The Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok posted on its account this week what appears to be a lecture slide from a Purdue University pre-med course. The specific slide was titled “Racism is a Risk Factor for Stroke.” It details how black people have a higher risk for hypertension compared to white people up to 55 years of age.
The slide, which does not mention any other race, states that racism is a “disease” because it causes stress, which in turn causes strokes.
Under the subheading “Racism is a disease,” the slide has the following information: “Racism and its effects can lead to chronic stress for children. And chronic stress leads to actual changes in hormones that cause inflammation in the body, a marker of chronic disease. Stress that a mother experiences during pregnancy can affect children even before they are born. Despite improvements in health care, racial disparities exist in infant mortality as well as low birthweight.”
This is, of course, hogwash. Strokes occur when blood flow to the brain is interrupted or cut off, and there are many genetic and dietary factors that explain the racial disparity in strokes better than racism. For example, a lot of people who experience strokes also have sickle cell disease. More than 80% of sickle cell patients are black. Sickle cell is a common trait in peoples whose ancestors lived in areas of the world where malaria exists. Sickle cell helps protect against malaria, and scientists hypothesize that it naturally evolved in human populations who lived where malaria was common, such as Africa.
That’s genetics and evolution in action. It is not racism.
There are other factors that cause strokes. Some can be remedied with lifestyle changes — others people have no control over. These include tobacco use, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, age, family history, and gender. Racism is not one of these causes.
It’s well past time for supposedly educated university types to pretend that all negative outcomes for black people are the result of racism. The assertion that racism causes strokes is ignorant nonsense. Sadly, radical left-wing ideology is corrupting not only the humanities but even science and medicine.
