Virginia Health Chief doubts racial disparities in health care

[underpants]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916
Colin Greene, previously the acting director of the state’s Rappahannock-Rapidan Health District, is now commissioner of the Virginia Department of Health. ( Culpeper Star-Exponent)

Tension over role of racism in public health strains Va. agency under Youngkin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/15/racial-disparities-health-care-youngkin/

In five months on the job, Virginia’s chief public health official, Colin Greene, has rejected the state-recognized declaration that racism is a public health crisis and downplayed the role of racism in health disparities, leaving some fearful for their jobs.

The head of the office that helps vulnerable mothers and their babies said a run-in with Greene left her and her team traumatized, ashamed and uncertain the programs they shepherded through a pandemic could continue under the new administration. She said he gaslighted staffers and reduced one to tears.

Greene’s philosophical opposition to considering racism as a scientific variable in public health runs counter to a groundswell of experts embracing the need to confront root causes of health disparities, while the nation grapples with a legacy of racist policies.

Greene maintains that racism is a “politically charged” word that will alienate White people and undermine the state Department of Health’s mission to protect the health and well-being of all Virginians, about 40 percent of whom identify as something other than White.

[dawg]

1. Bow tie was all I needed to see.

(My apologies if you wear one.)

[underpants]

8. That was a big reason I posted this

I saw his picture and thought “Oh yeah! You don’t look more Ooooold Virginia than that”

[MineralMan]

2. Pasty-looking white man wearing a red bowtie says what?

I'd be willing to bet that he could count the number of black people who are friends of his on one finger of one hand, if that. He has no idea of what white privilege is and thinks that everything's hunky-dory there in Virginia.

Clueless!

[underpants]

10. The Youngkin team was totally unprepared

They seem to think that pandering to Fox News viewers is the same as Governing. The Old Dominion has changed a lot in just the last 12 years.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. I hate to glom on to appearances but SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU PASTY BOWTIED FUCKSTICK

[Turbineguy]

4. I see white people.

[underpants]

7. 👀

[Ray Bruns]

5. It's OK. He has a black friend.

[Solly Mack]

6. Course he downplayed the role racism plays.

Racists don't see racism. They see a feature for being white.

[Bucky]

9. He's literally arguing against the numbers

There are racial disparities in health outcomes.

I understand there are some anti-science Republicans. But now they're becoming anti-math too

[underpants]

11. Health based on belief

He doesn’t BELIEVE this exists.

As you can see, there are 12…
Uh I believe it’s 8
Sir, right there it says 12
Now who’s wearing the bow tie here?

[ReluctanceTango]

12. The bow tie cuts off blood to the brain.

What I always see when there’s a bow tie without a tux.

[gratuitous]

13. Sure, some people may be sicker and dying from wholly preventable circumstances

But what you're proposing is "politically charged," and nothing's more detrimental to racists' health than that!