Jesse Jackson said -- and it isn't untruthful, whatever one thinks of him -- that when America catches a cold, black folks catch pneumonia. African-Americans, statistically, are always shown to be hit first economically during a recession, or when jobs are being cut, but are the last, as a group -- in general -- to gain, pulling up the rear behind whites, wen times get better. Is that the result of African-Americans' individual choices?
And I'm also the one who originally reported the JAMA study about ER doctors prescribing painkillers to blacks way less than whites for similar conditions. (A month ago, at least.) What choice is the African-American making here that results in this? There are innumerable examples, not all anecdotal: driving while black, for example. What choice is someone making there?
-B.
Wojtek wrote
"I argued that this difference is caused, for the most part, by individual life choices rather than structural systemic factors - a theme that you a priori dismissed by your (fallacious) assumption of random distribution of status. So your metaphor does not realy address the issue that I am arguing."