June 12, 2020 • 56 mins
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, long-standing inequalities have exacerbated the crisis in historically neglected US communities. In today's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the native US community.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control Decade. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's your favorite Quentin Quarantineos coming
back again, live in direct or digital full effect. We
(00:48):
are We hope this episode finds you happy and healthy
as can be. We're doing We're doing pretty well. We've
got our own personal and professional milestones coming up. But
as always, we are here to keep the podcast lights
on until we get black bagged or until we go
full mad Max. We've been getting a ton of correspondence
(01:13):
for which we're grateful, uh, in email form, on social media,
and in voicemail. There's a particular voicemail that inspired today's episode. Um,
and Matt, you have a you have a version of
this week cleaned up for public consumption, right? Yes, this
this person called in you know the way a lot
(01:34):
of people do, and gave their information and everything and
just told us about an issue, a problem, And in
this case it was someone who you know works in
a capacity related to this that we wanted to remove
the name of this person. UM, and you'll see why
(01:55):
perhaps as we listen to it. UM. This person called
in February and just had some pretty alarming information for us.
So I think we should just go ahead and play
it and then we'll talk about it. Hi, guys, I
think I'm calling him to them. Sitting in my office
a little frustrated right now. I just listened to your
show on COVID nineteen and you were talking about conspiracies.
(02:20):
I worked for them, the VAT of Indian Commission. What
I'm doing today is what's like what the Massachusetts governor
did that you mentioned. We have to work with the
National Guard to get tribes ppees. So Helping Human Services
HF is supposed to work with tribes and help them
get these the tribe for making their orders, I HF
(02:43):
is taking those orders and never getting to them. So
we believe that what you're doing is using the paperwork
to show that they're getting the supplies that the federal
governments formed them. So our national Guard is now getting
our list. They're going to grab the supplied and they're
going to get into the tribe. Probably think somehow Summer
(03:05):
Company is making money off it. It's not a conspiracy.
I mean, this is stuff I worked with every day
as a long, long time listener. I really appreciate you,
and I hope that you all think thank you so much.
Sober and stuff. Yeah, and again, as as Matt said
that that occurred in February, several months ago. Now, uh,
(03:28):
and it is painting a picture. First off, we want
to say when we heard this message, we were both
grateful to you caller, and we hope you're listening now.
We're also horrified to learn the extent to which this
crisis has grown. The well, you know, it's something that
we kind of predicted a while back in a COVID
(03:50):
episode where if the federal leadership is not cohesive and
governors feel it is endangering their constituents, they will band together.
So we've seeing not one, but three regional alliances of
different governors using national Guard, which is what the national
Guard is for, by the way, uh, to get those supplies.
(04:11):
But this is affecting the native population in a way
that's not really getting into the headlines, you know, and this,
you know, there's something interesting about the timeline here, Holler.
When you had called us, we had we had been
researching but had not yet recorded nor published our earlier
episode on forced assimilation of Native people's. Uh. We want
(04:36):
to thank everyone from both the US and abroad who
responded to that recent episode. We had a lot of
people right in from Canada, a lot of people right
in from Australia. And one thing that I I don't
know about you guys, but one thing that really struck
me about that is that the response internationally, we found
a lot of people unfortunately saying, you know, you can
(04:58):
mad lib the entire episode own on Native assimilation and
just replace Native American with you know, uh, indigenous people
or Aboriginal people of Australia or with First nations. Yeah,
it's certainly a fairly common thing that we we've seen
in a lot of places where the indigenous people is
(05:20):
just it's the view I guess from the conquering people
is that you just have to assimilate and make them
a part of your own or or eradicate. And that's
the thing This is not some kind of problem that's
been solved, some kind of relic you know from history. UM.
It is absolutely ongoing, and there is a new developing chapter.
(05:46):
UM and what could probably best be described as, um
A a horror story that I think was set up
perfectly by our caller. And I think we all know
that the title of this chapter is COVID. Yeah, yeah,
I do think it is appropriate to describe it that way.
This is not some long forgotten crisis from a dusty
(06:07):
history book, and it's far from brand new problem. It's
a new iteration and I do like to think of
it as a long novel, a horror story in which
this is just the newest chapter. And if this is
if that analogy holds, which I'm pretty happy with, then
the title of this chapter would be COVID. So here
(06:27):
are the facts to start off, We're not going to
waste time today telling you what coronavirus is, what COVID
nineteen is. We have plenty of episodes in the back
that do a pretty good job we think of giving
you the lay of land there, so check those out
for more information. Right now, we're going to do something
we do every episode, which is this we'll give you
(06:49):
the current statistics of COVID nineteen in the United States. Again,
we still do not have accurate numbers, so we'll have
to give you a range. Uh the c d C,
UH and various other institutions disagree. But everybody's kind of
in the same ballpark right now, which is either a
good sign or if you're someone who thinks this is
(07:09):
intentionally being misreported one way or the other, this is
a sign of increased collaboration. Confirmed cases are, according to
the CDC, one million, fivefty one thousand and nine five
as of May twenty uh New York Times rounded that
down to one point five million, and the deaths continue
(07:32):
to come um. Again, these numbers may be pretty low,
just depending on how the reporting is actually coming through.
According to the CDC in the United States, there have
been ninety three thousand and sixty one deaths, and the
New York Times has it a little bit higher, around
ninety four thousand, seven hundred and seventeen deaths. And as
(07:54):
we established earlier uh IM previous episodes, the thing about
those numbers is that they have a lot of problems
with methodology, with accuracy. One of the big questions is
whether that is through incompetence, whether it is through simply
being overwhelmed or whether it is somehow through design. But
(08:14):
in our previous episodes, we didn't talk about something that's
extremely important and it's it's a huge part of today's
show as well, and that is the demographics of people
being infected. You see, COVID is not an equal opportunity
killer in the United States. Certain demographics have been hit
much much more heavily. That's right, according to preliminary data. Uh, sex, age,
(08:39):
and ethnicity all seem to play roles. Scientists are still
working to get a better sense of what all of
this truly means. But here's kind of the lay of
the land as we understand it. When it comes to age,
the evidence points to the idea that infected patients risk
of dying from the coronavirus increases with every additional decade UM.
(09:02):
In one study in particular, published in The Lancet in March,
researchers um compiled data from thirty eight different countries that
suggest the virus kills up to thirteen point four percent
of patients eighty years UH and older, compared with an
overall estimated case fatality rate of one point three eight percent.
(09:24):
All of this checks out um with just kind of
the empirical data that we have just from watching the
news and and following the story. The elderly are absolutely
the most at risk, largely because of reasons of immunity. Yeah,
this is just something that is a reality. As your
body gets older, Uh, your immune system just doesn't function
(09:47):
as well as it used to. And that's just the
reality that we all face, at least for now, until
some magical technology comes along that stops that from happening.
You know, you within your body, things like T cells, macrophages,
they all slow down their processes. They don't again, they
don't function as as um swiftly as they once did.
(10:09):
And your body also slows down the production of lymphis
sites um or at least it produces, you know, fewer
of them. It's it's a real problem because with COVID,
with you know, when you're infected by coronavirus, if you've
gotten a weak immune system, it's way harder for your
body to then defend against this new outsider that's coming through,
(10:31):
this invader that's in your system, you know, and that
could be anything. And that's why over the past several decades,
we've seen pretty alarming numbers with the common cold like
flew when you know, in older populations, especially in nursing
homes and other facilities like that. And this is even
worse if you've got some other previously existing conditions, like
(10:51):
if your heart or your kidneys, or your liver, your
lungs maybe just aren't working as well as they once
did because you've had a disease in the past, the
ravages of time. Yeah, and I you know, I think
we need to hit on a very important sidebar here,
which is pre existing conditions. The term pre existing conditions
(11:13):
is something that a lot of people in the US
learned from a private insurance company, often the hard way,
but it plays a big role in COVID nineteen as well. UH.
The Chinese government has their own Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, and they issued a study that found people
with no underlying chronic medical conditions had a fatality rate
(11:38):
in general around point nine percent, But for people with
cardiovascular disease, just that one variable increase the fatality rate
to ten point five percent. Respiratory disease ups your likelihood
to six point three percent. UH. Even people with hypertension.
Hypertension is incredibly common. They're a little there, like three
(12:00):
hundred twenty three million or so people who live in
the United States officially, uh, and of those around a
hundred million have hypertension. It's so common. It means that
you know, well, less than one out of three people
have some form of this, and that takes your fatality
rate from point nine percent to six percent. There may also,
(12:22):
it must be said, be some sort of genetic factor here,
but honestly, I dug into it in the published science,
just isn't there yet. We can we can say there's
there's maybe something, but we don't know the mechanisms, and
it would be irresponsible, uh for anyone other than a
genetic scientists or an epidemiologists to claim otherwise. We do
(12:46):
know in terms of biology and genetics that biological sex,
not gender, not the not the social constructing, but biological
sex does also play a crucial role. And I've I've
got some bad news for us guys, not the winners
in this one. So yeah, it's true. Uh. While men
(13:09):
and women UM have roughly equal rates of COVID nineteen infection,
UM more men are dying from the disease in every
single country. In China, for example, where the virus originated,
six of deaths were men. In Italy, sixty of coronavirus
(13:30):
related deaths have been men um And as we've discussed,
you know, this data is not perfect, but based on
the data that we have gathered in New York City,
in particular, the epicenter of the North American outbreak, men
made up of known COVID nineteen hospitalizations but sixty two
(13:53):
of fatalities as early as April. And and the thing
is we don't really know why, which means it's likely
a mix of factors. Um Men are more more likely
to be smokers, for example. And uh, yeah, I know
it's gross, but practice less good hygiene. I guess, um,
I know, Ben, I think you've got some stats around
(14:15):
this that are a little bit eye opening. Yeah, yeah,
I've pepper this pepper Today's story with some I guess
moments of levity. This one is is kind of fart joky, uh,
but but it's true all for all the dudes listening
to this. Uh, you know, even if you identify as
dude or whatever. Uh, we're in general grocer, in in
(14:40):
the restroom, and in the kitchen. Uh. One in twenty
men say that they barely ever washed their hands with
soap after going to the bathroom at home, for instance.
