Category: Race

Black vaccination rates lag the rest of the country, according to data from the Census Household Pulse Survey and other similar sources. One common explanation for this in the discourse is that black people are skeptical of the vaccine because of prior historical events in which they were abused and experimented upon by the US… Continue reading Does the Tuskegee Experiment Really Explain Black Vaccination Rates?

Matthew Desmond has a piece at the New York Times about homeownership and inequality. In it, he rightfully takes on the Mortgage Interest Deduction, a tax expenditure that unfairly benefits those who own homes and the rich especially. Desmond ties the Mortgage Interest Deduction, and homeownership policy more generally, into the racial wealth gap. This… Continue reading Would Ending the Mortgage Interest Deduction Reduce the Racial Wealth Gap?

Matthew Desmond has a piece in the New York Times about homeownership and racial inequality. The piece is mostly good, but one part of it irked me: While most white families own a home, a majority of black and Latino families do not. Differences in homeownership rates remain the prime driver of the nation’s racial… Continue reading The Racial Wealth Gap and Homeownership Nonsense

Andrew Sullivan has a post where he argues that the economic success of Asians in the United States suggests that the lack of success of other groups cannot be chalked up to racism. One response to this kind of argument is that, as a historical matter, anti-Asian racism did hold Asians back and Asians only… Continue reading Asian Poverty Varies a Lot by Group

Recent discussions about the white working class and racism (me, DeBoer, Mystal, et al) have me flashing back to the fascinating world of 2008 LGBT politics. In that year, the majority of Black voters came out and voted in favor of proposition 8, a successful referendum that sought to eliminate same-sex marriages in California. Needless… Continue reading Demonizing, Not Engaging