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“People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in African Americans. On the rare

“People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in African Americans. On the rare occasion when African Americans do get melanoma, it’s particularly lethal—but it’s mostly a kind that occurs on the palms, soles, or under the nails and is not caused by sun exposure.” It’s saying they’re pushing sun screen for people who don’t really need it.

next_xibalba 4y ago
If we read all the sentences around those you quoted, it presents a nuanced view. It takes some motivated reasoning to flatten both the relevant context here and the background that science, particularly the science of human health, is highly uncertain. And yet the author manages just that, flattening all the context and nuance into: sunscreen is racist.
- postpawl 4y ago
  What missing context are you talking about? This is 2 paragraphs after the one I quoted and it says it even more clearly: “And yet they are being told a very different story, misled into believing that sunscreen can prevent their melanomas, which Weller finds exasperating. “The cosmetic industry is now trying to push sunscreen at dark-skinned people,” he says. “At dermatology meetings, you get people standing up and saying, ‘We have to adapt products for this market.’ Well, no we don’t. This is a marketing ploy.””
  - next_xibalba 4y ago
    > The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that all people, regardless of skin color, protect themselves from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays by seeking shade, wearing protective clothing, and using a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher > “I think that sun-protection advice,” [David Leffel, Yale] told me, “has always been directed at those most at risk”—people with fair skin or a family history of skin cancer. “While it is true that people with olive skin are at less risk, we do see an increasing number of people with that type of skin getting skin cancer. But skin cancer… is very rare in African Americans… and although they represent a spectrum of pigmentation, [they] are not at as much risk.”
    - postpawl 4y ago
      Right, it’s saying that race matters in this context because sun exposure skin cancer is rare in African Americans. The article is trying to make an argument that the American Academy of Dermatology needs to reconsider the opinion in your first quote. Your original comment was effectively ‘why does everything have to be about race?’ and it matters in this context.
      - next_xibalba 4y ago
        Discussing differences by race and implying racism are two quite different things. This article engaged in the latter, when only the former appears relevant in light of the facts.
        bccdee 4y ago
        The article is making the case that black people are being given sun exposure advice catered to white people. That's a pretty basic example of systemic racism. It's not vile bigotry, but it doesn't need to be—it's just a bias grounded in race. Still racism. Let's not be afraid of using accurate language just because that language is politicized.
        next_xibalba 4y ago
        Changing the definitions of words (it’s “systemic racism” not “vile bigotry”) is no different than changing the premises of a debate in order better favor your beliefs. It is the rhetorical equivalent of gerrymandering. Even worse is the insistence that these new words are as true and constant as natural laws like gravity, when in reality, these ideas are just made up by non-scientist academics and activists. No real science is performed to test their validity. You say “systemic racism”, I say “the article cites one guy and gives his voice more weight than an entire industry body in order to contort this into a story about (maybe) racism”. Science is messy. Doctors are very cautious by training and experience. So yes, they encourage everyone to use sunscreen until the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests otherwise. This is not racism in any form. To suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to people who have been subjected to real racism.
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  It sounds like you're just looking for an excuse to complain about something.
- mlazos 4y ago
  This right is here is someone on HN being the paragon of objectivity. How about taking the opposing argument in good faith? He didn’t even say anything about racism in the article and just gave evidence. The second someone mentions racism on HN this comment can be seen everywhere “wow and now X is racist?? So dumb!!” Relax it’s just the internet and try to learn something.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ProfessorLayton 4y ago
Avoiding cancer isn’t the only reason one would want to wear sunscreen, PoC or not.
amluto 4y ago
The article seems to be saying that excessive sunscreen usage and sun avoidance is bad for everyone and especially for people with darker skin. The leap of logic from that to racism seems like a bit of a stretch. Maybe the world needs a variant of Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to racism that which is adequate explained by stupidity (or incompetence or the desire to promote one’s product or profession, etc.).
- seoaeu 4y ago
  I mean, lots of folks use a simpler model: “never attribute anything to racism because talking about race makes me uncomfortable”
- sdenton4 4y ago
  And yet... The US tried /extremely/ hard to take 'color-blindness' as the solution to centuries of explicit racism. And it failed rather completely. There's two effects at play: a) the 'true' racists learned how to keep being horrible without ever explicitly talking about race, and b) we wound up with lots of 'data gaps' around race by ignoring real differences. This data gap is arguably at the root of what's called structural racism. (Incidentally, an incredibly similar dynamic has played out with the rights of women. I'm currently reading Caroline Criado-Perez's 'Invisible Women' which is about a huge range of areas where the 'default' is male, and the resulting gaps in data about women lead to poor outcomes.) So I'd say the article points to a particular kind of structural racism: That the medical advice for white people is assumed to also be good for people of color.
  - amluto 4y ago
    > So I'd say the article points to a particular kind of structural racism: That the medical advice for white people is assumed to also be good for people of color. Maybe? The article is trying pretty hard to say that the medical advice is wrong for white people too. Of course, it’s plausible that the article is wrong, white people should use sunscreen, and black people (at least in Northern climates?) should not. Here’s a more clear-cut example of structural racism in medicine: https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2021posts/black-people-are-three-times-more-likely-to-experience-pulse-oximeter-errors.html https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2021posts/black-people-are-thr...
golemiprague 4y ago

next_xibalba 4y ago

If we read all the sentences around those you quoted, it presents a nuanced view. It takes some motivated reasoning to flatten both the relevant context here and the background that science, particularly the science of human health, is highly uncertain. And yet the author manages just that, flattening all the context and nuance into: sunscreen is racist.

