Virus: Race & reality

They keep saying coronavirus “doesn’t discriminate,” but it does. 

It kills more men than women, it kills more elderly than young, more northerners than southerners, more people with medical issues than healthy people — and disproportionately more nonwhites than whites. 

So you could say COVID-19 is racist.

Instead, during the Good Friday press briefing, Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams was, indirectly, called racist by a PBS reporter.

Here’s what happened: Adams had just concluded a heartfelt explanation of why blacks and Hispanics are at greater risk — because they have greater underlying health issues. Adams is the picture of health, but held up an aspirator he has carried for 40 years because he suffers from asthma.

Talking about his own people, he cautioned them to take special care to avoid alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. It was no different than a diabetic telling other diabetics to avoid sugar. Adams didn’t know he had walked out on the thin ice of racial dynamics.

When he concluded, reporter Yamiche Alcindor pounced.

“I have a quick question for you. You said that African-Americans and Latinos should avoid alcohol, drugs, and tobacco,” Alcindor said. 

“You also said do it for your abuela, do it for big mama, and papa, there are some people online that are already offended by that language,” Alcindor continued. “Do you have a response for people who might be offended?”

My first reaction? There are people online who are offended by Jews, Donald Trump and people who kiss their dogs on the lips. Who cares? 

My second reaction? Boy, that didn’t take long.

Third? A woke woman of color, Alcindor might be hypersensitive to words she believes are racial code.

Cool and calm, Adams, who is African-American did not take the bait of insult. He did not anger, he did not fluster.

Adams said he spoke as he does with his own family members. 

“I have a Puerto Rican brother-in-law. I call my granddaddy, ‘granddaddy.’ I have relatives who call their grandparents, ‘Big Mama.’ So that was not meant to be offensive,” said the surgeon general.

“That is the language we use, and that I use, and we need to continue to target our outreach to those communities,” he said.

“And we need everyone, black, brown, white, whatever color you are, to follow the president’s coronavirus guidelines,” he said.

I thought his was a perfect answer, but I know a few of you are thinking, “What do you know, honky?”

So here’s African-American journalist Jason Riley, who found the question “to be an example of the types of belligerent questions” the administration gets from the press. Adams statement was “commonsensical,” said Riley, who works for the Wall Street Journal.

Statistics show that black and Latino communities are disproportionately impacted by the novel coronavirus. President Trump said he “didn’t like it” and said he wanted government to find the reasons for it.

The reasons have been known for a long time.

Poorer people have worse health than wealthy people because they have worse diet, get worse medical care and often have genetic problems due to generations of poverty. It affects blacks and Hispanics because they are disproportionately represented at the bottom of the economic ladder. It is a real problem, difficult to fix.

I hope no one finds that explanation racist, although I am sure some will.