And there's a there's a pretty cool well I opening site,
uh on pull this for you gov dot com where
(15:03):
where uh already four in ten Americans don't always wash
our hands with soap when we go to the bathroom.
But men are Men are by far the worst, which
means we're just giving opportunities for things like bacteria to
just spread. You know, men are indeed the worst. Just
putting that out there real quick as a father. Oh yeah, totally, totally, totally.
(15:28):
But as gross as we are, it doesn't quite explain
this disparity that we've been seeing. Right if you're just
thinking about New York where of the hospitalizations are male,
but then somehow of the fatalities are male. Um, it
just doesn't. That doesn't compute. I mean we are talking
(15:51):
about five what what is it like five percent or
something of of men, so like you're almost getting there, um,
just to add that little extra grossness, uh, to explain it.
But no, no, no, it doesn't. They are also generally
less likely to see a doctor, even correcting from all
other factors socioeconomic, etcetera. But you're right, Matt, this does
(16:16):
not explain the gap here. So this is just spitballing.
Maybe there's a little bit ted talky, but if we're
being absolutely honest, and if you you know, if you
read enough about the human species in any field of study,
it's apparent in the grand scheme of things, this is
(16:37):
more bad news for the dudes in the audience. If
you're a dude, you are not as biologically important as
a woman, full stop. I mean, you know, women are
horrifically repressed in societies throughout the world, but in terms
of the actual beyond politics species, women are way more important.
(16:58):
Women are the only ones who can rely doubly carry
a human child to term, rear it to adulthood, and
that's all that our species cares about from the biological level.
So it makes sense then that if the human species
was forced to sacrifice some of its own, it's gonna
go for the elderly first, and then the males. I mean,
(17:20):
not for nothing are so many young men sent off
to die in war. They're just not as necessary to
a functioning society as women, which is super cold, and
I hope that's not a surprise to anyone. But it
comes in playing pandemics too. We know, like the this
is not this is not something that uh, the your
(17:41):
world leader sat around and decided in a smokey back room,
even if they weren't there, even if no government existed.
We are hardwired to sacrifice dudes. First. You can see
it in the sex based differences of the immune system,
Like take the X chromosome. Everybody has an X chromosome.
You know, everybody has at least what it stores genes
(18:03):
that are incredibly important to your body's immune system as
well as micro RNA. And women if your call, have
two X chromosomes. Uh, they also produce more estrogen that's
proven to help with immune cell activity. Uh. Testosterone, by
the way, helps with inflammation a k A injuries. So
send them to war and uh. This this means that women,
(18:27):
again the biological term, can respond more quickly and efficiently
to infection in general. In fact, early work in China
this hasn't been published yet, but it's been publicly you know, propagated.
It indicates that Chinese women with COVID nineteen have in
general higher level of antibodies than men. And it goes
across the board. And there is a disparity also between
(18:50):
the life expectancy of men and women within the United States.
Just to put this out there, as of seventeen, life
expectancy for a male in this is just completely in
general was seventies six point one and for females it
was eighty one point one. So already, uh, there, there
(19:13):
there's a bit of difference in how long one is
expected to live just depending on your gender. Yeah, they
did the math, right, they did the terrible scary math.
We should also point out even in the seven so
called blue zones or the human population that's where you
have the highest likelihood of living past a hundred years old,
the life expectancy disparities still exists. It's smaller, but but
(19:37):
it still exists. Your chances of living longer as a
dude are just not super good. But but some people
may be wondering, some of our fellow listeners may be wondering,
why are you pulling so many stats from China? Uh?
One reason, first off, should be a parent that's where
the infection has been around the longest, so there's more
(20:01):
data to pool. Uh. But you know, you might say, well,
what if there's something about ethnicity that's different. Because I
have heard you might be saying, and rightly so, that
ethnicity does play a role in whether or not someone
will contract COVID and whether or not they will die
from it or be seriously injured. This is a huge, huge,
(20:23):
messy one in the US, which is still considered a
developed nation. Uh. Racial minorities are disproportionately affected by COVID nineteen.
If you are Latino or you are Black, and you
are living in New York City, for instance, this disease
will be literally twice as deadly for you than it
(20:46):
would be for like European Americans. Yeah, it's insane. And
the black population in Michigan is only about fourteen percent
of the total population but accounts for forty percent of
the deaths. Uh. Um. And and this is a whole
different issue than those disparities between age and biological sex.
(21:07):
This has absolutely nothing to do with with biology. Um.
A journalist named Ibram X kendy Um put it perfectly
uh in a quote from an article he wrote for
The Atlantic, saying, quote to explain the disparities in the
mortality rate, too many politicians and commentators are noting that
black people have more underlying medical conditions, but crucially they're
(21:30):
not explaining why, or they blame the choices made by
black people or poverty or obesity, but not racism there.
It is there. It is no ding ding ding racism. Yeah,
these pre existing conditions that are faced by so many
minority communities, including like, these medical conditions are let's not
(21:54):
victim blame here. Those are the results of systematic racism.
It affects health and profound ways. Like, for instance, there's
the old stereotype where you'll hear somebody say, you know,
my um like we you know, we're the u S.
We have a lot of we have a lot of
friends and loved ones whose parents maybe have immigrated right
(22:16):
from a different country. And there's this old stereotype here
all the time where it's like, oh, my parents don't
trust doctors, they won't go to doctors. Well, there are
studies that prove they're not just being you know, recalcitrant
or something. There's they have probably gone to a doctor
and had the experience where the doctor takes their description
(22:37):
of their pain or their condition much less. Seriously, multiple
studies confirm, specifically with black people, that doctors tend not
to believe them. They tend not to believe their patients
based on their skin color. That's messed up. And and
that's not even like the studies without getting two in
the weeds. The studies are pretty solid. They they ad
(22:59):
just for things. Is um like uh self aware bias,
you know what I mean. I'm not saying that doctors
are consciously being uh real pills about this. They just
inherently have been sort of programmed by society to doubt
people based on their skin color. It's true. And and
(23:20):
you know what, um, Ben dropped a word in there
that perhaps you like, I just had to look up recalcitrant.
It's our word of the day, and it has exactly
it exactly describes what Ben is talking about here. It
is defined as having an obstinately uncooperative attitude towards authority
or discipline. Yes, yeah, oh man, I'm so glad that's
(23:43):
the actual definition. Good vocabulary corner on stuff they don't
want you to know. I love it. Always something every
day Ben and Ben will throw in a word like that.
I would say every other episode, maybe maybe every episode
where I have to go, let me find out what
that word means bust me if I get it wrong.
You know, I think we all we all can um. Well,
(24:06):
we all are paid to talk, so sometimes when we
get carried away there there are some words that I've
used incorrectly in the past. You know. UM, the way
I see it, the way I see its vocabulary goals,
you know what I mean, Like this is an instagram
able moment. I completely agree. But the takeaway of vocabulary,
aside from all of this is that we're still kind
(24:27):
of unpacking all of this data. Obviously, and since there's
really no federal level plan for addressing this pandemic and
it's largely been kind of up to the states. UM,
there's really no unified accountability that scienceists have to lean on,
and they need that. UM. But what we are learning
(24:48):
and what we are able to start to unpack UH
in this data is really really disturbing, and it's the
fact that certain marginalized people are absolutely being left behind.
And there's there's more to this story. There's a story
that's not being told, UH, and we we get a
snapshot of it from UH. From you caller who are
(25:11):
keeping anonymous for your safety. UH. You may have seen
a statistic if you've been reading about COVID nineteen as
you know, as an old said that data is still
coming in. You may have seen this statistic, but you've
seen it relegated to a line or two in a
lot of recent news stories and the think pieces and
the you know, uh, the high faluting articles, and it's
(25:35):
usually something like this, this is what it's been in
recent months. Well, some of the highest infection rates in
the country have been on Native American land, peplo's reservations
and so on. If that's true, and it most assuredly is,
that is an insane thing to leave as a throwaway aside.
You know what I mean. It's it's like, um, it's
(25:59):
like saying it's like saying, hey, here's uh, here's a
dry report on the statistics of airplanes. Um. You know
it is true that recently, uh, two people have been
documented being able to traverse the bounds of gravity and
fly unaided. But the Boeing seven seven has a wind
speed of X. Like, why are we why are we
(26:20):
throwing that line away? What is going on? We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. Yeah, I mean, there seems to be uh,
(26:41):
a like emergency within the emergency um brewing right now
in one of the country's most historically vulnerable populations. In
the United States, there are five and seventy four recognized
federally recognized Native American tribes. UM, but they're often being
under reported, misreported, or are ignored entirely, UM, being relegated
(27:03):
to the that you know checkbox on you know documents
you see just called other. And that's the the very
definition of mothering right there. Ye well it is. In
The Guardian, a UK newspaper news organization, reported on this,
and we've got to quote from them here and I'm
(27:25):
just gonna read it. Quote of state health departments have
released some racial demographic data which has already revealed stark
disparities in the impact of COVID nineteen in black and
Latin X communities. They're using Latin X here. We know
that's a term that is uh not perfect. Um, let's
just continue on. But of those states, almost half did
(27:46):
not explicitly include Native Americans in their breakdowns and instead
categorize them under the label other miscellaneous. Basically. Yeah. Abby
Gale Echo Hawk, who is the director of the Urban
Indian Health Board and also the chief research officer of
(28:07):
the Seattle Indian Health Board. UH responded by I wouldn't
hear what you all think of this quote. I feel
like she's implying that there's some cooking of the books.
