Ep. 202 - Seven reasons why African Americans are at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus

Mar 25, 2020

Experts believe that within the next 10 days, the United States -- not China, Italy, or Spain -- will have the most cases of Covid-19 worldwide. On today's episode, Shaun breaks down seven reasons why African Americans are actually at a much higher risk of contracting the coronavirus as it spreads across the country.

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last month as news of the coronavirus started to spread so many people on my social media timelines were saying that it looked like black folks couldn't get it it's a foolish conclusion I know but at the time the epicenters of the virus were almost exclusively among white and Asian countries and communities now experts believe that the United States not China or Italy or Spain will have the most cases worldwide

a wide in about ten days as it spreads across the country I want to share with you today 7 reasons why African-Americans are actually at a much higher risk of Contracting the coronavirus also have a really funny clip to play for you and today we want to keep on pushing for woman crush Wednesday this is Shaun King you were listening to the breakdown

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before we begin today's full episode I have to play this clip for you that I just saw on social media it's of a woman talking about her experience at the grocery store just listen until until she's finished it's it's funny and not funny and serious and funny at the same time and that's kind of how humor has to be during the age of the coronavirus where things are super serious and often really depressing but you have to have a light-hearted moment every now

in let me play this clip for you we're going to play the whole thing and I just wasn't expecting it to go where it eventually went at the end it would go

but I just thought I'd let you all know I went to Mariano's today minding my own business and there were these women in line and I had a cart and I asked excuse me and because she was standing so close to everybody I did this she proceeded to yell at me and tell me I was crazy what was wrong with me this is not a pandemic this is a political hoax and of course she got myself side polish

and her up which I should have just kept on walking and I said well if you're not afraid then why don't you volunteer and go to China and take care of people God damn it why don't you bitch and I said well I would except I have no money well at that point I had to walk away because I thought about my daughter

working at hospitals trying to save lives with this pandemic and I thought you know this woman has no idea that I'm almost 75 but I'm from Chicago and I will gladly tap her on the shoulder and asked her to step outside and proceeded to kick her bleach blonde 50 year old ass that's all I got to say God bless take care of yourself is is a pandemic be careful I love you all bye you know all over the

internet we continue to have just horrible misinformation and disinformation just bad info out there about the impact of the coronavirus and I think we are just now getting to a place where a lot of people are starting to take it seriously and now that we're in that place we now see a whole wing of conservative America say now F that it's time to get back to work it's not even real just if you're old quarantine yourself everybody

buddy else get back to work listen that's bad information and I need us to all understand that the impact of the coronavirus of course is very real all over the world it's continuing to spread people are continuing to die from it every single day I just saw Carl Anthony towns whose the power forward for the Minnesota Timberwolves I've been following his career since he played for UK I'm from Lexington where UK is

and his mother contracted the coronavirus was very very sick now she is fighting to survive she's in critical condition and I see you on a respirator we just saw in Brooklyn where my family and I live a 36-year old principal who was healthy a black woman super healthy died from the effects of the coronavirus listen this is real and today I want to unpack and

plain and listen if you're listening to the podcast and you're not black don't think that this is not for you want you to understand how communities of color are impacted by this how the people around you are impacted by this this is for everybody yes I want to share this information particularly for black communities and black folk and black families but I want you to all here how a virus like this can actually

impact some people in ways that are very different than it impacts other groups I have seven reasons why African-Americans are actually at a higher risk of Contracting the coronavirus and I'm going to share those with you today number one it's because the virus appears to spread quickly and crowded cities and I've seen this with my own eyes in my home borough of Brooklyn and in New York City as a whole new York City simply

was not built for social distancing it's nearly impossible to practice it safely in New York we live close together we shop very close together and we have nearly 9 million residents African Americans continue to live in the most densely populated cities across the country even in smaller to mid-range City's African Americans are often one of the largest populations of the more crowded City Centre and I'm thinking even

of my family who's from Lexington even though Lexington is basically really spread out in the city it can be super crowded and in the city in the Central City or the inner city African Americans live in those spaces here's the second reason why the coronavirus can hit black communities harder than others African-Americans are one of the least likely ethnic groups to be able to work from home

all over the country as people are ordered to isolate themselves and work from home millions of African-Americans work in professions where this simply is not possible we work in restaurants we work at grocery stores we dominate the staffs of hospitals from the security guard at the front desk to the cleaning crews to the nursing staff

we're sanitary workers we are post office workers UPS and FedEx workers where the cashiers with a food delivery workers wear to Uber and Lyft drivers and if we don't keep working our bills don't get paid and our families don't eat so as everybody is told to go home and isolate themselves a disproportionate number of African Americans just don't have that luxury because their jobs require them

them to be on the front lines here's the third reason why the coronavirus could disproportionately impact black communities African Americans working in many of the jobs that I just talked about are also one of the least likely ethnic groups to have paid sick leave for themselves or paid sick leave for family members and as a consequence folk have to go to work sick every single day because they don't have paid sick leave

