A black man has a longer life expectancy in prison than in average society.
According to a recent study published in the Annals of Epidemiology, black men in North Carolina’s prisons have a significantly lower chance of death in prison than out of it. The study, as reported by Reuters, also found that white men "were slightly more likely" to die inside the prison cell then outside.
While these findings are shocking in that they lay bare, in no uncertain terms the disparity in access to health care, safety and well-being among whites and blacks in America, they are unsurprising. Many inner-city black communities lack access to the vocational, financial, educational and cultural capital resources necessary for health and well-being.
Perhaps what is most surprising and disheartening about the findings of this study is its rhetorical significance. What does it say about America that a marginalized demographic group has a better chance at life locked up than free? How does a teacher tell a black student in a Title I school to work hard and stay out of trouble when jail is safer than the streets? And how does a black parent tell her child about slavery using past tense verbs when the vestiges of the system still exist today in very paradoxical ways?
This study’s findings suggest that the structural mechanisms that account for the disparity between blacks and whites in measures of health and wealth are as strong as ever. Although policies like affirmative action and equal lending practices have contributed to surface-level equality, true structural change remains elusive and the trappings of the inner-city oppressive. This reality coupled with our government’s apathy (manifested in the form of budget cuts and congressional inability to pass any meaningful legislation on behalf of the working poor) spells devastation for the black community unless something meaningful is done.
But what can and should be done? The answers...