She says by including us in the other category, it
effectively eliminates us in the data, and there's I feel
(28:28):
like that's pretty valid there. There's something else that a
lot of people outside of that community probably don't know.
It's something that, um, you know, to to be fully transparent,
I was not aware of until we were doing some
research on the force dissimilation Native Americans. Did you know
that the Native American population in the US is the
(28:50):
only segment of the US that is born with a
legal right to healthcare? Now everybody else in the world.
That's gonna be really weird to hear, because if you
don't live in the US, the odds are that, at
least on paper, you are born with a legal right
to healthcare. We are not. We are absolutely not. Only
(29:11):
the Native American population is. But still it's it's on paper,
it's in theory. But ben aren't we entitled to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness? Right? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
sorry that that pursuit really encompasses a lot of aspirational
stuff that we are not in fact entitled to at all. No,
it's true, And I mean, like, what what would be
(29:32):
some other others by the way, are we talking about
like American Samoans, Like what would be some other things
that would be put into that other category just just
out of curiosity. Yeah, that's a great question. Depends on
the organization asking and how they want to, you know,
Bernet's level frame it, so you might you might see
(29:53):
things that like so the US is still grappling with
how to classify what they think of as someone someone's
specific identification in the Latin diaspora for instance, Right, Uh,
they might say, like you, you probably used to see
those things where it's like white white Latino, non white Latino.
Things like that. Other can include things like um like
(30:16):
malungeon for instance. Uh, a lot of smaller ethnicities that
don't have a large enough population to really show up
on a PIH graph essentially, so you might see like
maybe romani um. And it's also it gives people an
opportunity to say, you know, I'm not on this list,
(30:38):
but I don't think I fit in any of these
other categories you've listed. So I'm you know, I'm Romani,
I'm I'm a lungeon, I'm etcetera. You know, it's also
an opportunity for a lot of people to be uh
to try out there there there stand up chops. I'm
sure there are a lot of crazy things entered on
other like I'm a robo America and I wasn't. I
(31:01):
wasn't trying to be flipping or dismissive and saying American Samoa.
I know that's a category known as Pacific islander. Um.
You know that would be a box. But what you
this is not, say the census that there is intention
well I don't know to me implied intention in squashing
down these groups into single check boxes as opposed to
(31:21):
having a more broad categorization and and to to the
point of of the of the person that we referenced earlier,
it does feel like a way of just kind of
hodgepodging all of these inconvenient groups together into one box
so they don't really have to address any specifics around it.
(31:41):
That's I think you've hit it on the head there, Knull,
Because there there are two things here. The first one
is that you know, we talked about how Native Americans
in this country, indigenous people's are born with the right
to healthcare, but what does that really mean? How does
that translate right? And also why do they have that?
(32:03):
Isn't it because of the treaties that were signed back
in the day where all of the land and the
resources on that land was just taken again perhaps their
land is an incorrect way to describe it, but the
areas in which they lived were taken um and the
the concept here was that as part of the treaty,
(32:24):
one of the things you get our services like healthcare, housing, education,
all of these things that were then provided by the colonists,
the colonizers us really um from the past, and that's
why there are things that exist called the Bureau of
(32:45):
Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service, or the Indian
Health Board or the Indian the Nevada Indian Commission. But
that agreement that was entered into a long long time ago,
or at least that concept of an agreement, it doesn't
seem to be translating over all these years to actual health,
(33:09):
especially health and human services, to to assistance uh in
in these populations. Yeah, exactly, so how bad is it?
Think about this, If the Navajo Nation were a state,
if there were fifty one states and the Navo Nation
was one, then just a few weeks ago it would
have ranked third in the country for COVID nineteen infection
(33:32):
cases per one thousand people per capita. That would put
it just behind New York and New Jersey. To be fair,
the nation is trying to test at a much higher
rate than a lot of states, but the problem is
growing because that would have been just a few weeks
ago as number three. If it were state this like
(33:53):
last week, it would be the highest per capita rate
of COVID nineteen infection in the US entire The population
UH is being disproportionately affected by and by COVID nineteen. Yeah,
and the problem doesn't seem to be going anywhere. In fact,
it seems to be growing. In Arizona, UH, Native Americans
(34:15):
make up six percent of the population but sixteen percent
of the COVID cases. In New Mexico, they're less than
ten percent of the population but one third of all
coronavirus cases. And again, nothing to do with biology here
other than sex and age. There's absolutely no genetic reason
for these populations to to be seeing such a disparity
(34:38):
um in the number of cases uh in that they're
acquiring and dying from COVID nineteen at such a higher
rate than literally everyone else. Um. It really does come
down to that othering that we talked about and that
discriminatory attitude towards this marginalized population in particular. And we're
(35:00):
gonna get more into why that might be after a
quick word from our sponsor. So, like other populations in
the world and in the US, this this population, the
Native American population in the United States, was uh not
(35:23):
receiving adequate services or you know, like health care services
before the pandemic. And you know what we're eventually going
to be calling like the days before, you know what
I mean, the old normal things still frankly sucked in
terms of healthcare. Uh. The c d C based here
(35:44):
in Atlanta, by the way, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention had already done some studies indicating that this population
experienced diabetes three times more than any other racial or
ethnic group in the US, had the highest rates of asthma,
and again in the before four days pre pandemic, the
(36:05):
federal health system that was serving the Native American population
was already by its own admission and by outside studies,
confirmed to be chronically underfunded. So so like what's in
a report to the earlier question about other Right, we
talked about the census earlier in a previous episode and
(36:26):
how it asked some questions that people find invasive at times. Right. Uh,
you know, you're asked to disclose things like your race,
your ethnicity, your age, or income in the midst of
a pandemic. This data, when used ethically, helps us understand
the underlying problems about how an infection takes hold in
(36:47):
a given community. So, so let's look a little bit
into what the census had to say. Yeah, according to
that census, half of all American, Indian, and Alaska Natives
live in ten different states within the United States. So
ten out of fifty as of April, all ten had
published some kind of racial demographic data, and six of
(37:10):
those included a breakdown for Native Americans within their states. However,
four did not Texas, Florida, New York, and Michigan, and
a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services
said that Native Americans were categorized as quote other because
their case numbers were simply small compared to the other
(37:30):
groups that they were counting within within this data. And
then Abigail Echo Hawk, who we mentioned earlier, responded, uh.
And this response, I I feel was honest and blunt
at a time when honesty and bluntness are needed. Uh.
Echo Hawks said, quote, we are a small population of
(37:52):
people because of genocide, no other reason. If you eliminate
us in the data, we don't exist. We don't exist
for the allocation of resources. You know. Uh, I think
that's a powerful statement. And and you know it alludes
to some of the previous episodes or previous chapters when
(38:13):
I'm calling that horror story. Uh. Leaving native populations out
of public health information is not a new thing in
this country at all. And it's not an historically distant
thing either. It's a lot closer to a routine pattern
of uh negligence and abuse. Yeah. I mean it's a
(38:33):
form of like cultural erasure. Really. I mean, when the
CDC released its most comprehensive study to date on race
and maternal mortality back in January, UH, it did not
include Native populations. Even though the Urban Indian Health Institute
in its own studies found that Native women living in
cities were more than four and a half times more
(38:54):
likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women.
So then let's look to the Indian Health Services or
i h S, which serves two point five million tribal
citizens across thirty seven states within the US. UM they've
been they've been publishing daily reports about the outbreak about
the coronavirus and how it's affecting, you know, the people
(39:15):
that they serve. Here's the here's the problem though, i
h S can't track hospitalization or mortality data for most
of the people that it's trying to serve, most of
the patients because the majority of the facilities that they're
actually trying to track or that these these citizens get
to go to, they don't provide intensive care. So critically
ill patients, like when you know, when you actually have
(39:38):
COVID nineteen UM, they're they're transferred to non i h
S hospitals. So then the data that you know that
they would be recording with your the the i h
S would be recording is going somewhere else to some
other group to try and you know, hopefully get put
into the data set. Somewhere else. But then guess what
(39:59):
it hits that other category. It's crazy. The only public
national coronavirus database that is also reporting uh, you know,
specifically tribal affiliation is coming out of Indian Country today.
That's an independent native run newspaper and as a team
(40:21):
of sixteen people, and they have been just sixteen and
they've been working around the clock adding positive COVID cases
and deaths that they can verify to a daily report
you can find on on their website. And we want
to mention again, um that while this is happening, you know,
people are finding themselves in a situation where they feel
(40:47):
rightly often that they cannot trust the federal government because
they're not receiving the ppe they were promised. I love
the caller pointed out the opportunity for bad actors, corruption
and graft here. It's it's certainly happening. We haven't we
haven't been able to find out where that uh financial
(41:07):
leak is who's getting a big but I am I
am convinced this out there. You can't. You can't have
government private cooperation at this extent without someone taking a
little taste, you know. Yeah, yeah, And we've even seen
cases of UM shipments destined for hospitals being intercepted, you know,
(41:28):
by the government and distributed to God knows who, God
knows where or for what ends, you know, because there's
just no transparency there. This seems like a more even
more insidious version of that long story short people are
falling through the cracks, and the big question here is
whether that is through UM federal and state level incompetence,
(41:52):
whether it's through negligence, or whether it is somehow through design,
which I know might sound alarmists to a lot of
us in the audience today, but we have to remember
the precedent set by history, the earlier chapters in this book,
when these sorts of things happened very much by design.
(42:13):
So unlike states and counties, tribal systems can't rely on
these health care systems to tell them when their citizens
are sick or dying. They have to collect this information themselves.
And that's incredibly dangerous because that means that you're flying blind.
(42:33):
It's a tough situation to find yourself in. Uh According
to the National Indian Health Board, only half of the
tribal government surveyed said they received COVID nineteen related information
from the federal or state governments, places where you know
a lot of other counties and local governments are getting
(42:53):
information from and fewer than one five had received money
technical assistants or supplies. And specifically we're talking about that
ppe there, the ventilators, things that are going to be
absolutely necessary. We talked about the problems with the hospitals
where a lot of the native populations can actually go to.