postpawl 4y ago
What missing context are you talking about? This is 2 paragraphs after the one I quoted and it says it even more clearly: “And yet they are being told a very different story, misled into believing that sunscreen can prevent their melanomas, which Weller finds exasperating. “The cosmetic industry is now trying to push sunscreen at dark-skinned people,” he says. “At dermatology meetings, you get people standing up and saying, ‘We have to adapt products for this market.’ Well, no we don’t. This is a marketing ploy.””
- next_xibalba 4y ago
  > The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that all people, regardless of skin color, protect themselves from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays by seeking shade, wearing protective clothing, and using a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher > “I think that sun-protection advice,” [David Leffel, Yale] told me, “has always been directed at those most at risk”—people with fair skin or a family history of skin cancer. “While it is true that people with olive skin are at less risk, we do see an increasing number of people with that type of skin getting skin cancer. But skin cancer… is very rare in African Americans… and although they represent a spectrum of pigmentation, [they] are not at as much risk.”
  - postpawl 4y ago
    Right, it’s saying that race matters in this context because sun exposure skin cancer is rare in African Americans. The article is trying to make an argument that the American Academy of Dermatology needs to reconsider the opinion in your first quote. Your original comment was effectively ‘why does everything have to be about race?’ and it matters in this context.
    - next_xibalba 4y ago
      Discussing differences by race and implying racism are two quite different things. This article engaged in the latter, when only the former appears relevant in light of the facts.
      - bccdee 4y ago
        The article is making the case that black people are being given sun exposure advice catered to white people. That's a pretty basic example of systemic racism. It's not vile bigotry, but it doesn't need to be—it's just a bias grounded in race. Still racism. Let's not be afraid of using accurate language just because that language is politicized.
        next_xibalba 4y ago
        Changing the definitions of words (it’s “systemic racism” not “vile bigotry”) is no different than changing the premises of a debate in order better favor your beliefs. It is the rhetorical equivalent of gerrymandering. Even worse is the insistence that these new words are as true and constant as natural laws like gravity, when in reality, these ideas are just made up by non-scientist academics and activists. No real science is performed to test their validity. You say “systemic racism”, I say “the article cites one guy and gives his voice more weight than an entire industry body in order to contort this into a story about (maybe) racism”. Science is messy. Doctors are very cautious by training and experience. So yes, they encourage everyone to use sunscreen until the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests otherwise. This is not racism in any form. To suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to people who have been subjected to real racism.
phillipcarter 4y ago
It sounds like you're just looking for an excuse to complain about something.
mlazos 4y ago
This right is here is someone on HN being the paragon of objectivity. How about taking the opposing argument in good faith? He didn’t even say anything about racism in the article and just gave evidence. The second someone mentions racism on HN this comment can be seen everywhere “wow and now X is racist?? So dumb!!” Relax it’s just the internet and try to learn something.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ProfessorLayton 4y ago

Avoiding cancer isn’t the only reason one would want to wear sunscreen, PoC or not.

amluto 4y ago

The article seems to be saying that excessive sunscreen usage and sun avoidance is bad for everyone and especially for people with darker skin. The leap of logic from that to racism seems like a bit of a stretch. Maybe the world needs a variant of Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to racism that which is adequate explained by stupidity (or incompetence or the desire to promote one’s product or profession, etc.).

seoaeu 4y ago
I mean, lots of folks use a simpler model: “never attribute anything to racism because talking about race makes me uncomfortable”
sdenton4 4y ago
And yet... The US tried /extremely/ hard to take 'color-blindness' as the solution to centuries of explicit racism. And it failed rather completely. There's two effects at play: a) the 'true' racists learned how to keep being horrible without ever explicitly talking about race, and b) we wound up with lots of 'data gaps' around race by ignoring real differences. This data gap is arguably at the root of what's called structural racism. (Incidentally, an incredibly similar dynamic has played out with the rights of women. I'm currently reading Caroline Criado-Perez's 'Invisible Women' which is about a huge range of areas where the 'default' is male, and the resulting gaps in data about women lead to poor outcomes.) So I'd say the article points to a particular kind of structural racism: That the medical advice for white people is assumed to also be good for people of color.
- amluto 4y ago
  > So I'd say the article points to a particular kind of structural racism: That the medical advice for white people is assumed to also be good for people of color. Maybe? The article is trying pretty hard to say that the medical advice is wrong for white people too. Of course, it’s plausible that the article is wrong, white people should use sunscreen, and black people (at least in Northern climates?) should not. Here’s a more clear-cut example of structural racism in medicine: https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2021posts/black-people-are-three-times-more-likely-to-experience-pulse-oximeter-errors.html https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2021posts/black-people-are-thr...

golemiprague 4y ago