Latent #coronaracism.

Don't catch it!

Black and brown people+COVID19

As we approach the end of our ninth month in lockdown here in the SF Bay Area, it’s depressing how badly it’s now going. For months and months, my county was a shining star. Our surges were mini-surges; our numbers at their worst were simply not that bad. We were the first county to lock down and some of the strongest restrictions out there, and it was hard, but it was doing its job. So on October 13th my county and many others were moved into new less restrictive “tiers” and things got loosened up. And then we collectively screwed up.

It seems like we threw up our hands and threw in the towel because ever since that date our numbers have been rising. Sure, other counties and other states look worse, but that’s cold comfort.

Earlier this week a friend posted on Facebook about it getting scary out there, and several of us expressed disappointment in our fellow residents. Another friend chimed in as follows:

“The neighborhood socioeconomic and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection. This may explain why blacks and Hispanic people living in these neighborhoods are disproportionately at a risk for contracting the virus. The risk of infection is related to the household, rather than urban, density.”

I sat with it, because it didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t at all assume the guy (who I didn’t know) had mal intent…I mean it’s accurate that in our area (as in most areas of the country) people in lower socio-economic strata and yes Black and brown people are experiencing a higher incidence of catching the coronavirus. But still.

So I replied (which I often avoid doing, as one of my longtime mantras is that I’m not here to argue with strangers on the Internet). I said:

“That may explain higher transmission, but the risk of infection is also strongly associated with the fact that the strong majority of essential workers...from healthcare to LTF workers to grocery/restaurant etc are people of color (and women, generally, too). They are exposed to a much larger number of people daily. As the virus stats in our county increase, my chances of encountering someone with it can stay about the same because I can WFH (and haven’t changed my other behaviors either). Not so for some whose only option is to go out in the world interacting with strangers all day. Do they then have more people to spread it to when they get home? Yes, but that doesn’t explain how the household spread starts.”

I wanted to change the narrative from this being about possibly crowded (read: unsanitary?) living arrangements…which smelled of racial bias and dehumanization to me…to this being about people we now call essential, who are risking their lives (and the lives of their loved ones) as they do that work…many of them making pretty shitty wages.

Luckily the gentleman in question replied that he totally agreed, and I hope he might think twice about how he’s discussing these issue in the future. Could I have been even more explicit? Maybe, but I feel like this exchange had the opportunity to inform and update, not inflame and escalate. What do you think?

Post script: Meanwhile, in our county white people are not getting the disease even close to in proportion to their percentage of the population, but they are dying from it at almost exactly their proportion of the population (so they are disproportionately dying compared to other patients). I don’t have a hypothesis on it, but it’s interesting.

Last week’s Op-Ed Page

As promised I talked about the third grade, inspired by the Kara Swisher/Raj Chetty podcast I linked to in last week’s newsletter. I have a lot of thoughts on third grade. I have a good friend who’s a former third-grade teacher who has a lot of thoughts too. But here are my primary questions: Were you identified as “gifted” in third grade? Did it impact you in real-time? Did it have lasting impact? If you knew that giftedness at that age is probably mostly attributable to socio-economic opportunity and representative role models, what would you think? Leave a comment, I’m dying to know. One of my colleagues shared a good story on LinkedIn in response.

I also talked about how I’m planning to alter my social media focus and approach in the wake of the Biden presidency…and why I’m feeling plenty positive about what it will mean even if the GOP and Mitch McConnell retain their slim majority.) Is that what I’m hoping for? No. Unlike a rare idiotic perspective from Mark Cuban who thinks divided government can still be a good thing with this particular crowd (after seeing what it has wrought for the last 10 years) I’m not a fan. but I’m still hopeful that just stopping the bad stuff will make a huge difference.

Take a listen, and here comes the standard podcaster request: If you enjoy, please share, subscribe, rate and review!

Oh, and my political partner-in-crime Ashwini Anburajan and I did our first weekly political livestream last evening and decided to just keep doing it weekly until we don’t feel like doing it anymore. So catch this week’s chat here.

Coming this week-ish

A sneak peek of Episode 40 of The Op-Ed Page podcast I’ll be releasing later this week: I’m going to talk a little more about #CoronaRacism, and as promised I’m going to talk about the various flavors of #votersuppression, #voterrestriction, and #voterdepression. Really no discussion of voter turnout should be undertaken without acknowledging these other relevant voter phenomena.

As mentioned last week, this Friday at 12PM PT, join a Remotely Fireside Chat author and CEO Robert Glazer, talking about being a values-based leader of remote teams. You can RSVP for the interactive Zoom here, and you can watch the FB Livestream at Remotely’s page here. The very next Friday, the 11th, at 12PM PT, I’ll be interviewing Punk Rock HR author and podcaster, Laurie Ruettimann about her philosophy about fixing work by fixing yourself…and a provocative little idea she has to #DefundHR. RSVP here or watch this one on Remotely’s FB page too.

As always I appreciate a share of this newsletter, of my podcast, of my column, The Activist Leader. And I appreciate feedback and hearing from you too.

And if you think I can help you break through the things that are keeping you stuck, you can always set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly.

Have a great week-ish!