(43:15):
This is just really a dire situation. And you know,
then you look to the the thing that a lot
of people have been talking about in politics, the Cares Act,
the bailout. Essentially, there was eight billion dollars that was
allocated to tribes at the end of March. However, the
(43:36):
payments didn't start rolling out until a week after the
April deadline that was imposed by Congress. Um. That's that's
a problem. Yeah, And there's just to just to put
this in perspective, um, Yeah, to to put it in
like a stark, bleeding red meat headline. Here, think about
(43:58):
this due to the neglect on the part of your
federal government. If you live in this country, the conditions
on reservations right now as we record this are so
bad that Doctors Without Borders, the Doctors Without Borders has
deployed inside the territory of the US for the first
(44:18):
time in history. Doctors without Borders had to step in. Yeah,
this is a group that goes to war torn areas
in the world that are dangerous due to places where
as there's If there's not help, then people will be
dying all over and and consistently. And they're here now.
(44:41):
And this is only a snapshot of this gigantic problem
that is affecting multiple communities in the United States, communities
that have been historically brushed aside, UH provably, demonstrably conspired against,
ignored by the larger power structure. E. Then in times
when things are like relatively normal, you know, it is
(45:04):
not hyperbolic to say that right now, lives are literally
on the line. Earlier in April, it's a little while ago,
UH Senators Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley had
joined forces with some other colleagues to introduce a bill
that was specifically calling for consultation with tribal governments on
(45:28):
this federal level info collection, and they wanted to allocate
an additional three million dollars in funding to h I
h S. Yeah. Warren went on to say, quote, you
can't fix what you can't see. If we want to
slow the spread of the virus and ensure our response
is robust and equitable, we need comprehensive data on who's
getting tested, who's getting treatment, and who is dying. UM
(45:53):
very much supporting this notion of breaking out that other
category and getting more granular detail about this stuff, because
you can't do anything about it if you don't know
what's happening. And at one quick point there UM for
the for the war end quote. I know this. This
is interesting because many of us may remember that during
(46:13):
the earlier UM primaries, right when the d n C
was figuring out who they would select to be them
the Democratic candidate, and then in the next election a
few months from now, maybe then Warren took some heat
for claiming to have Native American ancestry, when in fact
(46:37):
it later came out that was that was not that
was not an accurate statement. So I want to acknowledge that,
but we also want to acknowledge there is a problem here.
And the American Medical Association stepped in as well. They said,
you know, look, telemedicine might help. Telemedicine, of course, is
kind of like what we're doing when we record podcast.
(47:00):
There's a doctor on the other side, you describe your symptoms.
They're able to observe you somewhat, you know. Uh, So
they say, maybe that could help mitigate the outbreak. They
urge the current presidential administration to start collecting and publishing
mortality data for coronavirus by race and ethnicity. This scares people,
(47:21):
of course, whenever something is collected by so called race
or ethnicity, you know, it's it's always, uh, there's always
the thought in the back of people's heads, which is
unfortunately valid, that will this later be used against me.
So it's understandable that people would be afraid of that. Uh.
But their idea, they m a idea, is that this
(47:45):
would expand our system overall. It would expand our ability
to combat misinformation. It would help us uh prioritize testing
and treatment, and it would make sure that the people
who need help get the help they need. But is
that going to be enough, you know, as the pandemic
(48:05):
pigeon already flow in the coupe. Yeah, you know, I
I would I just like to jump back quickly to
that Cares Act. The eight million dollars that's been allocated
to tribes, um, eight million dollars seems like a lot
of money. It sounds like a lot of money. Then
you think about that that's gonna have to be distributed
amongst thirty seven states, with all of these human beings,
(48:28):
with all of these medical facilities. It's almost ludicrous to
to think about such such a low number for that
number of people in facility. I mean, it's truly a
drop in the bucket when you think of how costly
it is to uh set up these kinds of you know,
healthcare infrastructures. I mean it's the equipment is expensive, the
(48:49):
construction is expensive, the expertise involved required. I mean, it's
just it's it's it's almost insulting. It is insulting. Yeah,
well said. And this is again, this is an ongoing
development and it's one that has it has some reporting.
But you know, we we mentioned the Guardian for example,
(49:10):
because uh, the UK has has been doing some good
reporting on this. Also shout out to the Atlantic doing
some excellent journalism. But this is this is definitely something
that we need to be aware of, and you know,
at various levels beyond politics at various levels in the
(49:32):
in the halls of government. This does seem to be
something that people don't want you to know, uh, because naturally,
how on earth would the public agreed to this situation?
What's being done to help many other populations in similar dangers? Right,
(49:54):
let us let us know what you think, let us
know what your experiences like on the grounds you know,
we record this. Uh. Many states, including our own, or
practicing what has been called or branded as phased reopening,
I believe is the term. As a matter of fact,
peek behind the curtain. I don't know if you guys
(50:14):
have been keeping track, but uh, I've been looking at
whether or not our the building where our office is based,
is going to open. I think the rooftop is open now,
but not the rest of it. I just hoped that
the patio at our neighborhood bar hangout the local opens
up soon. Kidding, but you know, it could well be.
In the cards, I wrote to those guys checking like, seriously,
(50:38):
they're the best chicken wings in Atlanta, I wrote. I
wrote to those guys because we all go there so
much that we're pretty much friends with them. Uh. I
wrote to those folks at the local and I was like, hey,
you know, let's what's going on with the chicken wings.
I felt like an attic. I felt I felt like
they could picture me scratching the inside of my elbow
or something. Uh, And they are thinking maybe best case scenario, um,
(51:05):
maybe like the mid June into June. But I don't know. Everybody.
Everybody in this country is waiting for the other shoe
to drop. Yep. Yeah, And you know, we all have
to decide that we're ready to go back out there,
you know, not just the places opening, but the people us.
We have to decide we're okay with hanging out at him.
(51:27):
I mean, we've got basically a collective case of PTSD
that we're probably all gonna be struggling with for some
time in terms of like how this is going to
affect our behavior and what might trigger us not to
mention if you actually either had the disease yourself, or
if you know someone that had it, or god forbid,
you lost a loved one or someone very close to you,
(51:47):
you know, from from this disease. So uh, it's it's
it's not just enough to say okay. Governor says everything's good,
game on. You know, that's not what it's gonna take
more than that. Although not to soapbox at all here,
it has been a little troubling to see here in
Georgia in particular, how a lot of folks have taken
that announcement of quote unquote opening back up the state
(52:11):
as an all clear and are just flooding back out
into the parks and droves with no masks, and you
know it's it's happening in Italy to um, the Prime
Minister of Italy made a statement about how, hey, if
you kids don't shape up, we're gonna silicone you into
your homes during this next wave or whatever. So like
you said, shoe droppage and just come on, be a
(52:32):
good steward folks, don't be a jerk. I've got to
mention one thing too, because it's a complex problem and
somebody that implies across across the country. Now, you know,
there's there's so many people who started their business right
when this was going down, right, there's so many there's
so many people who have to because they have no
support other than like a fairly poultry um financial net
(52:57):
from the government. There's so many people who are like
I have to go back to work. I get it.
I don't want to, but I also, you know, I
like it when my kids can eat call me crazy
like maybe maybe feedom like on a daily basis. I
feel like I have to do this. It's it's uh,
it's a rock and a hard place, uh for a
(53:18):
lot of people. And this this situation, Um, you know,
like we have to be careful in the soapbox, but
I wanna I wanna be I have to play the
part of that character at all those fairytale tropes who
shows up and it's like I have one more gift. Uh,
so with one more gift for you. Uh. The things
(53:40):
that are happening now behind the scenes, the opportunism that
is occurring because of this pandemic. We're not going going
to learn the full extent of it until several years
from now. Bad stuff is going down, very bad things
on corporate level, on governmental level. Again, if you if
you think about it from that perspective, if you want
(54:01):
to be Mackavellian, now is the perfect time to do
a lot of stuff that the public would ordinarily not
allow you to do. And I think that's a danger
of COVID nineteen that's going to last for a for
a long time. It's gonna affect later generations the changes
they are happening now, the laws they're going to be enacted.
Watch out, as Noel said, be good stewards. This is
(54:25):
this is going to take a lot of people having
their eyes on it. But you know, that's maybe a
story for a different day. Again, we hope this finds
you happy and healthy. We'd love to hear from you.
You can find us all over the internet where on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. Uh. You know, you
can also take a note from our anonymous caller and
(54:45):
give us a ring directly. Our number is one eight
three three st d w y t K. Call in,
tell us what you think about this episode, give us
an idea for another one. Just talk to us for
a while. We will listen, we promise you. If you
do call, we can see your number, We may call
you back, and we may use your uh your recorded
(55:06):
voicemail on the air. So let us know if you
don't want us to share certain things, or you don't
want certain things on, or if you're just calling us
to call us and you don't want it played at all.
