Defining problems into existence

Poor old Gail Heriot, Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a government commission tasked with investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations concerning civil rights issues in the United States.  She is one of the lone commissioners actually interested in facts and reason and fights as a lonely rear guard of Age of Enlightenment thinking among a host of emos and doctrinaire ideologues determined to find original sin in everything touched by American culture and American government.  

The latest contretemps is the effort to 1) claim that maternal fatality rates during childbirth are up 50% from twenty years ago and 2) lay the blame for this specious claim on equally specious racism.  

From Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Gail L. Heriot in U.S. Commission on Civil Right Report: Racial Disparities on Maternal Health by Gail L. Heriot.  From the Abstract.

On September 15, 2021, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report entitled Racial Disparities in Maternal Health (the “Report”). This Dissenting Statement and Rebuttal (the “Statement”) is a part of that report.

Among other things, the Statement points out several errors in Report. For example, the Report incorrectly states that maternal mortality has increased 50% over the last generation. What has actually happened is that changes in death certificates have caused more deaths to be classified as maternal in nature. The Report also emphasizes the theory that racism plays a prominent role in causing racial disparities in maternal mortality. The Statement points out in response that maternal mortality rates for Hispanic and Asian American mothers are lower than the rate for white mothers. This tends to detract from the theory that racism is what’s causing the disparities.

We are getting so good at fixing problems that we have to change the definitions to create the impression that there is a problem.