and it's dangerous yes it's dangerous would people know that they're going to lose their jobs or they're not going to be able to pay their bills if they don't show up to work this is why listen to me this is why we have to advocate for a universal paid sick leave policy a national policy where every place of employment provides a mandatory number of paid sick leave days every single year it's out

outrageous that we don't have it in the United States is one of the only nations in the world not to have it here's the fourth reason African Americans are one of the most uninsured and underinsured ethnic groups Nationwide because of this Focus slow to go to the doctor and some people just downright don't go to the doctor at all they can't afford it and have often gone years at a time without ever visiting a doctor it's normal in

communities particularly with black men that have black men who have not seen a doctor in years and years of course during the coronavirus pandemic that is this is catastrophic because people will often have symptoms and go weeks before they're tested leaving themselves in much worse shape as a result

this is not just true of the coronavirus but if you don't have health insurance or you have a horrible policy with outrageous co-pays and deductibles and you opted not to go to the doctor for a respiratory problem or a sinus infection or strep throat all of those health problems would only make the coronavirus worse for you and worse for those around you this is why we have to fight for Universal Health Care and a plan like Medicare

all and I hate to sound like a broken record but this is what the rest of the developed World already has alright have just a few more that I have to share with you and I just want to dispel the the misinformation because Black Folk not only can we get the coronavirus but our communities our families our churches are religious groups and organizations we are all very much impacted by

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number 5

doctors in America routinely under-diagnosed African Americans and fail to take health concerns from African-Americans as seriously as they do for Whiteville this isn't my hunch this isn't a conspiracy theory study after study has shown that medical needs the medical needs that concerns the request and reports of African-Americans are routinely just not taken as seriously as they should be it's

testing but it's true and it's been true for generations and it creates a dangerous cycle of African-Americans not feeling like we can trust doctors then going less as a result which only compounds the underlying problems in the first place we see this we've seen it in my own family we have friends and other family members who've also said over and over again that doctors aren't taking their concerns seriously

ously and it's a crisis in this country number 6

African Americans pre and post coronavirus have one of the highest unemployment rates Nationwide again this unemployment creates a vicious cycle because the United States is the only developed nation in the world that ties your health insurance to where you work meaning that you lose your health insurance when you lose your job you can directly tie unemployment to a myriad of poor health

outcomes unemployment will also mean a complete inability to buy things like masks gloves disinfectants and all of the things that we're told that we need to have to protect ourselves but if you're unemployed you are struggling to pay your bills you are struggling to buy food you're struggling to get your prescription drugs and likely just don't have a way to get all of these extra things that we're not

now told we have to have to protect ourselves unemployment will also mean a complete inability to buy these things that we need again and I have to say it this is why we have to have universal healthcare that's not tied to employment no other nation in the world ties health care or health insurance to the job that you do or do not have

all right listen I have one more thing and this is important that I'll probably do an entire episode on this we've talked some about it but it's getting worse and worse by the day number 7 as we're seeing right now at Rikers Correctional Facility in New York jails and prisons are sitting ducks for the coronavirus viruses and bacterial infections always spread like wildfire and prisons for so many horrible reasons and

it's because everybody is forced to live work bathe and eat and use the toilet in close proximity to one another the very architectural designs of jails and prisons make avoiding close contact virtually impossible beyond that the medical care offered to incarcerated people is some of the worst in the world

furthermore African Americans are not just incarcerated more than other ethnic groups we also serve in so many of the staff capacities in the same facilities listen the truth is I could have made a list of dozens and dozens of reasons why African Americans are at high risk of Contracting the coronavirus but it goes back to the old saying and and if you're black you've probably heard this before if not maybe

I'm saying something to you for the very first time we say in our culture when white folks knees Black Folk get the flu when white folks knees Black Folk get the flu and all we're saying is whatever white folk experience in this country it almost universally hits African-Americans twice as hard sometimes even harder so when white folk have 5% unemployment best believe it's going to be 10 or 15 percent for African-Americans if

white folk have 20% unemployment it's going to be 40 percent for African-Americans whatever the symptoms of a problem are that white people have in this country for so many reasons Black Folk will feel it and it will hit black communities so much harder listen I've got to run we have so many things that were working on and some big surprises that I hope to share with you soon I want you when you can to go to our Instagram account

at Northstar media let me let me make sure I have that right let me make sure hold on one second just stay right here with me and let me make sure I have that right

Willis you don't even have to edit this out I'm doing this in real time okay no no no at the North Star media at the North Star media and today and every Wednesday we know at least for every Wednesday this month but I think we'll continue it Beyond this month we're doing woman crush Wednesday and today we're highlighting Sarah Morrow who I know who's a friend of mine she is an amazing immigration rights activist and I just want you to know her

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