Um I would just say to the person who called
and let us know about what was going on there
in the Nevada Indian Commission. Please give us a call
back with an update. Uh, if you can, we we
(55:28):
would love to know just what's going on now. You
can also reach us as individuals if you wish. Um
I am on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown. You
can find me at Matt Frederick Underscore, I Heeart, I Think,
and you can find me as always in a burst
of creativity at Ben Bullen on Instagram. You can find
(55:52):
me at Ben Bullen h s W on Twitter, or
you know, Crossroads at midnight, Mirror in a dark room,
all all the hits you know, I'm I'm, I'm around
on them. If you don't, if you don't cotton to
the occult, if you don't care for the new occult
social media, and if you're terrified of phones, which I
(56:13):
of all people get, there's always one way to contact
us seven every day of the year, soul CiCe, equinox
doesn't matter. You can shoot us a note at our
good old fashioned email address where we all conspiracy at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(56:48):
know is a production of i heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control Decade. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's your favorite Quentin Quarantineos coming
back again, live in direct or digital full effect. We
(00:48):
are We hope this episode finds you happy and healthy
as can be. We're doing We're doing pretty well. We've
got our own personal and professional milestones coming up. But
as always, we are here to keep the podcast lights
on until we get black bagged or until we go
full mad Max. We've been getting a ton of correspondence
(01:13):
for which we're grateful, uh, in email form, on social media,
and in voicemail. There's a particular voicemail that inspired today's episode. Um,
and Matt, you have a you have a version of
this week cleaned up for public consumption, right? Yes, this
this person called in you know the way a lot
(01:34):
of people do, and gave their information and everything and
just told us about an issue, a problem, And in
this case it was someone who you know works in
a capacity related to this that we wanted to remove
the name of this person. UM, and you'll see why
(01:55):
perhaps as we listen to it. UM. This person called
in February and just had some pretty alarming information for us.
So I think we should just go ahead and play
it and then we'll talk about it. Hi, guys, I
think I'm calling him to them. Sitting in my office
a little frustrated right now. I just listened to your
show on COVID nineteen and you were talking about conspiracies.
(02:20):
I worked for them, the VAT of Indian Commission. What
I'm doing today is what's like what the Massachusetts governor
did that you mentioned. We have to work with the
National Guard to get tribes ppees. So Helping Human Services
HF is supposed to work with tribes and help them
get these the tribe for making their orders, I HF
(02:43):
is taking those orders and never getting to them. So
we believe that what you're doing is using the paperwork
to show that they're getting the supplies that the federal
governments formed them. So our national Guard is now getting
our list. They're going to grab the supplied and they're
going to get into the tribe. Probably think somehow Summer
(03:05):
Company is making money off it. It's not a conspiracy.
I mean, this is stuff I worked with every day
as a long, long time listener. I really appreciate you,
and I hope that you all think thank you so much.
Sober and stuff. Yeah, and again, as as Matt said
that that occurred in February, several months ago. Now, uh,
(03:28):
and it is painting a picture. First off, we want
to say when we heard this message, we were both
grateful to you caller, and we hope you're listening now.
We're also horrified to learn the extent to which this
crisis has grown. The well, you know, it's something that
we kind of predicted a while back in a COVID
(03:50):
episode where if the federal leadership is not cohesive and
governors feel it is endangering their constituents, they will band together.
So we've seeing not one, but three regional alliances of
different governors using national Guard, which is what the national
Guard is for, by the way, uh, to get those supplies.
(04:11):
But this is affecting the native population in a way
that's not really getting into the headlines, you know, and this,
you know, there's something interesting about the timeline here, Holler.
When you had called us, we had we had been
researching but had not yet recorded nor published our earlier
episode on forced assimilation of Native people's. Uh. We want
(04:36):
to thank everyone from both the US and abroad who
responded to that recent episode. We had a lot of
people right in from Canada, a lot of people right
in from Australia. And one thing that I I don't
know about you guys, but one thing that really struck
me about that is that the response internationally, we found
a lot of people unfortunately saying, you know, you can
(04:58):
mad lib the entire episode own on Native assimilation and
just replace Native American with you know, uh, indigenous people
or Aboriginal people of Australia or with First nations. Yeah,
it's certainly a fairly common thing that we we've seen
in a lot of places where the indigenous people is
(05:20):
just it's the view I guess from the conquering people
is that you just have to assimilate and make them
a part of your own or or eradicate. And that's
the thing This is not some kind of problem that's
been solved, some kind of relic you know from history. UM.
It is absolutely ongoing, and there is a new developing chapter.
(05:46):
UM and what could probably best be described as, um
A a horror story that I think was set up
perfectly by our caller. And I think we all know
that the title of this chapter is COVID. Yeah, yeah,
I do think it is appropriate to describe it that way.
This is not some long forgotten crisis from a dusty
(06:07):
history book, and it's far from brand new problem. It's
a new iteration and I do like to think of
it as a long novel, a horror story in which
this is just the newest chapter. And if this is
if that analogy holds, which I'm pretty happy with, then
the title of this chapter would be COVID. So here
(06:27):
are the facts to start off, We're not going to
waste time today telling you what coronavirus is, what COVID
nineteen is. We have plenty of episodes in the back
that do a pretty good job we think of giving
you the lay of land there, so check those out
for more information. Right now, we're going to do something
we do every episode, which is this we'll give you
(06:49):
the current statistics of COVID nineteen in the United States. Again,
we still do not have accurate numbers, so we'll have
to give you a range. Uh the c d C,
UH and various other institutions disagree. But everybody's kind of
in the same ballpark right now, which is either a
good sign or if you're someone who thinks this is
(07:09):
intentionally being misreported one way or the other, this is
a sign of increased collaboration. Confirmed cases are, according to
the CDC, one million, fivefty one thousand and nine five
as of May twenty uh New York Times rounded that
down to one point five million, and the deaths continue
(07:32):
to come um. Again, these numbers may be pretty low,
just depending on how the reporting is actually coming through.
According to the CDC in the United States, there have
been ninety three thousand and sixty one deaths, and the
New York Times has it a little bit higher, around
ninety four thousand, seven hundred and seventeen deaths. And as
(07:54):
we established earlier uh IM previous episodes, the thing about
those numbers is that they have a lot of problems
with methodology, with accuracy. One of the big questions is
whether that is through incompetence, whether it is through simply
being overwhelmed or whether it is somehow through design. But
(08:14):
in our previous episodes, we didn't talk about something that's
extremely important and it's it's a huge part of today's
show as well, and that is the demographics of people
being infected. You see, COVID is not an equal opportunity
killer in the United States. Certain demographics have been hit
much much more heavily. That's right, according to preliminary data. Uh, sex, age,
(08:39):
and ethnicity all seem to play roles. Scientists are still
working to get a better sense of what all of
this truly means. But here's kind of the lay of
the land as we understand it. When it comes to age,
the evidence points to the idea that infected patients risk
of dying from the coronavirus increases with every additional decade UM.
(09:02):
In one study in particular, published in The Lancet in March,
researchers um compiled data from thirty eight different countries that
suggest the virus kills up to thirteen point four percent
of patients eighty years UH and older, compared with an
overall estimated case fatality rate of one point three eight percent.
(09:24):
All of this checks out um with just kind of
the empirical data that we have just from watching the
news and and following the story. The elderly are absolutely
the most at risk, largely because of reasons of immunity. Yeah,
this is just something that is a reality. As your
body gets older, Uh, your immune system just doesn't function
(09:47):
as well as it used to. And that's just the
reality that we all face, at least for now, until
some magical technology comes along that stops that from happening.
You know, you within your body, things like T cells, macrophages,
they all slow down their processes. They don't again, they
don't function as as um swiftly as they once did.
(10:09):
And your body also slows down the production of lymphis
sites um or at least it produces, you know, fewer
of them. It's it's a real problem because with COVID,
with you know, when you're infected by coronavirus, if you've
gotten a weak immune system, it's way harder for your
body to then defend against this new outsider that's coming through,
(10:31):
this invader that's in your system, you know, and that
could be anything. And that's why over the past several decades,
we've seen pretty alarming numbers with the common cold like
flew when you know, in older populations, especially in nursing
homes and other facilities like that. And this is even
worse if you've got some other previously existing conditions, like
(10:51):
if your heart or your kidneys, or your liver, your
lungs maybe just aren't working as well as they once
did because you've had a disease in the past, the
ravages of time. Yeah, and I you know, I think
we need to hit on a very important sidebar here,
which is pre existing conditions. The term pre existing conditions
(11:13):
is something that a lot of people in the US
learned from a private insurance company, often the hard way,
but it plays a big role in COVID nineteen as well. UH.
The Chinese government has their own Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, and they issued a study that found people
with no underlying chronic medical conditions had a fatality rate
(11:38):
in general around point nine percent, But for people with
cardiovascular disease, just that one variable increase the fatality rate
to ten point five percent. Respiratory disease ups your likelihood
to six point three percent. UH. Even people with hypertension.
Hypertension is incredibly common. They're a little there, like three
(12:00):
hundred twenty three million or so people who live in
the United States officially, uh, and of those around a
hundred million have hypertension. It's so common. It means that
you know, well, less than one out of three people
have some form of this, and that takes your fatality
rate from point nine percent to six percent. There may also,
(12:22):
it must be said, be some sort of genetic factor here,
but honestly, I dug into it in the published science,
just isn't there yet. We can we can say there's
there's maybe something, but we don't know the mechanisms, and
it would be irresponsible, uh for anyone other than a
genetic scientists or an epidemiologists to claim otherwise. We do
(12:46):
know in terms of biology and genetics that biological sex,
not gender, not the not the social constructing, but biological
sex does also play a crucial role. And I've I've
got some bad news for us guys, not the winners
in this one. So yeah, it's true. Uh. While men
(13:09):
and women UM have roughly equal rates of COVID nineteen infection,
UM more men are dying from the disease in every
single country. In China, for example, where the virus originated,
six of deaths were men. In Italy, sixty of coronavirus
(13:30):
related deaths have been men um And as we've discussed,
you know, this data is not perfect, but based on
the data that we have gathered in New York City,
in particular, the epicenter of the North American outbreak, men
made up of known COVID nineteen hospitalizations but sixty two
(13:53):
of fatalities as early as April. And and the thing
is we don't really know why, which means it's likely
a mix of factors. Um Men are more more likely
to be smokers, for example. And uh, yeah, I know
it's gross, but practice less good hygiene. I guess, um,
I know, Ben, I think you've got some stats around
(14:15):
this that are a little bit eye opening. Yeah, yeah,
I've pepper this pepper Today's story with some I guess
moments of levity. This one is is kind of fart joky, uh,
but but it's true all for all the dudes listening
to this. Uh, you know, even if you identify as
dude or whatever. Uh, we're in general grocer, in in
(14:40):
the restroom, and in the kitchen. Uh. One in twenty
men say that they barely ever washed their hands with
soap after going to the bathroom at home, for instance.
