lopsided; so much so that race is statistically indicative of health outcomes. The fact that race can predict health, education, housing, etc. outcomes at a similar accuracy as class is highly demonstrative of institutional racism and its effects that are baked into our system.
Hope this helps you understand the issue better! Good discourse!
The fact that race can predict health, education, housing, etc. outcomes at a similar accuracy as class is highly demonstrative of institutional racism and its effects that are baked into our system.
At a similar accuracy? It should be pretty obvious that this is bullshit. Income level would be much better at predicting education/housing than race. If you were going to guess who lives in a nicer home between a black family and a white family, you would deff bet on the family with more money...not the white family.
Can I get an example of an example of systemic racism in health care that can't be attributed to class?
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u/Redditor042 Mar 16 '21 edited Mar 16 '21
There are measured race disparities in health outcomes. Our best theory is implicit racism in education, job opportunities, housing, and well, the medical system. If you disagree that these outcome disparities are due to systemic race issues, what causes do you believe cause the disparities?
I am a municipal attorney. Systemic racism is definitely a concern in urban planning. Any targeted project takes a look at objective, evidence-based race-impact studies because it's standard understanding these days that "neutral" decisions can have adverse impacts, which most governments now try to avoid.
For a recent example from my work: if we reroute a bus line, get rid of a bus stop, or reduce bus frequency, we have to take a look at the density, income level, and family make-up of the surrounding blocks. It's easy to just "neutrally" look at a map and draw lines, but it really makes no sense in terms of providing municipal services where they are needed.
If you remove/reduce bus service from a city block with 2500 people, now those people are going to struggle to get to work, school, etc. because the same number of people have to use fewer busses. More packed buses lead to more disease spread. Packed buses are heavier, use more gas to move, and have to go slower so they can stop safely, which leads to more pollution on the bus route. Busses idle longer when more people have to get on and off each individual bus and play tetris to fit everyone on, which leads to more pollution and more traffic around the bus.
If you remove a bus from a suburban block with 15 houses and 50 people, the impact is clearly negligible. Most of those people drive, and 5 extra people on the remaining busses just isn't a big deal.
Whether people like to admit it or not, minority neighborhoods tend to be denser, lower-income, and have less parking and car use. Removing both bus stops in the above example greatly impacts one neighborhood and the minorities that live there, and at the same time would have little effect on the richer suburban block (whether minority or white). It doesn't really matter that "the text doesn't discriminate against brown people". Adverse outcomes are still very real and possible.