systemic racism

In How to Be An Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi prefers the term “racist policies” instead of “systemic racism” because “systemic” makes the problem (and its causes) seem mysterious and obscures responsibility, while “racist policies” makes clear that the problem is within our control—we can change the policies—and its causes are known: the racists who first instituted the policies.

In Healthcare

Racism is a public health issue

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/

Specifically, this work reveals that a substantial number of white laypeople and medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites and demonstrates that these beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy. It also provides the first evidence that racial bias in pain perception is associated with racial bias in pain treatment recommendations. Taken together, this work provides evidence that false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites continue to shape the way we perceive and treat black people—they are associated with racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment recommendations.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html

Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women

Nutrition is healthcare, and minority neighborhoods are less likely to have access to healthy food than white neighborhoods of similar income:

The link between poverty and food availability has been well-documented since the mid-1990s, but according to new research by Kelly Bower, an assistant professor at the School of Nursing, a neighborhood’s income isn’t the only barrier to obtaining healthy food. When comparing communities with similar poverty rates, she discovered that black and Hispanic neighborhoods have fewer large supermarkets and more small grocery stores than their white counterparts. Bursting with junk-food options, these smaller establishments rarely offer the healthy whole-grain foods, dairy products, or fresh fruits and veggies that a supermarket would provide. When it comes to having healthy food options, says Bower, “the poverty level of a neighborhood certainly matters, but even beyond poverty, the racial composition matters.”

And in 2020, Covid-19 revealed sweeping inequalities about which groups are most likely to both contract and die from the novel coronavirus.

Latino and African-American residents of the United States have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors, according to the new data

This is no biological reason for this, it is purely social. Black and Latinx people are

1. More likely to live in overcrowded housing, due to economic inequality.
2. Work “essential” jobs in service and healthcare which require them to be exposed to others. From the Times: “Across the country, 43 percent of Black and Latino workers are employed in service or production jobs that for the most part cannot be done remotely, census data from 2018 shows. Only about one in four white workers held such jobs.”
3. Take public transportation, also due to economic inequality.
4. Suffer from comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity (due to food deserts, the stress associated with racism, and more.)

And while there is a perception among whites that only the elderly or already-ill die from Covid—a perception which contributes to taking risks which increases the spread—mortality rates among the young are also racially unequal:

Latino people between the ages of 40 and 59 have been infected at five times the rate of white people in the same age group, the new C.D.C. data shows. The differences are even more stark when it comes to deaths: Of Latino people who died, more than a quarter were younger than 60. Among white people who died, only 6 percent were that young.