And there's a there's a pretty cool well I opening site,
uh on pull this for you gov dot com where
(15:03):
where uh already four in ten Americans don't always wash
our hands with soap when we go to the bathroom.
But men are Men are by far the worst, which
means we're just giving opportunities for things like bacteria to
just spread. You know, men are indeed the worst. Just
putting that out there real quick as a father. Oh yeah, totally, totally, totally.
(15:28):
But as gross as we are, it doesn't quite explain
this disparity that we've been seeing. Right if you're just
thinking about New York where of the hospitalizations are male,
but then somehow of the fatalities are male. Um, it
just doesn't. That doesn't compute. I mean we are talking
(15:51):
about five what what is it like five percent or
something of of men, so like you're almost getting there, um,
just to add that little extra grossness, uh, to explain it.
But no, no, no, it doesn't. They are also generally
less likely to see a doctor, even correcting from all
other factors socioeconomic, etcetera. But you're right, Matt, this does
(16:16):
not explain the gap here. So this is just spitballing.
Maybe there's a little bit ted talky, but if we're
being absolutely honest, and if you you know, if you
read enough about the human species in any field of study,
it's apparent in the grand scheme of things, this is
(16:37):
more bad news for the dudes in the audience. If
you're a dude, you are not as biologically important as
a woman, full stop. I mean, you know, women are
horrifically repressed in societies throughout the world, but in terms
of the actual beyond politics species, women are way more important.
(16:58):
Women are the only ones who can rely doubly carry
a human child to term, rear it to adulthood, and
that's all that our species cares about from the biological level.
So it makes sense then that if the human species
was forced to sacrifice some of its own, it's gonna
go for the elderly first, and then the males. I mean,
(17:20):
not for nothing are so many young men sent off
to die in war. They're just not as necessary to
a functioning society as women, which is super cold, and
I hope that's not a surprise to anyone. But it
comes in playing pandemics too. We know, like the this
is not this is not something that uh, the your
(17:41):
world leader sat around and decided in a smokey back room,
even if they weren't there, even if no government existed.
We are hardwired to sacrifice dudes. First. You can see
it in the sex based differences of the immune system,
Like take the X chromosome. Everybody has an X chromosome.
You know, everybody has at least what it stores genes
(18:03):
that are incredibly important to your body's immune system as
well as micro RNA. And women if your call, have
two X chromosomes. Uh, they also produce more estrogen that's
proven to help with immune cell activity. Uh. Testosterone, by
the way, helps with inflammation a k A injuries. So
send them to war and uh. This this means that women,
(18:27):
again the biological term, can respond more quickly and efficiently
to infection in general. In fact, early work in China
this hasn't been published yet, but it's been publicly you know, propagated.
It indicates that Chinese women with COVID nineteen have in
general higher level of antibodies than men. And it goes
across the board. And there is a disparity also between
(18:50):
the life expectancy of men and women within the United States.
Just to put this out there, as of seventeen, life
expectancy for a male in this is just completely in
general was seventies six point one and for females it
was eighty one point one. So already, uh, there, there
(19:13):
there's a bit of difference in how long one is
expected to live just depending on your gender. Yeah, they
did the math, right, they did the terrible scary math.
We should also point out even in the seven so
called blue zones or the human population that's where you
have the highest likelihood of living past a hundred years old,
the life expectancy disparities still exists. It's smaller, but but
(19:37):
it still exists. Your chances of living longer as a
dude are just not super good. But but some people
may be wondering, some of our fellow listeners may be wondering,
why are you pulling so many stats from China? Uh?
One reason, first off, should be a parent that's where
the infection has been around the longest, so there's more
(20:01):
data to pool. Uh. But you know, you might say, well,
what if there's something about ethnicity that's different. Because I
have heard you might be saying, and rightly so, that
ethnicity does play a role in whether or not someone
will contract COVID and whether or not they will die
from it or be seriously injured. This is a huge, huge,
(20:23):
messy one in the US, which is still considered a
developed nation. Uh. Racial minorities are disproportionately affected by COVID nineteen.
If you are Latino or you are Black, and you
are living in New York City, for instance, this disease
will be literally twice as deadly for you than it
(20:46):
would be for like European Americans. Yeah, it's insane. And
the black population in Michigan is only about fourteen percent
of the total population but accounts for forty percent of
the deaths. Uh. Um. And and this is a whole
different issue than those disparities between age and biological sex.
(21:07):
This has absolutely nothing to do with with biology. Um.
A journalist named Ibram X kendy Um put it perfectly
uh in a quote from an article he wrote for
The Atlantic, saying, quote to explain the disparities in the
mortality rate, too many politicians and commentators are noting that
black people have more underlying medical conditions, but crucially they're
(21:30):
not explaining why, or they blame the choices made by
black people or poverty or obesity, but not racism there.
It is there. It is no ding ding ding racism. Yeah,
these pre existing conditions that are faced by so many
minority communities, including like, these medical conditions are let's not
(21:54):
victim blame here. Those are the results of systematic racism.
It affects health and profound ways. Like, for instance, there's
the old stereotype where you'll hear somebody say, you know,
my um like we you know, we're the u S.
We have a lot of we have a lot of
friends and loved ones whose parents maybe have immigrated right
(22:16):
from a different country. And there's this old stereotype here
all the time where it's like, oh, my parents don't
trust doctors, they won't go to doctors. Well, there are
studies that prove they're not just being you know, recalcitrant
or something. There's they have probably gone to a doctor
and had the experience where the doctor takes their description
(22:37):
of their pain or their condition much less. Seriously, multiple
studies confirm, specifically with black people, that doctors tend not
to believe them. They tend not to believe their patients
based on their skin color. That's messed up. And and
that's not even like the studies without getting two in
the weeds. The studies are pretty solid. They they ad
(22:59):
just for things. Is um like uh self aware bias,
you know what I mean. I'm not saying that doctors
are consciously being uh real pills about this. They just
inherently have been sort of programmed by society to doubt
people based on their skin color. It's true. And and
(23:20):
you know what, um, Ben dropped a word in there
that perhaps you like, I just had to look up recalcitrant.
It's our word of the day, and it has exactly
it exactly describes what Ben is talking about here. It
is defined as having an obstinately uncooperative attitude towards authority
or discipline. Yes, yeah, oh man, I'm so glad that's
(23:43):
the actual definition. Good vocabulary corner on stuff they don't
want you to know. I love it. Always something every
day Ben and Ben will throw in a word like that.
I would say every other episode, maybe maybe every episode
where I have to go, let me find out what
that word means bust me if I get it wrong.
You know, I think we all we all can um. Well,
(24:06):
we all are paid to talk, so sometimes when we
get carried away there there are some words that I've
used incorrectly in the past. You know. UM, the way
I see it, the way I see its vocabulary goals,
you know what I mean, Like this is an instagram
able moment. I completely agree. But the takeaway of vocabulary,
aside from all of this is that we're still kind
(24:27):
of unpacking all of this data. Obviously, and since there's
really no federal level plan for addressing this pandemic and
it's largely been kind of up to the states. UM,
there's really no unified accountability that scienceists have to lean on,
and they need that. UM. But what we are learning
(24:48):
and what we are able to start to unpack UH
in this data is really really disturbing, and it's the
fact that certain marginalized people are absolutely being left behind.
And there's there's more to this story. There's a story
that's not being told, UH, and we we get a
snapshot of it from UH. From you caller who are
(25:11):
keeping anonymous for your safety. UH. You may have seen
a statistic if you've been reading about COVID nineteen as
you know, as an old said that data is still
coming in. You may have seen this statistic, but you've
seen it relegated to a line or two in a
lot of recent news stories and the think pieces and
the you know, uh, the high faluting articles, and it's
(25:35):
usually something like this, this is what it's been in
recent months. Well, some of the highest infection rates in
the country have been on Native American land, peplo's reservations
and so on. If that's true, and it most assuredly is,
that is an insane thing to leave as a throwaway aside.
You know what I mean. It's it's like, um, it's
(25:59):
like saying it's like saying, hey, here's uh, here's a
dry report on the statistics of airplanes. Um. You know
it is true that recently, uh, two people have been
documented being able to traverse the bounds of gravity and
fly unaided. But the Boeing seven seven has a wind
speed of X. Like, why are we why are we
(26:20):
throwing that line away? What is going on? We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. Yeah, I mean, there seems to be uh,
(26:41):
a like emergency within the emergency um brewing right now
in one of the country's most historically vulnerable populations. In
the United States, there are five and seventy four recognized
federally recognized Native American tribes. UM, but they're often being
under reported, misreported, or are ignored entirely, UM, being relegated
(27:03):
to the that you know checkbox on you know documents
you see just called other. And that's the the very
definition of mothering right there. Ye well it is. In
The Guardian, a UK newspaper news organization, reported on this,
and we've got to quote from them here and I'm
(27:25):
just gonna read it. Quote of state health departments have
released some racial demographic data which has already revealed stark
disparities in the impact of COVID nineteen in black and
Latin X communities. They're using Latin X here. We know
that's a term that is uh not perfect. Um, let's
just continue on. But of those states, almost half did
(27:46):
not explicitly include Native Americans in their breakdowns and instead
categorize them under the label other miscellaneous. Basically. Yeah. Abby
Gale Echo Hawk, who is the director of the Urban
Indian Health Board and also the chief research officer of
(28:07):
the Seattle Indian Health Board. UH responded by I wouldn't
hear what you all think of this quote. I feel
like she's implying that there's some cooking of the books.
She says by including us in the other category, it
effectively eliminates us in the data, and there's I feel
(28:28):
like that's pretty valid there. There's something else that a
lot of people outside of that community probably don't know.
