Podcast host Kmele Foster argued this weekend on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that policies concerning “racial equity” focus too much on “outcomes” rather than opportunity, lending to “great soundbites” that never fix actual problems.
The focus on “racial equity and a focus disproportionately on outcomes is something that is rather new, but seems to have taken the country by storm,” Foster told Maher.
Giving the “Real Time” host a “practical example” of “equity versus equality,” Foster highlighted our response to the China-originated novel coronavirus, and politicos’ attempts to racialize medical and financial aid.
“We know that the most vulnerable population when it comes to Covid are older people; if I take people over the age of 55, that’s 80% of the deaths. There have been actual conversations about prioritizing people on the basis of their race, because Covid is said to ‘disproportionally impact’ black people relative to white people,” Foster explained.
“It is a ridiculous proposition,” he asserted, “but it’s a proposition that has found its way in the mouths of governors — here in California, the pages of The New York Times, we’re actively talking about this kind of ridiculous –”
Interrupted by another “Real Time” guest to explain “why” the proposition to base support on something immutable like race is “ridiculous,” Foster answered: “Because we actually know, when we look at the global impact of Covid, in the United States, again, 80% of the people who are dying are older; around 18% of the people dying are black.”
“A life lost to Covid, is a life that matters,” he underscored. “And we can focus on the people who are vulnerable, without making this about race. Making this about race actually only obscures the actual issue ….”
Opposing foster, the Maher guest suggested it was impossible to separate race from “economic insecurities,” adding that Latinos are more likely to be hospitalized than white people “for a variety of reasons.”
“For a variety of complicated reasons,” Foster emphasized, in response. ” … The important point is that it’s not fundamentally about race. You can’t ‘un-Hispanic’ them. There may be different issues in their communities. It could be that they live in homes with more people. It could be that they live in more urban centers.”
“If that’s the case,” Foster explained, “the policy you’re tailoring is for people in urban centers, not Latinos.”
“This is a confusion of categories that is actually distracting us from forging good policy. What you get is great soundbites; you don’t actually fix problems,” he said.
Truthteller @kmele laying it down on Bill Maher about "equity" programs in Covid distribution and how what we're seeing there is a "ridiculous proposition" that we hear from governors, in the NYT, and, though he doesn't mention it, in medical journals. pic.twitter.com/N4IhhcSjYc
— James Lindsay, trusted and respected (@ConceptualJames) January 23, 2021
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro recently discussed at length the issues Foster explained on “Real Time” in a piece titled, “The Perversion of Science.” Shapiro highlighted, in part:
“Older populations are whiter,” public health “expert” Dr. Harald Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times in early December. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.” In other words, a disproportionate number of white people survive to old age; we should, therefore, give vaccines to younger, less vulnerable nonwhite citizens in “essential industries” and let Grandma die.