Now that the Washington Post has finished wringing its hands in worry about the climate impact of roasted potatoes versus mashed potatoes, CNN has taken up the mantle of championing a cause few, if any, people find important. Specifically, CNN just published an article in which it argues that Daylight Savings Time disproportionately affects people of color because of structural racism.
That article was written by a CNN health reporter named Jacqueline Howard and was titled: “Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep’s disproportionate impact in communities of color.”
Beginning the article, Howard sets up the argument by claiming that some people benefit from an extra hour of sleep more than others, saying “As the United States rolled back the clocks one hour this month to observe the end of Daylight Saving Time, many people got a bit more sleep than usual – but some not as much as others.”
Continuing, Howard goes on to contend that various minority groups have higher rates of “lack of sleep and sleep disorders, saying “Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases.”
Then, getting to her main point, Howard wrings her hands about “sleep health inequities” and how daylight savings time might exacerbate them, saying “some sleep researchers worry about the potential effects that continuing to change standard time twice each year may have on sleep health inequities.”
Making that argument and claiming that “social systems in the United States” are to blame for the “sleep health inequities”, saying:
“Poor sleep is associated with a host of poor health outcomes, including obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, including of the breast and colon. Many of these health outcomes are more prevalent in the Black population,” said Chandra Jackson, a researcher and epidemiologist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who has been studying racial and ethnic disparities in sleep.
[…]As for the inequities seen in sleep health, it’s not that White adults don’t also experience a lack of sleep and its health consequences – but people of color appear to disproportionately experience them more, and that’s believed to be largely due to social systems in the United States.
But that’s not all. Jackson, the cited “expert” also references the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd’s grandniece (they were shot while asleep or in bed), arguing that America’s “systems of structural racism” can “cultivate conditions that make such incidents more likely to happen in black communities” because “anything that produces physical and psychological stress is a threat to sleep health, and these stressors tend to be more prevalent in black communities.”
And the end conclusion of Jackson’s? Racism means black people don’t sleep as well: “It is believed that discriminatory policies and practices across sectors of society create the physical and social conditions that make it more difficult for Black families to get optimal sleep and grow up healthy.“
So there ya have it: according to CNN, racism means Daylight Savings Time hurts “people of color.”
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