It's something that, um, you know, to to be fully transparent,
I was not aware of until we were doing some
research on the force dissimilation Native Americans. Did you know
that the Native American population in the US is the
(28:50):
only segment of the US that is born with a
legal right to healthcare? Now everybody else in the world.
That's gonna be really weird to hear, because if you
don't live in the US, the odds are that, at
least on paper, you are born with a legal right
to healthcare. We are not. We are absolutely not. Only
(29:11):
the Native American population is. But still it's it's on paper,
it's in theory. But ben aren't we entitled to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness? Right? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
sorry that that pursuit really encompasses a lot of aspirational
stuff that we are not in fact entitled to at all. No,
it's true, And I mean, like, what what would be
(29:32):
some other others by the way, are we talking about
like American Samoans, Like what would be some other things
that would be put into that other category just just
out of curiosity. Yeah, that's a great question. Depends on
the organization asking and how they want to, you know,
Bernet's level frame it, so you might you might see
(29:53):
things that like so the US is still grappling with
how to classify what they think of as someone someone's
specific identification in the Latin diaspora for instance, Right, Uh,
they might say, like you, you probably used to see
those things where it's like white white Latino, non white Latino.
Things like that. Other can include things like um like
(30:16):
malungeon for instance. Uh, a lot of smaller ethnicities that
don't have a large enough population to really show up
on a PIH graph essentially, so you might see like
maybe romani um. And it's also it gives people an
opportunity to say, you know, I'm not on this list,
(30:38):
but I don't think I fit in any of these
other categories you've listed. So I'm you know, I'm Romani,
I'm I'm a lungeon, I'm etcetera. You know, it's also
an opportunity for a lot of people to be uh
to try out there there there stand up chops. I'm
sure there are a lot of crazy things entered on
other like I'm a robo America and I wasn't. I
(31:01):
wasn't trying to be flipping or dismissive and saying American Samoa.
I know that's a category known as Pacific islander. Um.
You know that would be a box. But what you
this is not, say the census that there is intention
well I don't know to me implied intention in squashing
down these groups into single check boxes as opposed to
(31:21):
having a more broad categorization and and to to the
point of of the of the person that we referenced earlier,
it does feel like a way of just kind of
hodgepodging all of these inconvenient groups together into one box
so they don't really have to address any specifics around it.
(31:41):
That's I think you've hit it on the head there, Knull,
Because there there are two things here. The first one
is that you know, we talked about how Native Americans
in this country, indigenous people's are born with the right
to healthcare, but what does that really mean? How does
that translate right? And also why do they have that?
(32:03):
Isn't it because of the treaties that were signed back
in the day where all of the land and the
resources on that land was just taken again perhaps their
land is an incorrect way to describe it, but the
areas in which they lived were taken um and the
the concept here was that as part of the treaty,
(32:24):
one of the things you get our services like healthcare, housing, education,
all of these things that were then provided by the colonists,
the colonizers us really um from the past, and that's
why there are things that exist called the Bureau of
(32:45):
Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service, or the Indian
Health Board or the Indian the Nevada Indian Commission. But
that agreement that was entered into a long long time ago,
or at least that concept of an agreement, it doesn't
seem to be translating over all these years to actual health,
(33:09):
especially health and human services, to to assistance uh in
in these populations. Yeah, exactly, so how bad is it?
Think about this, If the Navajo Nation were a state,
if there were fifty one states and the Navo Nation
was one, then just a few weeks ago it would
have ranked third in the country for COVID nineteen infection
(33:32):
cases per one thousand people per capita. That would put
it just behind New York and New Jersey. To be fair,
the nation is trying to test at a much higher
rate than a lot of states, but the problem is
growing because that would have been just a few weeks
ago as number three. If it were state this like
(33:53):
last week, it would be the highest per capita rate
of COVID nineteen infection in the US entire The population
UH is being disproportionately affected by and by COVID nineteen. Yeah,
and the problem doesn't seem to be going anywhere. In fact,
it seems to be growing. In Arizona, UH, Native Americans
(34:15):
make up six percent of the population but sixteen percent
of the COVID cases. In New Mexico, they're less than
ten percent of the population but one third of all
coronavirus cases. And again, nothing to do with biology here
other than sex and age. There's absolutely no genetic reason
for these populations to to be seeing such a disparity
(34:38):
um in the number of cases uh in that they're
acquiring and dying from COVID nineteen at such a higher
rate than literally everyone else. Um. It really does come
down to that othering that we talked about and that
discriminatory attitude towards this marginalized population in particular. And we're
(35:00):
gonna get more into why that might be after a
quick word from our sponsor. So, like other populations in
the world and in the US, this this population, the
Native American population in the United States, was uh not
(35:23):
receiving adequate services or you know, like health care services
before the pandemic. And you know what we're eventually going
to be calling like the days before, you know what
I mean, the old normal things still frankly sucked in
terms of healthcare. Uh. The c d C based here
(35:44):
in Atlanta, by the way, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention had already done some studies indicating that this population
experienced diabetes three times more than any other racial or
ethnic group in the US, had the highest rates of asthma,
and again in the before four days pre pandemic, the
(36:05):
federal health system that was serving the Native American population
was already by its own admission and by outside studies,
confirmed to be chronically underfunded. So so like what's in
a report to the earlier question about other Right, we
talked about the census earlier in a previous episode and
(36:26):
how it asked some questions that people find invasive at times. Right. Uh,
you know, you're asked to disclose things like your race,
your ethnicity, your age, or income in the midst of
a pandemic. This data, when used ethically, helps us understand
the underlying problems about how an infection takes hold in
(36:47):
a given community. So, so let's look a little bit
into what the census had to say. Yeah, according to
that census, half of all American, Indian, and Alaska Natives
live in ten different states within the United States. So
ten out of fifty as of April, all ten had
published some kind of racial demographic data, and six of
(37:10):
those included a breakdown for Native Americans within their states. However,
four did not Texas, Florida, New York, and Michigan, and
a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services
said that Native Americans were categorized as quote other because
their case numbers were simply small compared to the other
(37:30):
groups that they were counting within within this data. And
then Abigail Echo Hawk, who we mentioned earlier, responded, uh.
And this response, I I feel was honest and blunt
at a time when honesty and bluntness are needed. Uh.
Echo Hawks said, quote, we are a small population of
(37:52):
people because of genocide, no other reason. If you eliminate
us in the data, we don't exist. We don't exist
for the allocation of resources. You know. Uh, I think
that's a powerful statement. And and you know it alludes
to some of the previous episodes or previous chapters when
(38:13):
I'm calling that horror story. Uh. Leaving native populations out
of public health information is not a new thing in
this country at all. And it's not an historically distant
thing either. It's a lot closer to a routine pattern
of uh negligence and abuse. Yeah. I mean it's a
(38:33):
form of like cultural erasure. Really. I mean, when the
CDC released its most comprehensive study to date on race
and maternal mortality back in January, UH, it did not
include Native populations. Even though the Urban Indian Health Institute
in its own studies found that Native women living in
cities were more than four and a half times more
(38:54):
likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women.
So then let's look to the Indian Health Services or
i h S, which serves two point five million tribal
citizens across thirty seven states within the US. UM they've
been they've been publishing daily reports about the outbreak about
the coronavirus and how it's affecting, you know, the people
(39:15):
that they serve. Here's the here's the problem though, i
h S can't track hospitalization or mortality data for most
of the people that it's trying to serve, most of
the patients because the majority of the facilities that they're
actually trying to track or that these these citizens get
to go to, they don't provide intensive care. So critically
ill patients, like when you know, when you actually have
(39:38):
COVID nineteen UM, they're they're transferred to non i h
S hospitals. So then the data that you know that
they would be recording with your the the i h
S would be recording is going somewhere else to some
other group to try and you know, hopefully get put
into the data set. Somewhere else. But then guess what
(39:59):
it hits that other category. It's crazy. The only public
national coronavirus database that is also reporting uh, you know,
specifically tribal affiliation is coming out of Indian Country today.
That's an independent native run newspaper and as a team
(40:21):
of sixteen people, and they have been just sixteen and
they've been working around the clock adding positive COVID cases
and deaths that they can verify to a daily report
you can find on on their website. And we want
to mention again, um that while this is happening, you know,
people are finding themselves in a situation where they feel
(40:47):
rightly often that they cannot trust the federal government because
they're not receiving the ppe they were promised. I love
the caller pointed out the opportunity for bad actors, corruption
and graft here. It's it's certainly happening. We haven't we
haven't been able to find out where that uh financial
(41:07):
leak is who's getting a big but I am I
am convinced this out there. You can't. You can't have
government private cooperation at this extent without someone taking a
little taste, you know. Yeah, yeah, And we've even seen
cases of UM shipments destined for hospitals being intercepted, you know,
(41:28):
by the government and distributed to God knows who, God
knows where or for what ends, you know, because there's
just no transparency there. This seems like a more even
more insidious version of that long story short people are
falling through the cracks, and the big question here is
whether that is through UM federal and state level incompetence,
(41:52):
whether it's through negligence, or whether it is somehow through design,
which I know might sound alarmists to a lot of
us in the audience today, but we have to remember
the precedent set by history, the earlier chapters in this book,
when these sorts of things happened very much by design.
(42:13):
So unlike states and counties, tribal systems can't rely on
these health care systems to tell them when their citizens
are sick or dying. They have to collect this information themselves.
And that's incredibly dangerous because that means that you're flying blind.
(42:33):
It's a tough situation to find yourself in. Uh According
to the National Indian Health Board, only half of the
tribal government surveyed said they received COVID nineteen related information
from the federal or state governments, places where you know
a lot of other counties and local governments are getting
(42:53):
information from and fewer than one five had received money
technical assistants or supplies. And specifically we're talking about that
ppe there, the ventilators, things that are going to be
absolutely necessary. We talked about the problems with the hospitals
where a lot of the native populations can actually go to.
