The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the country hard and unfortunately it has hurt some portions of the population disproportionately harder than others. The virus has claimed the lives of ethnic minorities at a disproportionate rate, but the reason as to why is subject to multiple explanations, so it was unfortunate that Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. joined MSNBC Live on Friday to attribute everything to "structural racism."
Host Stephanie Ruhle began by asking Glaude, "tell me what this is doing to the African-American community. Small business owners, from a health perspective. People who don't have the liberty to socially distance."
Glaude answered with some horrifying statistics, "Well, the first thing that we need to recognize is that we're dying. We're dying at alarming rates. We're looking at the data as it's coming in because we have to cry for it. We're seeing 70% of the deaths in Milwaukee: African-American. Seventy percent of the deaths in Chicago: African-American. Seventy percent of the deaths in New Orleans: African-American."
Glaude's numbers may have been accurate, but he got into trouble when trying to come up with the reason why, "And we're seeing the disproportionate impact of the burden of this pandemic precisely because of the inequality and the deep structural racism that's defined American society for generations." There are of course, competing health factors such as obesity and diabetes to which Glaude would likely respond that the only way those indicators of "structural racism" can be overcome would be to agree with him and install a single payer health care system.
He continued, "We've barely survived the great recession of 2008. We haven't -- we lost our homes, we lost our jobs, we re-entered the labor market through the gig economy and at the bottom rung. We're barely gotten back on our feet." Of course, Glaude supports politicians who have tried to tear down the gig economy at the behest of labor unions.
While it is perfectly normal to have concerns during a once-in-a-century plague, hyperbole from professors is not helpful as Glaude concluded, "I think the effects of this pandemic will throw us back into the '60s and the '50s in terms of our economic standing. But I'm worried about our psychic and existential state."
Here is a transcript for the April 10 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle
9:45 AM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Eddie, tell me what this is doing to the African-American community. Small business owners, from a health perspective. People who don't have the liberty to socially distance.
EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Well, the first thing that we need to recognize is that we're dying. We're dying at alarming rates. We're looking at the data as it's coming in because we have to cry for it. We're seeing 70% of the deaths in Milwaukee: African-American. Seventy percent of the deaths in Chicago: African-American. Seventy percent of the deaths in New Orleans: African-American. When we look at my own home state, 72% of the death: African-American. In Jackson County, my old home town, six people have died. Five of those six people have been from my town, Moss Point, Mississippi. So we're dying. And we're seeing the disproportionate impact of the burden of this pandemic precisely because of the inequality and the deep structural racism that's defined American society for generations. And you know, Stephanie, we have to put this into context. I've said this earlier, and I close my eyes because I'm trying to think of the devastation. We've barely survived the great recession of 2008. We haven't -- we lost our homes, we lost our jobs, we re-entered the labor market through the gig economy and at the bottom rung. We're barely gotten back on our feet. And now here comes this pandemic. And so we lost a decade, the decade of the '90s because of the great recession of 2008. I'm talking about black America. And I think the effects of this pandemic will throw us back into the '60s and the '50s in terms of our economic standing. But I'm worried about our psychic and existential state—our psychic and existential state. I am. It is -- well, we'll see what happens.
