I shared a graphic on IG pointing out that the mortality rate for Black USians who contract COVID-19 is higher than white people.

Someone replied saying this was due to socioeconomic factors.

That is almost certainly inaccurate.

Here’s why.

We have decades of data which consistently shows poor whites have better health outcomes than Black people of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Not only do poor whites have better outcomes than poor Black folk, they consistently have better health outcomes than affluent Black folks

This isn’t accidental.

Researchers discovered that the immense trauma of surviving the Holocaust permanently altered DNA.

We now know that trauma experienced by young girls changes the DNA of their children, born decades later.

Factor in slavery + Jim Crow for Black USians.

This was not merely the trauma of being called the n word by your boss every day. Or knowing someone who had been branded and dismembered by a lynch mob of your white neighbors.

It was also being denied medical care and needing to go to the local veteranian to have surgery.

The US government came in razed black communities to build the interstate system. Local governments then relegated Black families to the wrong side of the interstate. Police wouldn’t solve crimes committed in Black neighborhoods if they showed up at all. (Still don’t, fun fact!)