Those darned white people are appropriating Arab identity
It appears to be a plot to get more vaccine for white people
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/us/arab-americans-covid-19-impact/index.html
The whitewashing of Arab Americans impacted by Covid-19 is a catastrophic public health issue, experts say
(CNN)Dr. Raed Al-Naser was on the front lines at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in San Diego when patients first started coming in with symptoms of Covid-19.
"The hospital was packed and the ICU was at full capacity," the ICU pulmonologist told CNN. "And I saw a disproportionate number of Arab Americans in the ICU."
This realization, and a lack of public health data on the Arab American community, motivated Al-Naser to conduct his own research based on the patients he was seeing at Grossmont Hospital and his own private practice.
"There is a large Arab American community nearby in East San Diego, specifically in El Cajon county," Al-Naser said. "And because there is no identifier for the group, they're all being counted as White Covid-19 patients and no one was noticing how the virus was specifically affecting this population."
Based on the standards set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), there are seven categories for data on race and ethnicity: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White, Hispanic or Latino, and non-Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 Census program memorandum. As a result, Arab Americans are forced to tick "White" or "other" on the Census and medical paperwork, which means that public health data collected on the community is largely anecdotal, according to experts like Al-Naser.
Arab Americans trace their origins to the Middle East and North Africa, which is traditionally comprised of 22 Arabic-speaking countries. They are not a monolith and can be White, Black and brown. Los Angeles and New York City have the largest populations of Arab American residents in the country based on data from the 2015-2019 ACS Ancestry survey. Both areas have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority and immigrant populations.
