Death Is the Ultimate Voter Suppression

-by Dorothy Reik

While we are all wringing our hands over vote by mail and long lines at limited polling places, we are missing the big picture. COVID-19 is killing off Black and Brown voters in droves. The dead don’t vote-- except in Trump’s demented mind.

CNN reports that 23% of those dying of the virus are Black although they make up only 13% of our population. Black Americans’ death rates are the same as those of white people who are a decade older according to the Brookings Institute. They also report that among those aged 45-54, for example, Black and Hispanic/Latino death rates are at least SIX times higher than for whites.

In Alabama Blacks made up 40% of the COVID-19 deaths reported in April but they are only 25% of the population. CNN also reported in April that Black communities account for 60% of COVID deaths.

In May, CNN reported that in Iowa, Latinos accounted for 6% of the population but 20% of deaths from COVID-19. In Los Angeles the LA Times reports that the death rate from coronavirus is twice as high for Blacks as for whites and while they represent 8% of the population they represent 13% of corona-related deaths.

More recent reports show “Overall, Latinos were succumbing to the disease at rates of about two- to two-and-a-half times higher than the white population. And in the case of African-Americans, it’s still higher, about three and a half times higher” according to University of Texas professor Rogelio Saenz.

Black and Latino New Yorkers are dying at twice the rate of white New Yorkers.

As the headline of an Atlantic article by Adam Serwer says "The Coronavirus Was an Emergency, Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying." But why stop with Black and Brown voters-- teachers vote against Trump too so he is going after them next. He IS forcing schools to open so super spreader kiddies can kill them off. As a bonus, their Black and Brown parents, freed from child care and with no more unemployment insurance supplements, will head back to work and die too. Rich white kids will continue their Zoom classes-- their schools don’t need Federal funding-- and besides their private schools got PPP loans according to the just released SBA report. Meanwhile their parents will continue to work from home.

These reports don’t begin to touch what is going on now as the death rate passes 130,000 and the cases exceed 3 million. In Houston, victims are dying in their homes, just as they did in NYC during the worst of that city’s surge. Houston hasn’t counted the dead by color yet but with Texas in play my bet is that most of them are Black and Brown. Maybe that’s why Abbott was so eager to open the state. You could say the same about DeSantis in Florida, a state Trump has to win.

There’s nothing like a good pandemic to cut down the voting rolls. Who needs cross check! These voters are just checking out-- period.