Bad Black Health Blamed On Slavery

Here is the opening sentence of the peer-reviewed paper “Historical slavery predicts contemporary disparities in mortality between Black and White Americans“: “Black–White mortality disparities remain a persistent form of inequality in the United States.” This is by Manuel Galvan and others in PNAS.

The implication, loud and unmistakable, is that these inequalities, and indeed any inequality as measured by a “disparity”, ought not to exist.

Malaria was rife in the state of Georgia, especially before and during the Civil War. The disease was responsible for the deaths of a great many Union and Confederate soldiers, especially in prison camps. Though the disease was not yet understood to the extent it is now, it was then noted by many that blacks did not suffer at nearly the same rates or severity as whites.

This is a “disparity”. And it was caused by blacks, on average as a whole, being different than whites, to the great advantage of blacks in North America. This didn’t help blacks so much in Africa, because those from malaria-infested regions fetched higher prices because of their greater immunity.

Now that malaria is no longer a threat in the States, many blacks suffer from the very thing that gave them the earlier advantage (i.e. sickle cell disease). This is another “disparity” which cannot be removed no matter how earnest the effort or purity of heart of those decrying the “disparity”. A “disparity” which necessarily leads to a fixed “inequality”.

If there is one natural “disparity”, it is rational to suppose there are others. Indeed, there are. Such as:

• G6PD deficiency (affects blacks)
• Duffy-negative blood group (affects blacks)
• APOL1 risk variants (G1/G2) kidney disease (affects blacks)
• Lactase non-persistence; i.e. lactose intolerance (affects blacks)
• Prostate cancer due to gene variants like 8q24 (higher in blacks)
• Hypertension & cardiac disease due to genetics (slightly higher in blacks)
• Sarcoidosis (much higher in blacks)
• Systemic lupus erythematosus (much higher in black women)
• Type 2 diabetes due to genetics (slightly higher in blacks)
• Multiple sclerosis (higher in whites)
• Cystic fibrosis (much higher in whites)
• Skin cancers (much higher in whites)
• Osteoporosis (much higher in whites)

These are some of the larger “disparities” due to genetics and physiology. They cause ineradicable “inequalities”, which would not be especially interesting, except for our culture’s powerful expectation and ardent desire that Equality reign in all things.

There are also many cultural differences, the causes of which are many and varied, especially differences in intelligence. These have various effects. Blacks and whites, especially in different areas of the country, do not eat the same foods or in the same amounts, and this can lead to “disparities” in health, most often obesity and its concomitant maladies, which are much higher in blacks in certain locales.

All this is, or was, well known. Yet since many of these facts are distasteful and an affront to Equality, they are denied. Or the facts are blamed on environmental or cultural causes not, in any way, the fault of blacks themselves. Such as, as we have often seen, “racism”. Or, in the case of our paper today, slavery.

Form the Abstract:

We tested whether contemporary Black–White mortality disparities in the United States may be rooted in the historical legacy of slavery and perpetuated through structural inequalities. Linking county-level data on the proportion of enslaved people in 1860 with structural inequality indicators from 1990 to 2000 and mortality outcomes from 2010 to 2020, we find that historical slavery is robustly associated with contemporary racial mortality gaps. Our model estimates ~22 additional deaths per 100,000 among Black Americans relative to White Americans for every 10% increase in the 1860 enslaved population. Path analysis models showed that segregation, economic inequality, and racial disparities in poverty and education statistically mediated this effect. 

They look at “age-adjusted, all-cause mortality rates”, and conclude because, in their many models with wee Ps, blacks in certain locales die slightly quicker than whites, that the “disparity” must be due to slavery.

The correlation has become causation. In the minds of the authors, anyway.

There haven’t been slaves in the States for some 161 years. None of the people who were slaves are still alive, none of very few who were slave owners are still alive, recalling it was only a small minority of whites who owned slaves and that most whites then were poor, and none of the direct descendants of any of these people are still alive. And so on. Not to mention the vast, vast changes in medicine since that time. No health effects due to slavery can possibly exist now.

Further, for the last 80 years or so, every possible effort, including the depletion of vast sums of monies, have been spent attempting to correct economic and other cultural “inequalities”. Preference has been awarded to blacks, if not in all things, then certainly in most. Deference in all halls of power is the rule, and is mandatory. It cannot be that the lingering dislike of blacks by a scattered few powerless whites causally affects the health of blacks as a rule.

There cannot be many lingering “disparities” in health that aren’t caused by innate differences between the races; i.e. genetic, physiologic, intelligence, irascibility, and chosen cultural differences. All recalling that there is a distribution in these things, and we are talking “on average.”

I will leave criticism of the statistical models as an exercise for those taking the Class. If you glance at today’s header image, you will see that this will be an easy assignment.

The authors in their discussion blame “systemic racism”, by which they do not mean the array of quotas, easy grading, pandering, excusing, and deference to blacks in all things, but some mysterious, undefined power emanated by whites. They end with saying “In contrast to the discriminatory policies that created racial disparities, robust remediating, egalitarian policies have the potential to improve the health and well-being of all Americans.” Which gives no recognition to huge changes in culture and law to favor blacks.

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