Hacker News Reader

Comment by banads | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, white people in the US on average live 3.5 years longer than black people in the US.[1]

Did you know that an even greater health/life expectancy disparity exists between men and women?

One gender on average lives 5.1 years longer than the other.[2]

>decreased access to medical care and healthy food, unsafe working conditions, mass incarceration, exposure to pollution and noise, and the toxic effects of stress.

Likewise all of these issues affect men disproportionately compared to women.

Why is it so popular to talk about these same issues as systemic oppression against group X (relative to group Y), while ignoring or the fact that those same issues affect group XY, often to an even greater degree (relative to group XX)?

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_Unite...

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_ex...

View on HN

To be perfectly upfront with my own beliefs, I believe economic disparities is the mother of all other disparities and that many of these statistics that show disparities in outcomes for whites vs blacks are just echos of that economic disparity. That, I think, is the core disparity and the core way in which "the system" oppresses people across generations.

That being said, I don't think gender is a good counterpoint given that biology does have a significant role in some disparities in outcomes for men & women (for example life expectancy). With race, as cited in the letter, biological explanations aren't enough to explain the differences.

> Why is it so popular to talk about these same issues as systemic oppression against group X (relative to group Y), while ignoring or the fact that those same issues affect group XY, often to an even greater degree (relative to group XX)?

Speculatively, with respect to blacks in America, I'm going to guess that it isn't any single issue that is concerning, but the totality of them. Yes, a given issue X might affect group Y more than it does blacks, but blacks in the US as a population are affected by multiple such issues and I can't think of many areas where they have a leg up over other groups.

>To be perfectly upfront with my own beliefs, I believe economic disparities is the mother of all other disparities and that many of these statistics that show disparities in outcomes for whites vs blacks are just echos of that economic disparity.

I agree my friend, thank you for the measured response.

>given that biology does have a significant role in some disparities in outcomes for men & women (for example life expectancy)

How do we know biology is the most significant factor that causes women to live longer than men?

How do we know biology is not a significant factor that causes white people to live longer than black people? It's a biological fact that black people in the US suffer greatly from vitamin D deficiency[1]

[1]https://www.cooperinstitute.org/2019/09/24/african-americans...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com