Vox explains:
Housing segregation left Black Americans more vulnerable to Covid-19
Racist WWII housing policy might not sound like it has much to do with the coronavirus. But it does.
One thing hasn’t changed as a new surge of coronavirus cases has swelled across the United States: Black Americans continue to disproportionately get infected by and die from this novel pathogen....
The George Floyd protests forced a difficult conversation about the trade-offs of congregating in large groups during a pandemic and the urgency of fixing structural inequities. But more than a month later, there is little evidence the protests contributed to a significant acceleration of the coronavirus’s spread. The health consequences of US inequality, however, are still being felt by Black (and Hispanic and Native) Americans during the worst pandemic of our lifetimes....
After speaking last month with half a dozen Black scholars, I came to believe the best place to start in understanding how structural racism breeds racial health disparities is residential segregation. Where a person lives has direct health effects and, maybe as importantly, it will situate them for economic success or failure for the rest of their lives — which we also know is an important determinant for health.
… Residential segregation is one of the primary causes of health disparities
Every scholar I spoke with included residential segregation as a primary driver of racial health disparities — taken together, they identified it as maybe the primary driver.
… The culprit for racial housing segregation is what was called “redlining” during the mid-20th century.
When the Democrats get back in, there is going to be a huge push to boost falling urban real estate values by driving poor blacks out of their desirable locations in the cities and into Republican-leaning suburbs, exurbs, and the countryside. These programs of population transfers of poor blacks will be framed as being necessary for the health of blacks and as deserved punishment of racist whites.
