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It's like Democrats are trying to get their asses handed to them in the midterms.

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Another fine piece, Zaid. Poor and working-class whites are, or should be, the natural allies of people of color. But progressives, well-meaning progressives, often come up with ideas that almost immediately pit the two groups against each other. Is this just rich white liberal guilt? Are the people who make these kinds of decisions oblivious to the trend among working class white voters? Which is rightward? It is, as you point out, not only immoral but really dumb from a political perspective, to give Covid medicines or treatments based on skin color. Maybe, in addition to the criteria you cite, income level would be another way to distribute these medications. It's true that there is a much higher level of poverty among African Americans than whites, but there are plenty of poor white people, and blanket policies like the one you criticize here fail to take into account that poor white people and poor black people have a lot in common--including poor health. Pitting them against each other--which benefits some politicians--is a trap progressives should avoid. Thank you for this.

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This argument ignores the importance of social factors in targeting attention and treatment.

Those who work with older adults need to target widowed white men in order to prevent suicides. Widowed white men age 80 and over have extremely high suicide rates. Health workers need to ask if there is a gun in the home as this is by far the prefered method.

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If race was the only factor being used, all your examples make sense and I agree that race should not be the determinative factor in providing any form of health care. Where we disagree is the implications of your comments that race is not a factor in predicting access to health care. Including race as "A" factor in access to health care increases equitable access to health care because race is a risk factor, among others.

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It would be interesting to know who had the final authority at the department level to approve that wording. I'm picturing a 45 year old white person who got into an Ivy League school as a legacy, knew all the right people and fell into a job making $400K a year doing basically nothing. Now he or she isn't that smart or determined, and just finds it so much easier to go along with selling out white middle class people than it would be to argue against the racist wording and potentially risk his or her privileged position in the world. It's so ironic because that person can pretend like they're opposing 'white privilege' while doing everything they can to preserve their own incredible elite privilege. It's just white elites selling out the white middle class. How gross.

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