Saturday, May 18

Tag: americans

Why African Americans Need To Take The COVID-19 Vaccine – What’s Not Being Said
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COVID-19

Why African Americans Need To Take The COVID-19 Vaccine – What’s Not Being Said

Dr. Anthony Fauci and other national health leaders have said that African Americans need to take the COVID-19 vaccine to protect their health. What Fauci and others have not stated is that if African Americans don’t take the vaccine, the nation as whole will never get to herd immunity. The concept of herd immunity, also referred to as community immunity, is fairly simple. When a significant proportion of the population, or the herd, becomes immune from the virus, the entire population will have some acceptable degree of protection. Immunity can occur through natural immunity from personal infection and recovery, or through vaccination. Once a population reaches herd immunity, the likelihood of person-to-person spread becomes very low. The big lie is one of omission. Yes, it is true that...
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Here’s What’s Happening In Los Angeles County – Americans Aren’t Getting Enough To Eat During The Pandemic
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Journalism

Here’s What’s Happening In Los Angeles County – Americans Aren’t Getting Enough To Eat During The Pandemic

The number of Americans who can’t get enough food is rising from already troubling levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. About 1 in 10 Americans said in November 2020 that their household sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the previous week, the U.S. Census Bureau found. Food insecurity – what happens when someone doesn’t have enough money for food – is just as bad in Los Angeles County, home to one-quarter of California residents. These roughly 10 million people live primarily in urban areas like the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Hollywood and Compton. The Los Angeles crisis surged the most in April, when 26% of all households – and 39% of low-income households – experienced food insecurity that month. By October, the situation had improved somewhat, with 11% of the county...
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Almost Two-Thirds Of Older Black Americans And Even More Latinos Can’t Afford To Live Alone Without Help
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Journalism

Almost Two-Thirds Of Older Black Americans And Even More Latinos Can’t Afford To Live Alone Without Help

Older Americans who want to live independently face serious economic challenges. Half who live alone don’t have enough income to afford even a bare-bones budget in their home communities, and nearly 1 in 4 couples face the same problem. Those numbers add up to at least 11 million older adults who are struggling to make ends meet, a new analysis shows. The numbers are worse for older people of color. Dramatically higher percentages of Black, Latino and Asian older adults live on incomes that don’t meet their cost of living, even with Social Security. That can mean skipping needed health care, not having enough food, living in unhealthy conditions or having to move in with family. These disparities often reflect lifelong disadvantages that add up as people of color encounter structural ra...
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According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster
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IN OTHER NEWS

According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster

I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated aging on a cellular level. Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health. These findings highlight how stress from racism, pa...
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32 Million Americans With Diverse Political Opinions And National Origins Make-Up ‘The Latino Vote’
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POLITICS

32 Million Americans With Diverse Political Opinions And National Origins Make-Up ‘The Latino Vote’

Pundits are expressing surprise that so many Latinos voted for Donald Trump. But pollsters who specialize in the Latino vote knew for months before the election that Latino support for Biden was soft, with many Latinos – especially in Florida – undecided. In Florida 57% of Latinos ultimately supported Biden, compared to roughly 70% nationwide. These numbers are reliable because they come from exit polls designed to capture Latino political preferences. National exit polls have been mostly wrong about Latino voting patterns since they first began including Latinos in the 1980s. The 60.6 million Americans lumped together under the umbrella term “Latino” are a racially, ethnically and geographically diverse group, as my research on Latino identity shows. And they have equally diverse polit...
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Bias Keeps Americans From Voting For Candidates Of Color And Women
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POLITICS

Bias Keeps Americans From Voting For Candidates Of Color And Women

When Americans vote this fall, the candidates on their ballots will not reflect the diversity of the United States. Despite recent gains, women and people of color still do not run for office as frequently as white men. In part, this is because they face skepticism about their electability. When former Rep. Katie Hill launched her campaign for Congress in 2017, for example, Democrats told her a woman couldn’t win in her California district. In Alabama, meanwhile, when Adia Winfrey was exploring a 2018 run for Congress, a senior party official told her there was “no point” continuing with her nascent campaign. The problem? As a Black candidate, she seemed unelectable. And in Michigan, 2018 congressional candidate Suneel Gupta, an Indian-American, heard similar concerns. As Gupta recount...
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Immigrants And U.S.-Born Hispanics Have Longer Life Expectancies Than Americans – Will The US Obesity Epidemic Change Things?
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Immigrants And U.S.-Born Hispanics Have Longer Life Expectancies Than Americans – Will The US Obesity Epidemic Change Things?

Anti-immigrant sentiments have fueled recent national and state-level health policy efforts. In 2019, Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation that would deny visas to immigrants who could not provide proof of insurance. He argued that they would financially burden the health care system. More recently, Missouri’s August election ballot proposed Medicaid expansion, and opponents warned that it would overwhelm Missouri hospitals with undocumented immigrants, even though they are ineligible for Medicaid benefits. We study immigrant health and population health. Our work suggests that viewing immigrants as a drain on the U.S. health care system is largely unfounded. For decades, research has shown that immigrants tend to be healthier than U.S.-born whites. Immigrants outlive U.S.-born...
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Angry Americans: How political rage helps campaigns but hurts democracy
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POLITICS

Angry Americans: How political rage helps campaigns but hurts democracy

As the 2020 presidential election draws near, one thing is clear: America is an angry nation. From protests over persistent racial injustice to white nationalist-linked counterprotests, anger is on display across the country. The national ire relates to inequality, the government’s coronavirus response, economic concerns, race and policing. It’s also due, in large part, to deliberate and strategic choices made by American politicians to stoke voter anger for their own electoral advantage. Donald Trump’s attempts to enrage his base are so plentiful that progressive magazine The Nation called him a “merchant of anger.” Meanwhile, his opponent, Joe Biden, elicits anger toward the president, calling Trump a “toxic presence” who has “cloaked America in darkness.” Anger-filled political rheto...
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With Kamala Harris, Americans yet again have trouble understanding what multiracial means
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POLITICS

With Kamala Harris, Americans yet again have trouble understanding what multiracial means

News that Sen. Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s choice for the 2020 Democratic vice presidential nominee drove speculation and argumentation about her identity. The big question appeared to be, “Is Kamala Harris truly African American?” There were numerous articles and opinion pieces about whether Harris can legitimately claim to be African American; the authenticity of her Black identity if she has an Indian mother; what it means for her to be biracial; and other articles opining and speculating about her racial, ethnic and even national identity. Harris, the daughter of immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, identifies as Black/African American while also embracing her Indian heritage. Yet the questions in social media and news outlets swirling around her identities demonstrate a conti...
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Why Americans are buying more guns than ever
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Journalism

Why Americans are buying more guns than ever

Americans have been on a record gun-buying spree in recent months. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, the gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates that gun sales from March through July were 8.5 million. This is 94% higher the same period in 2019. Firearms industry consultants estimate July sales alone were 2.0 million units, an increase of 136% over July 2019. These estimates are based on the number of background checks conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The FBI reported that eight of the weeks in this period are in the top 10 highest weeks since the agency began collecting data in 1998. Gun sales typically have seasonal cycles, with more guns being sold in winter months, and increase...
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