Earlier: Tracking ”Deaths Of Exuberance,” The Flip Side Of ”Deaths Of Despair”
Deaton and Case coined the term Deaths of Despair in 2015 for the depressing ways working class whites were dying in the 21st century: overdoses, suicides, and cirrhosis. Since the “racial reckoning” and de-policing began on May 25, 2020, we’ve been seeing more blacks dying Deaths of Exuberance (homicides and car crashes).
This crash that killed six was at the corner of La Brea and Slauson not too far from Los Angeles International airport. View Park-Windsor Hills is a fairly upscale neighborhood that’s 70% black. The three victims whose names have been made public so far were black, as was the causer of the crash, an ICU neuro ward travel nurse (i.e., well-paid) from Texas driving a Mercedes. Unlike her half dozen victims, she escaped with minor injuries.
Obviously, no one traffic accident can be confidently attributed to a massive social trend. But it sure looks like blacks have been driving much worse since The Establishment decided after George Floyd’s demise that America’s big problem was too much rule of law. When cops stopped stopping blacks so much after Floyd Day, black traffic deaths shot up by about 50% from May 2020 to June 2020:
