White supremacy directly increases Covid's harms

[Nevilledog]

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Hannah Davis
@ahandvanish
New study shows white Americans who learn about Covid's racial disparities have:

1) reduced fear about Covid
2) reduced empathy for those vulnerable to Covid
3) reduced support for Covid protections

White supremacy directly increases Covid's harms.

sciencedirect.com
Highlighting COVID-19 racial disparities can reduce support for safety precautions among White U.S....
U.S. media has extensively covered racial disparities in COVID-19 infections and deaths, which may ironically reduce public concern about COVID-19. In…
3:12 PM · Mar 30, 2022

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362200257X

Abstract

U.S. media has extensively covered racial disparities in COVID-19 infections and deaths, which may ironically reduce public concern about COVID-19. In two preregistered studies (conducted in the fall of 2020), we examined whether perceptions of COVID-19 racial disparities predict White U.S. residents’ attitudes toward COVID-19. Utilizing a correlational design (N = 498), we found that those who perceived COVID-19 racial disparities to be greater reported reduced fear of COVID-19, which predicted reduced support for COVID-19 safety precautions. In Study 2, we manipulated exposure to information about COVID-19 racial disparities (N = 1,505). Reading about the persistent inequalities that produced COVID-19 racial disparities reduced fear of COVID-19, empathy for those vulnerable to COVID-19, and support for safety precautions. These findings suggest that publicizing racial health disparities has the potential to create a vicious cycle wherein raising awareness reduces support for the very policies that could protect public health and reduce disparities.

During oral debates over the legality of Wisconsin's shelter-in-place order in May 2020, Governor Evers cited the 1,200% increase in COVID-19 cases within two weeks in one county. Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Roggensack interjected, arguing that the increase was isolated to the meatpacking plant and that it was not “just regular folks” (Flynn, 2020). Thus, the Chief Justice dismissed the outbreak among meatpacking plant workers (who are predominantly people of color) as irrelevant to the debate. U.S. media began reporting on the dramatic racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates—resulting from structural inequalities, persistent racial health disparities, and overrepresentation of people of color among essential workers—in April of 2020 (Akhtar, 2020;APM Research Lab Staff, 2021; Hawkins, 2020; Jewett, 2020; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2017; Nguyen et al., 2020). Publicizing these racial disparities has the potential to establish cognitive associations between COVID-19 and people of color, which, from a social psychological perspective, could have unintended consequences. The current work aimed to examine how White U.S. residents' perceptions of COVID-19 racial disparities relate to their fear of COVID-19 and support for COVID-19 safety precautions. We propose that describing COVID-19 as disproportionately impacting people of color may lessen White U.S. residents' concerns about COVID-19.

Race is central to U.S. social organization, wherein society affords the most power, privilege, and status to people who are categorized as White (Roberts and Rizzo, 2020; Skinner-Dorkenoo et al., 2021). Socialization in this context encodes associations between status and race, such that individuals become accustomed to thinking and behaving in ways that reinforce the hierarchy (Roberts and Rizzo, 2020). Both children and adults show the tendency to reinforce the status quo, believing that the way things are is how they should be (Roberts et al., 2017a, 2017b, 2018), but this inclination seems to be particularly prevalent among members of high status groups (Rizzo and Killen, 2020). As such, U.S. residents—especially those who are White—may be less concerned about social issues (e.g., police violence, environmental contaminants, health conditions) that predominantly impact people of color because this is how they expect things to be. Thus, despite the fact that White people make up the majority of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. (Gold et al., 2020), perceptions that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacts people of color could reduce public concern about the virus. Next, we consider other psychological processes that may shape White U.S. residents’ perceptions of COVID-19 when confronted with information about COVID-19 racial disparities.

1. Social comparisons and construal level theory

Although the elevated rates of COVID-19 infection and mortality among people of color in the U.S. do not objectively reduce the risks of infection among White people, they may reduce perceptions of risk by serving as a source of downward comparison. When people compare themselves to others who are less well off (downward comparison), they tend to feel more satisfied with their current situation (Rheu et al., 2021; Suls et al., 2002). When confronted with threatening health concerns, people often spontaneously engage in downward comparisons as a means of coping (Wood et al., 1985), which has been shown to reduce engagement in health protective behaviors (Mahler et al., 2010). Therefore, news stories about COVID-19 racial disparities may facilitate downward comparison among White U.S. residents, reducing the perceived threat of the virus and endorsement of safety precautions.

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[TygrBright]

1. White supremacy and racism increase every kind of harm. To white people also. n/t

[Phoenix61]

2. If this means white racists are more likely to die

than white non-racists I’d call that a win.