Life Cycles of Inequity: Do Black (Men’s) Lives Matter?

4 Feb

Colorlines has been running the fantastic series ‘Life Cycles of Inequity’, focusing on the life stages of Black men the US. The latest installment, produced by Kai Wright and Erin Zipper, focuses on health and mortality. First published at Colorlines.com on Jan 7 2015:

Inequity shows up in our lives in all kinds of places, but rarely can it been seen as starkly as when it presents itself in our bodies. Public health long ago established the relationship between poverty and illness. Today’s researchers are also closing in on the link between poor health and racism. The accumulated stressors of racial injustice appear to literally wear our bodies down. Perhaps no set of public health data makes this point more plainly than the statistical trends for life expectancy.

So for our final installment of Life Cycles of Inequity: A Series on Black Men, we’ve pulled together the data that, arguably, represents the sum of our previous six installments: Being a black person in the the United States will take years off of your life. As the chart below shows, we have the shortest lifespan, on average, of any racial or ethnic group in the country.

[Please continue reading the whole article at Colorlines.com]

And watch the related video here:

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