London mayor Sadiq Khan says “structural racism” is to blame for COVID-19 infections among the country’s minority groups.
Khan has urged the British government to start collecting and publishing the ethnicities of those infected with the Chinese virus, claiming that racial inequality is likely the reason why people of black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have been overrepresented in the pandemic.
“Even though it can be uncomfortable for some to acknowledge, we cannot ignore the barriers of discrimination and structural racism that exist in our society, which contribute to ethnic minorities being more likely to suffer from poverty, have underlying health conditions and work in insecure, low-paid jobs,” Mayor Khan wrote in a column for The Guardian.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Khan claims that because “people from ethnic minority backgrounds are overrepresented in poor, overcrowded accommodation, or households with multiple generations under one roof”, they are more likely to become infected with the deadly virus.
“Many simply don’t have the luxury of being able to work safely from home during the lockdown. All of this contributes to a BAME population with worse health than average, lower life expectancy and a greater prevalence of serious underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, asthma and diabetes,” he said.
Breitbart.com reports: The London mayor also called for a “new social contract” after the coronavirus pandemic has passed, in order to reduce “racial and economic equality, and prioritises the welfare and wellbeing of every single community in this country”.
Khan’s attempt to link coronavirus cases with alleged structural racism echoes similar left narratives in the United States.
Progressive members of the U.S. Congress including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) made a similar demand of the government to release data about the racial background of coronavirus patients.
“Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color, first and foremost to protect the lives of people in those communities, but also to slow the spread of the virus in the country as a whole,” the lawmakers wrote.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the far-left congresswoman from New York, suggested that coronavirus relief money should be “drafted with a lens of reparations” in order to make up for “environmental racism” and other “underlying health conditions” that have caused minorities to be “disproportionately” affected by the virus.
To date, the coronavirus is known to hav infected some nearly two and a half million people of widely disparate racial backgrounds across the globe.
