In what can only be described as an act of exquisite irony, given the riots in Baltimore, the University of Maryland yesterday released a study that finds a correlation between the number of Google searches for the “N-word” and its variants, and the rate of mortality among African Americans in a given geographic area.
According to David Chae, author of the study and assistant professor of epidemiology at University of Maryland:
“Racial disparities in health and disease represent a significant public health concern. Research suggests that racism is a major culprit that contributes to the gap in mortality between Blacks and Whites,” said Chae. “Our study points to the utility of an Internet-search based measure to monitor racism at the area-level and assess its impact on mortality.”
“Racism is a social toxin that increases susceptibility to disease and generates racial disparities in health,” said Chae. Racism has been shown to increase the risk of disease and poor health outcomes through several channels. For example, institutional forms of racism lead to systemic disadvantage, and segregate Blacks into health-damaging environments. As a source of stress, racism also has direct effects on mental and physical well-being.
To understand the map, note that every one standard deviation increase in the level of area racism over the mean relates to an 8.2 percent greater all-cause Black mortality rate, which would be equivalent to more than 30,000 deaths annually in the country. So, orange areas are up to a half pf a standard deviation above the mean and red areas are greater than a 0.5 standard deviation above the mean.
The interesting thing about the study is that by using Google searches on “nigger” and its variants as an objective sign of racism, it removes one of the major obstacles to studying race — the tendency of racists to under-report their racism in surveys and interviews.
You can download the full PDF version of the study here.
So bogus!
The author assumes that only whites can be racist. The institutionalized racism against whites via the “Affirmative Action” laws is ignored but some unspecified institutionalized racism against blacks is responsible for their health problems.
The author also ignorantly assumes that only racist whites use the N word. It is commonly used by blacks too, especially in rap songs, so his premise that everyone who looks up the N word in the net is a white racist is absurd.