(43:15):
This is just really a dire situation. And you know,
then you look to the the thing that a lot
of people have been talking about in politics, the Cares Act,
the bailout. Essentially, there was eight billion dollars that was
allocated to tribes at the end of March. However, the
(43:36):
payments didn't start rolling out until a week after the
April deadline that was imposed by Congress. Um. That's that's
a problem. Yeah, And there's just to just to put
this in perspective, um, Yeah, to to put it in
like a stark, bleeding red meat headline. Here, think about
(43:58):
this due to the neglect on the part of your
federal government. If you live in this country, the conditions
on reservations right now as we record this are so
bad that Doctors Without Borders, the Doctors Without Borders has
deployed inside the territory of the US for the first
(44:18):
time in history. Doctors without Borders had to step in. Yeah,
this is a group that goes to war torn areas
in the world that are dangerous due to places where
as there's If there's not help, then people will be
dying all over and and consistently. And they're here now.
(44:41):
And this is only a snapshot of this gigantic problem
that is affecting multiple communities in the United States, communities
that have been historically brushed aside, UH provably, demonstrably conspired against,
ignored by the larger power structure. E. Then in times
when things are like relatively normal, you know, it is
(45:04):
not hyperbolic to say that right now, lives are literally
on the line. Earlier in April, it's a little while ago,
UH Senators Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley had
joined forces with some other colleagues to introduce a bill
that was specifically calling for consultation with tribal governments on
(45:28):
this federal level info collection, and they wanted to allocate
an additional three million dollars in funding to h I
h S. Yeah. Warren went on to say, quote, you
can't fix what you can't see. If we want to
slow the spread of the virus and ensure our response
is robust and equitable, we need comprehensive data on who's
getting tested, who's getting treatment, and who is dying. UM
(45:53):
very much supporting this notion of breaking out that other
category and getting more granular detail about this stuff, because
you can't do anything about it if you don't know
what's happening. And at one quick point there UM for
the for the war end quote. I know this. This
is interesting because many of us may remember that during
(46:13):
the earlier UM primaries, right when the d n C
was figuring out who they would select to be them
the Democratic candidate, and then in the next election a
few months from now, maybe then Warren took some heat
for claiming to have Native American ancestry, when in fact
(46:37):
it later came out that was that was not that
was not an accurate statement. So I want to acknowledge that,
but we also want to acknowledge there is a problem here.
And the American Medical Association stepped in as well. They said,
you know, look, telemedicine might help. Telemedicine, of course, is
kind of like what we're doing when we record podcast.
(47:00):
There's a doctor on the other side, you describe your symptoms.
They're able to observe you somewhat, you know. Uh, So
they say, maybe that could help mitigate the outbreak. They
urge the current presidential administration to start collecting and publishing
mortality data for coronavirus by race and ethnicity. This scares people,
(47:21):
of course, whenever something is collected by so called race
or ethnicity, you know, it's it's always, uh, there's always
the thought in the back of people's heads, which is
unfortunately valid, that will this later be used against me.
So it's understandable that people would be afraid of that. Uh.
But their idea, they m a idea, is that this
(47:45):
would expand our system overall. It would expand our ability
to combat misinformation. It would help us uh prioritize testing
and treatment, and it would make sure that the people
who need help get the help they need. But is
that going to be enough, you know, as the pandemic
(48:05):
pigeon already flow in the coupe. Yeah, you know, I
I would I just like to jump back quickly to
that Cares Act. The eight million dollars that's been allocated
to tribes, um, eight million dollars seems like a lot
of money. It sounds like a lot of money. Then
you think about that that's gonna have to be distributed
amongst thirty seven states, with all of these human beings,
(48:28):
with all of these medical facilities. It's almost ludicrous to
to think about such such a low number for that
number of people in facility. I mean, it's truly a
drop in the bucket when you think of how costly
it is to uh set up these kinds of you know,
healthcare infrastructures. I mean it's the equipment is expensive, the
(48:49):
construction is expensive, the expertise involved required. I mean, it's
just it's it's it's almost insulting. It is insulting. Yeah,
well said. And this is again, this is an ongoing
development and it's one that has it has some reporting.
But you know, we we mentioned the Guardian for example,
(49:10):
because uh, the UK has has been doing some good
reporting on this. Also shout out to the Atlantic doing
some excellent journalism. But this is this is definitely something
that we need to be aware of, and you know,
at various levels beyond politics at various levels in the
(49:32):
in the halls of government. This does seem to be
something that people don't want you to know, uh, because naturally,
how on earth would the public agreed to this situation?
What's being done to help many other populations in similar dangers? Right,
(49:54):
let us let us know what you think, let us
know what your experiences like on the grounds you know,
we record this. Uh. Many states, including our own, or
practicing what has been called or branded as phased reopening,
I believe is the term. As a matter of fact,
peek behind the curtain. I don't know if you guys
(50:14):
have been keeping track, but uh, I've been looking at
whether or not our the building where our office is based,
is going to open. I think the rooftop is open now,
but not the rest of it. I just hoped that
the patio at our neighborhood bar hangout the local opens
up soon. Kidding, but you know, it could well be.
In the cards, I wrote to those guys checking like, seriously,
(50:38):
they're the best chicken wings in Atlanta, I wrote. I
wrote to those guys because we all go there so
much that we're pretty much friends with them. Uh. I
wrote to those folks at the local and I was like, hey,
you know, let's what's going on with the chicken wings.
I felt like an attic. I felt I felt like
they could picture me scratching the inside of my elbow
or something. Uh, And they are thinking maybe best case scenario, um,
(51:05):
maybe like the mid June into June. But I don't know. Everybody.
Everybody in this country is waiting for the other shoe
to drop. Yep. Yeah, And you know, we all have
to decide that we're ready to go back out there,
you know, not just the places opening, but the people us.
We have to decide we're okay with hanging out at him.
(51:27):
I mean, we've got basically a collective case of PTSD
that we're probably all gonna be struggling with for some
time in terms of like how this is going to
affect our behavior and what might trigger us not to
mention if you actually either had the disease yourself, or
if you know someone that had it, or god forbid,
you lost a loved one or someone very close to you,
(51:47):
you know, from from this disease. So uh, it's it's
it's not just enough to say okay. Governor says everything's good,
game on. You know, that's not what it's gonna take
more than that. Although not to soapbox at all here,
it has been a little troubling to see here in
Georgia in particular, how a lot of folks have taken
that announcement of quote unquote opening back up the state
(52:11):
as an all clear and are just flooding back out
into the parks and droves with no masks, and you
know it's it's happening in Italy to um, the Prime
Minister of Italy made a statement about how, hey, if
you kids don't shape up, we're gonna silicone you into
your homes during this next wave or whatever. So like
you said, shoe droppage and just come on, be a
(52:32):
good steward folks, don't be a jerk. I've got to
mention one thing too, because it's a complex problem and
somebody that implies across across the country. Now, you know,
there's there's so many people who started their business right
when this was going down, right, there's so many there's
so many people who have to because they have no
support other than like a fairly poultry um financial net
(52:57):
from the government. There's so many people who are like
I have to go back to work. I get it.
I don't want to, but I also, you know, I
like it when my kids can eat call me crazy
like maybe maybe feedom like on a daily basis. I
feel like I have to do this. It's it's uh,
it's a rock and a hard place, uh for a
(53:18):
lot of people. And this this situation, Um, you know,
like we have to be careful in the soapbox, but
I wanna I wanna be I have to play the
part of that character at all those fairytale tropes who
shows up and it's like I have one more gift. Uh,
so with one more gift for you. Uh. The things
(53:40):
that are happening now behind the scenes, the opportunism that
is occurring because of this pandemic. We're not going going
to learn the full extent of it until several years
from now. Bad stuff is going down, very bad things
on corporate level, on governmental level. Again, if you if
you think about it from that perspective, if you want
(54:01):
to be Mackavellian, now is the perfect time to do
a lot of stuff that the public would ordinarily not
allow you to do. And I think that's a danger
of COVID nineteen that's going to last for a for
a long time. It's gonna affect later generations the changes
they are happening now, the laws they're going to be enacted.
Watch out, as Noel said, be good stewards. This is
(54:25):
this is going to take a lot of people having
their eyes on it. But you know, that's maybe a
story for a different day. Again, we hope this finds
you happy and healthy. We'd love to hear from you.
You can find us all over the internet where on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. Uh. You know, you
can also take a note from our anonymous caller and
(54:45):
give us a ring directly. Our number is one eight
three three st d w y t K. Call in,
tell us what you think about this episode, give us
an idea for another one. Just talk to us for
a while. We will listen, we promise you. If you
do call, we can see your number, We may call
you back, and we may use your uh your recorded
(55:06):
voicemail on the air. So let us know if you
don't want us to share certain things, or you don't
want certain things on, or if you're just calling us
to call us and you don't want it played at all.
Um I would just say to the person who called
and let us know about what was going on there
in the Nevada Indian Commission. Please give us a call
back with an update. Uh, if you can, we we
(55:28):
would love to know just what's going on now. You
can also reach us as individuals if you wish. Um
I am on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown. You
can find me at Matt Frederick Underscore, I Heeart, I Think,
and you can find me as always in a burst
of creativity at Ben Bullen on Instagram. You can find
(55:52):
me at Ben Bullen h s W on Twitter, or
you know, Crossroads at midnight, Mirror in a dark room,
all all the hits you know, I'm I'm, I'm around
on them. If you don't, if you don't cotton to
the occult, if you don't care for the new occult
social media, and if you're terrified of phones, which I
(56:13):
of all people get, there's always one way to contact
us seven every day of the year, soul CiCe, equinox
doesn't matter. You can shoot us a note at our
good old fashioned email address where we all conspiracy at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(56:48):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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