Is this the most 'woke' headline ever? "How climate change is hitting vulnerable Indonesian trans sex workers"

[RandySavage]

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/indonesian-transgender-climate-change-bandung-b2522422.html

I don't think I've seen even Titania McGrath manage to get so much oppression into so few words.
Can anyone do better?

How is the headline woke?

@ConJob
It takes a global problem that affects everyone, and then looks for a minority group to paint as especially effected more than everyone else. These articles often have the format "How [phenomenom] affects [minority]x[minority]x[minority] the most." Sometimes the phenomenom itself gets called an xxxxIST. e.g. I think Covid was called racist against black people.
In this case the minority attibutes are vulnerable, Indonesian, trans, sex workers.
The purpose seems to be to farm oppression points as a form of maintaining the progressive stack of oppressions.

I thought it was an interesting story. Sex workers more likely to be affected by climate change, because work outdoors, and less likely to get help, because sex workers. The case study had a happy ending, because sex worker became cake maker instead.

I don't see the relevance of them being trans, and the use of the word 'vulnerable' adds nothing. The story speaks for itself, unless you're talking about a particular subset of trans who are especially vulnerable, in which case you should explain why.

Surely an April Fool’s. Or maybe not. I also remember the “Covid is racist” storylines. And photography too apparently- something about the light settings being worse for black people. I just chuckle and ignore these ridiculous stories now.

Trans women like Patiha are among the most affected by extreme weather linked to climate change... because many trans women, like Patiha, are shut out of the formal economy.

Patiha launched a cake-making business that same year, employing three trans friends.

The premise of the article is fundamentally untrue.

@RandySavage

It reminds me of some of those old Vice headlines

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia7fUQXskvA&feature=youtu.be

If we're talking about headlines, this one was a bit of a surprise this morning:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/02/non-binary-patient-who-wants-a-vagina-and-a-penis-sues-heal/

But black people did experience higher mortality rates from Covid than white people. So that's a serious point, not a frivolous one.

Climate change also tends to have a disproportionate impact on poor people, though I agree that the "trans sex worker" angle is a bit of a stretch.

Racist COVID is ridiculous.

"Neutral" settings for light are too dark for dark skin because I assume they were tested on light skinned people, so indirectly discriminatory and not a ridiculous story.

That's fair, but you have to take into context how the stuff gets reported.
For instance an article that looked into why black people suffered higher mortality rates would be interesting.
e.g. Are tranmission rates of covid higher between black people? Is that a biological thing related to genes, or a societal thing because black people tend to live in higher population density areas like cites and diseases always spread faster where people are packed in closer together. Could diet be in influencing factor? How about general health outisde of covid? How much strain are hospitals that serve cities under compared to hospitals that serve more rural demographics?
Each of these things could be looked into and will probably generate more questions. Digging into it could be useful for expanding our understanding.
But often it gets reduced down to "covid is racist" which is just knee jerk click bait political activism.
Another example would be "The countryside is racist" because there doesn't seem to be as many black ramblers/hikers as white. My best guess is because rural areas are more demographically white. Is it a problem? Do black ramblers feel unwelcome when they go for a hike, or are they just doing more city orientated things?
That an obervation might be true doesn't mean that the way it's dealt with is necessarily in good faith.

Isn't it a bit SWERFY to imply sex workers are vulnerable though? Doesn't citing a vulnerability suggest something needs fixing: climate change is an obvious example; a more spurious one might be everyone needs to be less transphobic. But if being a sex worker makes a person vulnerable, well gosh someone needs to have a word with the demographic overwhelmingly responsible for the demand for sex work.

There was a problem with skin tones and light in photography.

https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s-shirley-cards-set-photography-s-skin-tone-standard

https://petapixel.com/2015/09/19/heres-a-look-at-how-color-film-was-originally-biased-toward-white-people/

But of an odd article - some interesting stories mixed in with TRA propaganda.

Great analysis.

I was just about to post that story, Mrs Overton

It's a basic fact about climate change that it worsens pre-existing inequalities. Because people who have less to start with have fewer resources to draw on. For example if there's a hurricane coming, it's harder to evacuate if you are disabled, a carer, fear losing your job if you leave the city, don't have transport. Then afterwards you don't have insurance, can't rebuild. Poor farmers in droughts can't afford to lose crops, have to sell livestock which then means they have less capital. Girls selling sex to survive. Outdoor labourers who have to keep working in heatwaves, whether that's Greece or India. No air conditioning.
I think it's interesting (if depressing and scary) to read about how it affects different people around the world.

@lechiffre55

The consensus seems to be that it was probably something to do with lower vitamin D levels.

lechiffre55 - of course you're right to say that there is a need to look at the possible explanations of why Black people were disproportionately affected by Covid, but all the articles I read at the time did exactly that. I don't think I saw a single article simply stating that "Covid is racist". Perhaps you did?

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen
It's probably a myriad of different factors each having a different weight towards the outcome. Trying to pin it down to a single factor might be counter productive.
Just to extend my guesses, cities tend to be major centres of air pollution. Covid is a disease of the respiratory system which I'm guessing is strongly affected by air polution. What if there was a genetic disposition in black people linked to the respiratory system or to air pollution? If there was they'd be at a disadvantage in mulitple simultaneous ways.

To go back to your vitamin D, it's my understanding that it's produced in a person's skin from exposure to sunlight. Perhaps the UK with it's Northern lattitude puts people with darker skin at a disadvantage becuase the UK gets less sunlight than equatorial lattitudes, and darker skin blocks sunlight more than lighter skin. If that were true should we make sure people with darker skin can get easy access to vitamin D? Yes.
Does it mean the UK landmass was deliberately placed on the Earth where there is less sunlight by racists to try and keep black people away?
No, that's clearly an absurdly silly idea, but my point is some of these articles read just as insanely.

It takes a global problem that affects everyone, and then looks for a minority group to paint as especially effected more than everyone else.

@lechiffre55 Do you think it is "woke" to point out when things disproportionately effect women? Or is that OK in your opinion?

Also due to the fact that one of the triage questions when deciding to send out an ambulance was are their lips blue. Dark skinned black people's lips don't go blue.

Black people are also less likely to be in nice middle-class office jobs where they could work from home which had an impact.

The article says the sex workers are vulnerable as they work outside, on the streets, are more likely to feel the side-effects of extreme weather and so lose their primary income. They don't fall into the usual safety coverage other workers might receive due to the nature of their work.

Actually the people most at risk from Covid were people with risk factors for cardiovascular disease, not respiratory disease. Most young people who died were obese.

The effect on different races was probably related to differing rates of obesity, and higher rates of type 2 diabetes/metabolic disease, and hence higher cardiovascular risk, at lower body mass indices.

Certainly the issue was framed that way:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/is-covid-racist

This was a documentary exploring why certain demographics were more affected than others.

See also the framing of climate change:

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/watch-is-climate-change-racist/

And capitalism:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/is-capitalism-racist

And the fact that hikers are mostly white is also framed as a racist outcome:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/07/is-the-countryside-racist/

See also skiing:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240301-can-skiing-solve-its-diversity-problem

Ultimately, when you view the world through the prism of oppressed vs oppressor classes, the only possible cause of disparities is discrimination.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase " go F yourself"