| From | Southern Poverty Law Center <[email protected]> |
| Subject | Weekend Read: Racism is Killing Black Americans |
| Date | July 20, 2019 2:12 PM |
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Racism affects every aspect of American life – none more so than our medical system.
[image: SPLC logo] <[link removed]>
,
Racism affects every aspect of American life – none more so than our medical system.
Numerous studies over the years have laid bare the gap in health outcomes between minority groups and white Americans.
African Americans have a lower life expectancy <[link removed]> than white people. They are more likely to suffer and die from chronic conditions like kidney <[link removed]>, cardiovascular <[link removed]>, and lung disease <[link removed]>.
Black children are more likely to endure asthma <[link removed]> and have more severe symptoms than white children. The infant mortality rate is more than twice as high <[link removed]> for black children than for white children – a disparity that’s wider today than it was in 1850 <[link removed]>, when the majority of African Americans were enslaved, and one that is not related to the economic or educational status of the mother.
These persistent disparities in health outcomes are not due to genetic or biological differences between the races but to entrenched racism in American society.
Discrimination in American health care is well documented. African Americans, in fact, have been subjected to racist understandings of biology and cruel medical experimentation since the Middle Passage <[link removed]>. In the mid-1800s, for example, the physician J. Marion Sims performed torturous experiments on enslaved women without anesthesia. In the infamous Tuskegee syphilis <[link removed]> experiment of the 1930s, doctors collaborating with the U.S. Public Health Service studied the deadly symptoms of syphilis on hundreds of black men without treating them or even telling them they were infected.
African-American women, in particular, have been subjected to unspeakable horrors <[link removed]>, including bearing the brunt of a eugenics movement in the 20th century that sought to control black population growth. Not only were oral contraceptives deliberately pushed in black communities <[link removed]> but African-American, as well as Native women have been subjected to forced sterilizations. <[link removed]>
In 1973, the SPLC represented the Relf sisters <[link removed]>, who were 12 and 14 and lived in public housing with their mother when doctors working for the U.S. government surgically sterilized them without consent. Their mother, who was illiterate, signed an “X” on a document after being told her daughters, who both had mental disabilities, would be receiving birth control shots. The SPLC’s legal action exposed a program under which tens of thousands of black women had been coerced into undergoing sterilization.
The legacy of these injustices is still with us. Perhaps no other group of people in America experiences worse health outcomes than black women.
Black women have higher death rates <[link removed]> for nearly all cancers than white women and are twice as likely to experience infertility problems <[link removed]>. These health disparities manifest most severely, however, in maternal death rates – the rates at which women die during pregnancy or up to after a year after childbirth.
This phenomenon has puzzled researchers for decades. A recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that maternal death rates among black women are 3.3 times higher <[link removed]> than for whites. In a separate national study <[link removed]> examining the five major conditions linked to maternal death, researchers found that black women did not have a significantly higher prevalence of these conditions but were two to three times more likely to die from them.
Ever since researchers confirmed this stark disparity, they've been trying to understand its causes. One could partly attribute it to the structural barriers <[link removed]> black women experience when trying to access health care due to generations of discrimination and segregation. In fact, many of the health disparities between black and white Americans can be directly linked to federal housing discrimination, redlining, and neighborhood segregation. <[link removed]>
Black women in America <[link removed]> are more likely to live in poverty and to live in neighborhoods where it is difficult to get quality health care. They’re also more likely to have limited access to transportation, to work in jobs with inflexible hours or inadequate benefits with little sick leave, and to be uninsured.
Despite the barrage of evidence that these barriers necessarily affect health outcomes, researchers cannot rule out the role that racism <[link removed]> – implicit or explicit bias – plays in interpersonal interactions between health care professionals and women of color.
Even when all other factors are equal <[link removed]> – economic status, educational background, and access to health care – maternal death rates for black women are still higher compared to white women. Public health researcher Arline Geronimus has posited that black women’s health is affected by a process she calls “ weathering <[link removed]>.” Under this hypothesis, the cumulative experience of racism <[link removed]> throughout one's life can induce the kind of chronic stress that makes African-American women particularly susceptible to chronic health conditions that lead to otherwise preventable deaths.
Even the wealthiest black women in America aren’t immune from these problems. Tennis star Serena Williams <[link removed]>, worth an estimated $ 180 million, nearly died from post-birth complications in 2011. This week, she announced <[link removed]> that she has invested in a start-up company that’s working to end the maternal mortality crisis among black women.
