Some things never seem to change

Today's news coverage, beyond Ukraine, features a wide range of stories about racism and white defensiveness. The world may be changing geopolitically, but isn't it nice to know that some issues never really change?

One national story shows that Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans were undercounted in the 2020 Census by percentages ranging from 2-5 percent, while whites were overcounted by that percentage. In some ways this is not really news, since the Census Bureau reports similar inaccuracies for several past census counts.

The coverage points out that the overall Census count is quite accurate -- 331.5 million people -- so the only way to interpret the inaccuracies is to point out that the "pie" is cut into unequal pieces. Shockingly (ha!) the discrepancies favor whites, with lots of economic and government assistance and even redistricting affected.

In today's Washington Post I find a story about how Black and Latino students in Iowa have felt under attack by Republican legislation that bans state agencies and schools from teaching “divisive concepts” at mandatory training sessions, including the idea that the United States or the state of Iowa is systemically racist or sexist. As a former Iowan who used to be proud of his state, I have to wonder about what those white R. legislators are worried about. Iowa is a lot things, but racially diverse is not one of them.

Also in today's Post is an article on the Florida legislature passing a bill that prohibits trainings that cause someone to feel guilty or ashamed about the past collective actions of their race or sex. It will be signed by the governor, according to reports, since he initially encouraged the measure.

Lots of statistical analyses have shown that Blacks and Latinos died from Covid in much higher percentages than whites, and the overall death rates, disregarding the pandemic, have been much higher in every age group for people of color than for whites for many years.

Not to get too far into the weeds here, but another story notes the connection between past racist "redlining" practices in many cities, where minority residents were pushed into particular neighborhoods and cut off from other parts of cities by highway construction, and air pollution. It is a short leap to connect more pollution with more health problems and earlier deaths. 

Somehow, our political parties have basically separated into one group that at least claims to be supportive of multiculturalism and equity, and another group that claims that racism and its effects may be real, but that they should not trouble people.

For many white Republicans, it appears that the bottom line is that we declare racism over, just like the pandemic. Time to move on.

Sexism? Old news. We're fine.

Empire building? Back in vogue.

And so we slouch along as a nation and as a world.