January 1, CDC Tool Penalizes White Neighborhoods Nationwide

Wyatt’s Take

• CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index is being used to steer money and services toward certain areas, often using race as a deciding factor.
• In Milwaukee County, a community pool may close because it serves a mostly white town, all due to a racial ‘Equity Index.’
• The Trump administration’s own index is letting race-based decisions sneak in through the back door, putting towns across the heartland at risk.

If you thought Washington was done with discrimination, think again. Bureaucrats are using so-called ‘equity’ to tilt spending, not just by old race quotas but now by targeting neighborhoods with the wrong makeup, and the CDC’s own tools are being misused for it.

The village of Hales Corners in Wisconsin is mostly white and now faces losing its community pool. The local parks department says ‘equity’ means not spending on places like this, since their formula puts a heavy importance on the area’s racial mix. If you aren’t scoring high on their ‘Equity Index,’ you get pushed to the bottom of the repair list.

All of this is tied to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index. It claims to measure need, but higher scores go to areas with more minorities, and this pattern is showing up in many states. From Boston to Arizona, government money for parks, sidewalks, and health projects gets handed out based on this index.

This roundabout method amounts to racial redlining. Laws in this country say race can’t be a factor in how government benefits get divided up, yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Even the Trump administration’s SVI lets race sneak into the process, and it needs fixing.

Legal groups are challenging this in court, and pressure is mounting to take race out of the CDC’s index altogether. Unless there is quick action, lawsuits will keep stacking up—against the administration and local governments alike.

America was built on equal treatment. Injecting race into government decision-making just divides us further. Time to get back to colorblind fairness and put Middle America first.

Read the full story here

Wyatt Matters

Working folks want fairness, not more division. Decisions about our parks and neighborhoods should be based on real needs, not somebody’s idea of ‘equity.’ We need to make sure rules help everyone in our communities, no matter where they live.