cination to take or not. I'm going to wait till the last minute and you should too. You don't need to make a decision until somebody says you can come in and get it. Until somebody says that you personally can go get a vaccination, don't decide. Don't decide. Because there might be extra information by then. So if you decide now before you have to, why would you do that? Wait until the last minute. You could be quite sure you're going to take it or quite sure you're not, but don't decide yet. Wait until the last minute. That's the smartest place to make the decision.

Here's the most controversial story that I have completely changed my opinion on. You saw the story about the ethicist who I guess in the New York Times had his article. And the ethicist claimed that it might be better for society if before older people get to the vaccination that the frontline health care workers get taken care of. And part of his argument which made the headlines was that he thought that old people shouldn't get the vaccination first because they're mostly white and that frontline healthcare workers are more diverse. And so if you favored the front line workers you would get a more diverse and more fair distribution.

And the way that was reported is, "A racist. Oh, it's quite racist. Really, really racist." Is it? Yes. So let me agree with the first part of the criticism unambiguously. It's totally racist. It's unambiguously, overtly, plainly, transparently racist. But here's the part you're not gonna like. You ready? But no matter what you do, it's racist. Sorry. Sorry. No matter what you do, it's racist. There isn't the non-racist option. If we had a non-racist option I would say, my God, why are we even obtaining this idea from this clearly racist proposal? But that's not our situation. It's not. And we can't get to a situation where there would be any kind of a non-racist process. Here's why.

No matter what rules you pick, no matter what group you say, even if you don't use race, if you just say, well, we'll do people over a certain age, well, mostly white, right? It wasn't your intention but it would just turn out that way. So things are racist by outcome no matter what your intention was, right? So would you agree with the first point that the outcome has a racial element to it even if nobody was thinking in those terms, even if racism had nothing to do with the decision? You'd all agree that there's always an outcome that favors one group or not. No matter what you do, you can't avoid that.

So let's talk about intention. Because if the outcome is going to be racist no matter what, you can't get rid of the racism part. So why would you worry about the thing you can't change? That just can't be changed. But you can question motive. That's always fair. You can question intention.

If I thought that someone had suggested in public that white people should not get the vaccination, you know, in an early way even if they're old, you know, what's your first impression of that? Sounds pretty bad, right? But let me ask you this. So suppose somebody came to me. All right, let's personalize this. Take it out of the realm of public policy. Take it down to you personally. Somebody comes to you and they say, "Scott, you're over 60."

You know I'm 63 and I've got a little asthma so I've got some comorbidities. I'm not old old but I'm, you know, the beginning of the older category. And suppose they said to me, "I'd like you to make the decision, Scott. It's up to you. We know that, let's say, older Black people have much worse outcomes. Would you mind socially distancing a little bit longer and we're going to focus on Black citizens not because they're Black but because we know they have worse outcomes. So if you're looking at the greater good you want to give the vaccination to whoever gets the best outcome, right? It just happens that they're Black. That's not anybody's choice. It's nobody's intention. It's just a biological reality."

So if somebody said to me, "Scott, would you personally," and you're not making a decision for anybody else, right? It's just you personally. It's not a public policy. It doesn't apply to anybody else. It's just you. Would you personally socially distance a little bit longer and take a little more risk for the benefit of Black citizens in the United States who are at greater risk? What would I say? I'd say yes. I'd say yes if somebody asked me that question directly and said, "Look, it's up to you. We're not, there's no penalty. You will not be punished. You won't be punished. It's just up to you. It's your own conscience, your own risks, your own risk reward calculation. You can be selfish if you want. It's up to you. If you want to get it first we'll put you right in the front of the line and nobody will ever give you a hard time for it. It's up to you." I think I'd still wait. I think it's the wait because that's actually a pretty fair proposition.

If they can identify people for whatever reason, you know, be they Black or have a comorbidity or be they a certain age or be they health care workers on the front line, if you can make a strong case that this person is in a high risk group and I'm in a slightly less high-risk group, yeah, I'm okay with that. Absolutely. Because you know it's a war, right? It's a war. And sometimes you've got to be the one that does the dangerous stuff so that somebody else doesn't have to do it. Sometimes you've got to, you know, brave the bullets to pull back your wounded comrade off the field, right?

So we're in a situation where personal sacrifice should be a pretty big part of the equation. If you're not thinking of it that way then you're not in a, let's say, a military mindset. And maybe we should be. We're in a war against a virus. Maybe let's act more like soldiers, right?

So somebody says white guilt. Am I suffering from white guilt because I would say the same thing no matter who the risk category was? So would you criticize me if I said I think people over 80 should get the vaccination before me? Would you criticize me for that? If I said that frontline healthcare workers should get it before me, would you criticize me for that? If I said that people who, what's the worst comorbidity, maybe it's diabetes. Let's say diabetes is, I don't know if that's true, but let's say it's the worst one. If I said that everybody with diabetes should get the shot before I do, would you criticize me for that? Why would you criticize me if I say no, there's an obvious category: Black citizens in this country clearly have far worse outcomes. Why is that different than diabetes? Why is that different than being 80 years old?

All right, so there's your provocative thought of the day. I didn't think you'd like it but I feel it's worth mulling on. And I would say that the story about the ethicist and his opinion was presented a little bit out of context. So when I first heard it, it just sounded straight up racist and that was my first impression. But when you hear the actual argument and you understand that there is no non-racist outcome, you can't get there. It's not a possibility. It's only who gets the advantage. And if you decide that it's going to be a little racis