5 ms·
My first reaction was to think "gosh that's a bit racist". Then I remembered that people of African or Indian origin are more susceptible to sickle cell anaemia
by blowski 7y ago
My first reaction was to think "gosh that's a bit racist". Then I remembered that people of African or Indian origin are more susceptible to sickle cell anaemia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease#Epidemiolo...], so perhaps it's not after all. I have zero medical expertise in any area, so I have no idea, but I don't think it's without merit as a question. I appreciate it could be used as a stick by racist people, though.
- speedgoose 7y agoI tried to quote a classic French movie but the comedy may have been lost in translation. Anyway, if you don't want to sound racist, you can say ethnicity or ethnic group.
- takeda 7y agothx, fixed it. Edit: English is not my native language, and after reading up about race vs ethnicity, I think the word race was correct here. Ethnicity we can derive from the countries themselves although that could be messed up by tourists. I can no longer edit my post, but showing both would be useful.
- jshevek 7y agoI respect the humility you demonstrated when accepting a correction, even if the correction was itself incorrect.
- speedgoose 7y agoWe disagree but that's okay.
- blowski 7y agoAh sorry, the quote was totally lost on me. I'm afraid my knowledge of classic French movies is very limited.
- speedgoose 7y agoSometimes I forget that France isn't winning culturally.
- Izkata 7y agoAt least in the US, "race" and "ethnicity" are two different things. Both are valid, and "race" is the one that matters here.
- jshevek 7y agoYou are correct, but notice the attempt to police speech with a rather vile insinuation: "if you don't want to sound racist"
- Izkata 7y agoHeh, it's been thrown around so much the past few years it just doesn't register with me anymore.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThat's US, though. AFAIK, "ethnicity" is what matters anywhere else in the world.
- ambicapter 7y agoWhich movie?
- speedgoose 7y agoLa classe américaine. http://cyclim.se/ http://cyclim.se/
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoSickle-cell anemia is heritable, not transmitted. The interesting thing is that they're less susceptible to malaria, because sickle-cell anemia has protective effects against it. And malaria is a transmissible disease.
- rovolo 7y agoI don't think that your example of Sickle Cell (SCD) is a good comparison to the original quote: > how an ethnicity affects the virus spread and severity … certain communities are more endangered than others. SCD is a genetic disease. It is prevalent in specific regions where malaria is common because SCD protects against malaria. There aren't a suite of genes which make people more susceptible to SCD, there's a single inherited gene which causes SCD. You can't catch SCD from another person unless you inherited their genes. COVID-19 is a flu virus transmitted from person to person. There's no single gene which makes people more likely to catch or transmit flu. There may be multiple genes which increase susceptibility, but once you start talking about a suite of genetics, ethnicity essentially stops being a factor. (Unless those genes directly influence a survival trait for the local area, such as skin color.) There is too much genetic variation within ethnic groups compared to global variation to single out any groups due to genetics.
- blowski 7y agoThanks for the extra detail. The reason I'd even heard of it is because my wife was tested for it while pregnant, because she has some African ancestry. It's the only case I know of where that kind of racial origin affected susceptibility to any kind of condition. Do you know if there are any known patterns for certain groups having different levels of protection against respiratory viruses? I'm trying to phrase this carefully, as I'm genuinely interested, and don't want to come off as some Infowars-style nutjob.