By Ryan Scott Bomberger
How is it that celebrities like Oprah see negative racial disparities in every facet of American life, except in the one industry that kills for a living?
Oprah recently opined about the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus in black communities. COVID-19, according to the guru of talk, is “taking us out.”
Honestly, this is what happens when you look at everything in life through the broken prism of race. “We as a people, as African Americans, have jobs that require us to be at work. For so many African Americans, there isn’t this ability to telecommute,” the multi-billionaire Oprah Winfrey told NBC News from the cushy confines of her multi-million dollar home. First of all, stop racializing things Oprah. People of every hue have these jobs and many are at higher risk of exposure regardless of their pigmentation. Millions and millions of people of any color are not able to telecommute.
In fact, according to the Department of Labor, from 2017 to 2018 the vast majority of Americans did not telework. This includes 68% of Asian Americans, 74% of whites, 82% of African Americans, and 87% of Hispanics.
There is no doubt that there are numerous health disparities in the black community that largely contribute to the disproportionate impact of this virus. The public needs to be well-informed, not fed another us versus them narrative. Race is the easy scapegoat, because in and out of a pandemic it doesn’t address personal responsibility and behaviors that lead to negative health outcomes. I’m waiting for the Left to denounce these block parties, by the way (here and here). So while churchgoers in Kentucky were threatened by Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) with having their licenses recorded and the state health department showing up at their doors to force quarantine them, hundreds of block partiers in Florida were merely asked to go home—no tickets, no heavy-handed State action. Dare I say it looks like a case of black privilege?
Democrat mayor Lori Lightfoot, you know the one who chose separate and unequal treatment by getting a haircut while telling the rest of Chicagoans that hair care is not essential, said of the coronavirus’ impact on African Americans: “The numbers take your breath away.” Like Oprah, she told CBS News that the virus “is devastating” black communities. As of April 15th, the Chicago Department of Public Health reported a total of:
- 386 deaths:
- 48.3% black,
- 21.4% Hispanic,
- 20.8% white,
- 3.7% Asian,
- 5.8% “other,” and
- 28.9% unknown.
More importantly, 91% of Chicago residents who died, according to the report, had underlying chronic health conditions. I wonder if the 23,189 abortions in her county in 2018 take the pro-abortion mayor’s breath away? (Of course, Illinois doesn’t provide any racial demographic data. Nationwide, abortions in the black community are 3-5 times higher than those in the majority population. Every abortion is tragic, regardless of hue, but it’s always interesting to me when the needless human construct of “race” is conveniently and politically invoked.)
Even with the shoddy statistical reporting that has marked health organizations like the CDC, it is globally evident that people who are elderly and those with pre-existing conditions like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and lung-related issues are at much higher risk with COVID-19. Every life is precious, so let’s not claim a larger victimhood status. People in poorer communities lack access to testing. People in wealthier communities have similar lack of access. Access to testing has been an abysmal failure, period. This disease doesn’t care which pigmentation your skin has. “It’s ravaging our community,” Oprah told the Today show. In this time of pandemic panic, we don’t need hyperbole. We need honesty. Coronavirus is not “ravaging” the black community. Violent crime is. Fatherlessness is. Abortion is. Devotion to a political party that depends on perpetual narratives of victimhood is.
Sadly, Oprah and the entire leadership of the Democrat Party proudly support and promote the pandemic of abortion in the black community which disproportionately kills hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable black lives every year. The number of black lives taken out annually in America by abortion is more than twice the current number (138,101 as of April 16th) of total coronavirus deaths worldwide. Thirty-five percent of abortions in the U.S. are among African Americans, according to the CDC. If we applied that to the total number of U.S. abortions reported by the (pro-abortion) Guttmacher Institute in 2017 (862,320 abortions of which 301,812 of them were committed on black babies), there are an estimated 827 black lives wiped out by abortion every single day.
Despite this, Oprah isn’t sounding any alarm about the violence of abortion. She’s pushed abortion in numerous ways through her media empire, whether promoting “Christian” (charlatan) abortionist Dr. Willie Parker (now seemingly silenced by accusations of being a sexual predator), hosting the pro-abortion United State of Women summit, or featuring the #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag movement in her magazine. It’s sad how those who escaped the violence of abortion work to ensure that others don’t. It’s even more heartbreaking when you read these words from Oprah to her mother where she thanks her that she wasn’t aborted:
“‘Thank you. Thank you, because I know it’s been hard for you. It was hard for you as a young girl having a baby, in Mississippi. No education. No training. No skills. Seventeen, you get pregnant with this baby. Lots of people would have told you to give that baby away. Lots of people would’ve told you to abort that baby. You didn’t do that. I know that was hard. I want you to know that no matter what, I know that you always did the best you knew how to do. And look how it turned out.’”
With or without great achievements, every human life has equal and irrevocable value. No, Oprah. Coronavirus isn’t ravaging us. Believing lies about ourselves is. We’re not victims. We’re victors. Black people have overcome so much in this country, from slavery to lynchings to Jim Crow. We don’t need abortion. We don’t need to make a colorblind virus racial. We need each other, as we have throughout this flawed but great country’s history—black, white and every hue in between. We’re always better when we’re united.
Ryan Scott Bomberger is the chief creative officer and cofounder of The Radiance Foundation. He is happily married to his best friend, Bethany, who is the executive director of Radiance. They are adoptive parents with four awesome kiddos. Ryan is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, factivist, international public speaker, and author of NOT EQUAL: CIVIL RIGHTS GONE WRONG. He loves illuminating that every human life has purpose.
This article has been reprinted with permission and can be found at theradiancefoundation.org/oprah.
image: Alan Light via Flick | CC-2.0