“Black Lawmakers Say Virus Requests Unanswered in Texas,” was an AP headline on 7 June. It was a rewrite of a big Dallas Morning News story all about how frustrated are some legislators in not having “a more accurate count of the disease’s impact on black and brown Texans and increased testing in highly affected black and brown neighborhoods.”
Then on Monday “Governor Abbott announced that the Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating with local officials, public health officials, and emergency management offices in cities across the state to identify and rapidly expand COVID-19 testing in underserved and minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the virus.”
“As of Friday, the state had still not received the race or ethnicity of 79% of the cases reported to the state and 63% of the reported deaths. “We have been asking — myself, my colleagues and people of color — have been asking the government with no answers,” state Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, told the newspaper. “It’s like we don’t exist,” AP reported.
Being “like we don’t exist” would be not including minority deaths in the count as if they were not human, something that shamefully has been done in history, but that is not the case here. Minority cases and deaths have been treated as the same as any non-minority which I stupidly thought was the idea of having a colorblind society.
Keeping accurate statistics about the virus is important but, why look at it through the eyes of race and ethnicity? Why the desire to make a case that a virus is hurting your “community” worse than any other? The virus doesn’t care.
Some work to make the WuFlu into a racial grievance issue
Then on Monday “Governor Abbott announced that the Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating with local officials, public health officials, and emergency management offices in cities across the state to identify and rapidly expand COVID-19 testing in underserved and minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the virus.”
“As of Friday, the state had still not received the race or ethnicity of 79% of the cases reported to the state and 63% of the reported deaths. “We have been asking — myself, my colleagues and people of color — have been asking the government with no answers,” state Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, told the newspaper. “It’s like we don’t exist,” AP reported.
Being “like we don’t exist” would be not including minority deaths in the count as if they were not human, something that shamefully has been done in history, but that is not the case here. Minority cases and deaths have been treated as the same as any non-minority which I stupidly thought was the idea of having a colorblind society.
Keeping accurate statistics about the virus is important but, why look at it through the eyes of race and ethnicity? Why the desire to make a case that a virus is hurting your “community” worse than any other? The virus doesn’t care.