At the SPLC, we’re fighting against both structural and explicit racism that contributes to this extraordinary health disparity.
We’re working to defend access to health care by combating <[link removed]> the misguided work requirements <[link removed]> some states are adopting as a way to strip low-income people of their coverage under Medicaid. These requirements particularly threaten low-income women of color who rely on Medicaid before their pregnancies <[link removed]> as well as during and after them. Many, of course, live in states that have refused to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act.
We’re also fighting racism by providing free anti-bias resources <[link removed]> and social justice teaching resources to our nation's schools so that all children may have access to safe and non-stressful learning environments where they can thrive. And, we’re working to dismantle the racist criminal justice systems <[link removed]> that keep women of color impoverished from generation to generation.
The evidence is glaringly clear: Racism is lethal, and we cannot hope to achieve racial equity without acknowledging that this underlying factor causes an untold number of premature deaths among black Americans.
The Editors
P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* These copycat bills on Sharia law and terrorism have no effect. So why do states keep passing them? <[link removed]> from USA Today
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* These copycat bills on Sharia law and terrorism have no effect. So why do states keep passing them? <[link removed]> from USA Today
* Eric Garner is proof that we need to reform laws on excessive force <[link removed]> from The Washington Post
DONATE <[link removed]>
[image: Facebook Icon] <[link removed]> [image: Twitter Icon] <[link removed]> [image: Instagram Icon] <[link removed]>
Update Preferences <[link removed]> | Unsubscribe <[link removed]> | Privacy Policy <[link removed]> | Contact Us <[link removed]>
Was this message forwarded to you? Sign up to receive SPLC updates. <[link removed]> Pick up SPLC merchandise from the SPLC store. <[link removed]> Make a recurring donation to the SPLC and become a Friend of the Center. <[link removed]> Make a donation in someone else's honor and send them an eCard. <[link removed]> Make a planned gift to the SPLC and become a Partner for the Future. <[link removed]> Take advantage of corporate matching gift opportunities and find out if your employer will match your donation to the SPLC. <[link removed]>
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104
334.956.8200 // splcenter.org <[link removed]>
Copyright 2019
[image: SPLC logo] <[link removed]>
,
Racism affects every aspect of American life – none more so than our medical system.
Numerous studies over the years have laid bare the gap in health outcomes between minority groups and white Americans.
African Americans have a lower life expectancy <[link removed]> than white people. They are more likely to suffer and die from chronic conditions like kidney <[link removed]>, cardiovascular <[link removed]>, and lung disease <[link removed]>.
Black children are more likely to endure asthma <[link removed]> and have more severe symptoms than white children. The infant mortality rate is more than twice as high <[link removed]> for black children than for white children – a disparity that’s wider today than it was in 1850 <[link removed]>, when the majority of African Americans were enslaved, and one that is not related to the economic or educational status of the mother.
These persistent disparities in health outcomes are not due to genetic or biological differences between the races but to entrenched racism in American society.
Discrimination in American health care is well documented. African Americans, in fact, have been subjected to racist understandings of biology and cruel medical experimentation since the Middle Passage <[link removed]>. In the mid-1800s, for example, the physician J. Marion Sims performed torturous experiments on enslaved women without anesthesia. In the infamous Tuskegee syphilis <[link removed]> experiment of the 1930s, doctors collaborating with the U.S. Public Health Service studied the deadly symptoms of syphilis on hundreds of black men without treating them or even telling them they were infected.
African-American women, in particular, have been subjected to unspeakable horrors <[link removed]>, including bearing the brunt of a eugenics movement in the 20th century that sought to control black population growth. Not only were oral contraceptives deliberately pushed in black communities <[link removed]> but African-American, as well as Native women have been subjected to forced sterilizations. <[link removed]>
In 1973, the SPLC represented the Relf sisters <[link removed]>, who were 12 and 14 and lived in public housing with their mother when doctors working for the U.S. government surgically sterilized them without consent. Their mother, who was illiterate, signed an “X” on a document after being told her daughters, who both had mental disabilities, would be receiving birth control shots. The SPLC’s legal action exposed a program under which tens of thousands of black women had been coerced into undergoing sterilization.
The legacy of these injustices is still with us. Perhaps no other group of people in America experiences worse health outcomes than black women.
