https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/18/health/monkeypox-race-deconstructed-newsletter-reaj/index.html
The linked article above was written by Brandon Tensley, an Oxford-educated black man, originally from South Carolina, who writes CNN’s “Race Deconstructed” weekly newsletter.
In addressing the question of who is likely to become infected by monkeypox, Tensley first offers some recent statistics:
“Anyone can get the virus, yes, but the CDC analysis shows that 94% of cases were among men who had recent sexual or close intimate contact with another man. Further, 54% of cases were among Black Americans and Latinos.”
Tensley then quotes Melanie Thompson, a white “Atlanta-based HIV physician and researcher,” who claims that “There isn’t any sort of racial predilection to monkeypox…It has to do with structural racism and the nature of communities and cultural practices.”
That raises the question in my mind: What, if anything, has “structural racism” got to do with who gets monkeypox?
The article attempts to explain it as follows:
Dr. Thompson “said that Georgia, for instance, is still very segregated along lines of race and sexuality.
“‘This means that people who are Black are likely to have sexual partners who also are Black,’ Thompson explained. ‘And because they’re a smaller proportion of the population, there’s a higher likelihood of coming into contact with the virus.’”
Maybe that explanation makes sense to you, but I don’t get it. And what, according to Thompson, is the basis for claiming a connection between monkeypox and “structural racism”? Is it that “Blacks are likely to have sexual partners who also are Black”? If whites are likely to have white sex partners, is that even more evidence of “structural racism”?
I’m beginning to think that “structural racism” has become an all-purpose explanatory principle for any differences between whites and blacks in which the aggregate numbers are less favorable to blacks. But does it really exist? If so, is it really everywhere and part of everything? And is the CDC-verified statistic that 54% of monkeypox cases occur “among Black Americans and Latinos” prima facie evidence of “structural racism”? of discrimination? Does it constitute a justified indictment of American society?
In the 18th and 19th centuries, various pseudo-scientific theories gained widespread popularity. Millions gave credence to concepts such as “the vapors,” “aether,” and – my favorite – “phlogiston.” Perhaps “structural racism” – invisible to the naked eye, of debatable validity, yet believed in by many – is more akin to phlogiston than it is to any natural science or social science phenomenon that can be objectively measured.