[Genuine Realist]

Yes, GR has crusaded for quite some time for his belief that there is no significant racism left in the United States. He feels insulted if there is any attempt to correct for it. He sees the vaccine distribution plan as somehow tied up in that effort.

Any person who thought there was no significant racism left in the US is an idiot, and I don't think I am one. The more relevant question is how you approach the practical problem of how you make the social progress you'd like to make in this society. And there you have some issues, if you're not so wedded to your own hidebound notions of American society from two generations ago. Newsom's easy, erroneous generalization is typical and illustrative.

Background. A century ago, in 1920, race was a fairly easy category for social change. There were segregated schools, racial covenants, laws not often enforced) against interracial marriage, 'passing' , etc. A Black person, no matter how well situated, was restricted in where he or she could live, be educated, etc. But between 1954 and 1980, at the institutional legal level, all that changed. These days the same Black person can live where he or she likes, educate their children where they wish, marry whomever [the percentage of biracial marriages continues to rise], etc. A person looking for statutory reform is likely to be frustrated. It's all been done. Hence the discussions these days of 'systemic racism', the most defining characteristic of which is its vagueness.

So where does racism persist? In the cultural baggage which inflicts the community, and to some extent the Hispanic community - lowered expectations, poorer educational prospects, and so on. A disproportionate number of African-Americans and Hispanics are impoverished and working in lower paying jobs, living in poorer communities, etc. But there are no formal barriers. Win the genetic lottery, with superior intellectual or athletic ability, or the actual lottery, and you can move away, and live where you like.

But the tendency to characterize problems in racial categories persists. Bringing this back to Covid, you read over and over that the virus hits minorities hardest. But why? It's an airborne virus that seems to infect without any specificity based on race. There is no genetic predisposition to be infected. (Spare me the analogy to sickle cell anemia.) Wealth doesn't particularly help - there was a super spreader event in the Rose Garden. It's not related to sanitation like cholera (and the suggestion itself is mildly offensive.) To the extent that there is greater impact, it can only be because of lifestyle (which is also offensive, so will be disregarded) and occupational hazard.

So prioritize the occupational hazard. To the extent that the distribution occupations are disproportionately filled by ethnic minorities, you will do your racial remediation automatically - it's built into the formula. But you will not outrage Caucasian workers in the same occupation who take the same risks and presumably have the same higher incidence rate (no one is measuring that), and who are as deserving as their fellow risk-takers.

This in microcosm is what ails the Democratic Party. The wealth initiatives that I would love to see enacted depend on a Big Tent, because the plutocracy is infinitely resourceful and neither of the major parties responsive. But when you examine the social frustrations that arise out of the wealth gap - the endangered middle class, the vanishing economic frontier - and focus only on the racial identity of one group, you infuriate the other. Then, because they know you don't give a damn, they enter the voting booth and vote for Trump.

The classic Nineteenth Century mechanism of the Southern aristocracy for maintaining power was to set have-not Whites against have-not Blacks on a racial basis, when their actual problems were far more alike than different. You may not recognize the same strategy in play in contemporary politics. I see it very clearly. It is strikingly evident in Newsom's naively cynical formula.

[Genuine Realist]

Yes, GR has crusaded for quite some time for his belief that there is no significant racism left in the United States. He feels insulted if there is any attempt to correct for it. He sees the vaccine distribution plan as somehow tied up in that effort.

Any person who thought there was no significant racism left in the US is an idiot, and I don't think I am one. The more relevant question is how you approach the practical problem of how you make the social progress you'd like to make in this society. And there you have some issues, if you're not so wedded to your own hidebound notions of American society from two generations ago. Newsom's easy, erroneous generalization is typical and illustrative.

Background. A century ago, in 1920, race was a fairly easy category for social change. There were segregated schools, racial covenants, laws not often enforced) against interracial marriage, 'passing' , etc. A Black person, no matter how well situated, was restricted in where he or she could live, be educated, etc. But between 1954 and 1980, at the institutional legal level, all that changed. These days the same Black person can live where he or she likes, educate their children where they wish, marry whomever [the percentage of biracial marriages continues to rise], etc. A person looking for statutory reform is likely to be frustrated. It's all been done. Hence the discussions these days of 'systemic racism', the most defining characteristic of which is its vagueness.

So where does racism persist? In the cultural baggage which inflicts the community, and to some extent the Hispanic community - lowered expectations, poorer educational prospects, and so on. A disproportionate number of African-Americans and Hispanics are impoverished and working in lower paying jobs, living in poorer communities, etc. But there are no formal barriers. Win the genetic lottery, with superior intellectual or athletic ability, or the actual lottery, and you can move away, and live where you like.

But the tendency to characterize problems in racial categories persists. Bringing this back to Covid, you read over and over that the virus hits minorities hardest. But why? It's an airborne virus that seems to infect without any specificity based on race. There is no genetic predisposition to be infected. (Spare me the analogy to sickle cell anemia.) Wealth doesn't particularly help - there was a super spreader event in the Rose Garden. It's not related to sanitation like cholera (and the suggestion itself is mildly offensive.) To the extent that there is greater impact, it can only be because of lifestyle (which is also offensive, so will be disregarded) and occupational hazard.

So prioritize the occupational hazard. To the extent that the distribution occupations are disproportionately filled by ethnic minorities, you will do your racial remediation automatically - it's built into the formula. But you will not outrage Caucasian workers in the same occupation who take the same risks and presumably have the same higher incidence rate (no one is measuring that), and who are as deserving as their fellow risk-takers.

This in microcosm is what ails the Democratic Party. The wealth initiatives that I would love to see enacted depend on a Big Tent, because the plutocracy is infinitely resourceful and neither of the major parties responsive. But when you examine the social frustrations that arise out of the wealth gap - the endangered middle class, the vanishing economic frontier - and focus only on the racial identity of one group, you infuriate the other. Then, because they know you don't give a damn, they enter the voting booth and vote for Trump.

The classic Nineteenth Century mechanism of the Southern aristocracy for maintaining power was to set have-not Whites against have-not Blacks on a racial basis, when their actual problems were far more alike than different. You may not recognize the same strategy in play in contemporary politics. I see it very clearly. It is strikingly evident in Newsom's naively cynical formula.