Black women have higher death rates <[link removed]> for nearly all cancers than white women and are twice as likely to experience infertility problems <[link removed]>. These health disparities manifest most severely, however, in maternal death rates – the rates at which women die during pregnancy or up to after a year after childbirth.
This phenomenon has puzzled researchers for decades. A recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that maternal death rates among black women are 3.3 times higher <[link removed]> than for whites. In a separate national study <[link removed]> examining the five major conditions linked to maternal death, researchers found that black women did not have a significantly higher prevalence of these conditions but were two to three times more likely to die from them.
Ever since researchers confirmed this stark disparity, they've been trying to understand its causes. One could partly attribute it to the structural barriers <[link removed]> black women experience when trying to access health care due to generations of discrimination and segregation. In fact, many of the health disparities between black and white Americans can be directly linked to federal housing discrimination, redlining, and neighborhood segregation. <[link removed]>
Black women in America <[link removed]> are more likely to live in poverty and to live in neighborhoods where it is difficult to get quality health care. They’re also more likely to have limited access to transportation, to work in jobs with inflexible hours or inadequate benefits with little sick leave, and to be uninsured.
Despite the barrage of evidence that these barriers necessarily affect health outcomes, researchers cannot rule out the role that racism <[link removed]> – implicit or explicit bias – plays in interpersonal interactions between health care professionals and women of color.
Even when all other factors are equal <[link removed]> – economic status, educational background, and access to health care – maternal death rates for black women are still higher compared to white women. Public health researcher Arline Geronimus has posited that black women’s health is affected by a process she calls “ weathering <[link removed]>.” Under this hypothesis, the cumulative experience of racism <[link removed]> throughout one's life can induce the kind of chronic stress that makes African-American women particularly susceptible to chronic health conditions that lead to otherwise preventable deaths.
Even the wealthiest black women in America aren’t immune from these problems. Tennis star Serena Williams <[link removed]>, worth an estimated $ 180 million, nearly died from post-birth complications in 2011. This week, she announced <[link removed]> that she has invested in a start-up company that’s working to end the maternal mortality crisis among black women.
At the SPLC, we’re fighting against both structural and explicit racism that contributes to this extraordinary health disparity.
We’re working to defend access to health care by combating <[link removed]> the misguided work requirements <[link removed]> some states are adopting as a way to strip low-income people of their coverage under Medicaid. These requirements particularly threaten low-income women of color who rely on Medicaid before their pregnancies <[link removed]> as well as during and after them. Many, of course, live in states that have refused to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act.
We’re also fighting racism by providing free anti-bias resources <[link removed]> and social justice teaching resources to our nation's schools so that all children may have access to safe and non-stressful learning environments where they can thrive. And, we’re working to dismantle the racist criminal justice systems <[link removed]> that keep women of color impoverished from generation to generation.
The evidence is glaringly clear: Racism is lethal, and we cannot hope to achieve racial equity without acknowledging that this underlying factor causes an untold number of premature deaths among black Americans.
The Editors
P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* These copycat bills on Sharia law and terrorism have no effect. So why do states keep passing them? <[link removed]> from USA Today
* Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it <[link removed]> from ProPublica
* ‘Nobody opened the door’: neighbors rally during an ICE raid in Houston <[link removed]> from The New York Times
* The Memo: Fears of violence grow amid Trump race storm <[link removed]> from The Hill
* These copycat bills on Sharia law and terrorism have no effect. So why do states keep passing them? <[link removed]> from USA Today
* Eric Garner is proof that we need to reform laws on excessive force <[link removed]> from The Washington Post
DONATE <[link removed]>
[image: Facebook Icon] <[link removed]> [image: Twitter Icon] <[link removed]> [image: Instagram Icon] <[link removed]>
Update Preferences <[link removed]> | Unsubscribe <[link removed]> | Privacy Policy <[link removed]> | Contact Us <[link removed]>
Was this message forwarded to you? Sign up to receive SPLC updates. <[link removed]> Pick up SPLC merchandise from the SPLC store. <[link removed]> Make a recurring donation to the SPLC and become a Friend of the Center. <[link removed]> Make a donation in someone else's honor and send them an eCard. <[link removed]> Make a planned gift to the SPLC and become a Partner for the Future. <[link removed]> Take advantage of corporate matching gift opportunities and find out if your employer will match your donation to the SPLC. <[link removed]>
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104
334.956.8200 // splcenter.org <[link removed]>
Copyright 2019
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