Health care for black men is now dependent upon whether or not they are incarcerated. At least this is the case a new study presents.
This article is my WTF??? moment of the week. The Blackwoman is speechless. Almost.
African American inmates are more likely to survive in prison than on the streets, according to a new study published in Annals of Epidemiology. However, white inmates were more likely to die in prison than outside.
I guess this is the best case for keeping black men in prison and white men out.
The North Carolina study found that incarceration saved black inmates from alcohol- and drug-related deaths, as well as lethal accidents and certain chronic diseases.
Nice choice. Jail or alcohol and drug related death. Is it any wonder that so many black men choose to go to jail in order to better their health and extend their lives? All this time I've been thinking it was a justice system weighed heavily against them when it was the need to live life without all that fried food and swine they would otherwise ingest. Survival instinct strong . Who knew?
All this time I thought the disproportionate numbers were a reflection of the institutionalized racism that often assumes a black man accused is a black man guilty when it was in fact the need of the black man to be protected from the drugs and alcohol,the indifference in the public school system and all those chronic lethal accidents called unchecked street violence. Live longer. Go to jail My bad. Makes me wanna holla.
iThe idea, according to this study that black men can only be protected,have access to health and dental care and live longer by going to jail ought to set off the whistle of dog in the ears of the listening.
Those men who escape both the streets and the prisons are not important enough to protect and to gain health and dental care access. They are expendable. From where I stand, this notion, this idea, is as insidious, as odious,offensive,vile and vicious as the practice during lynching of keeping the black man alive as long as possible in order to prolong the agony of the torture. Makes me wanna holla.
Comforting to know that the descendants of King Arthur,Julius Caesar and Leif Ericson, Christopher Columbus and Nero (to name but a very few) are delicate flowers for whom prison hastens the end of life. It seems that white males are not up to life in prison. A good reason it seems not to send them there. Interesting.
As a mother of three grown black males, sister to three and once wife to one, it is difficult to believe I wasted all that time doing what I could to keep the booze,the streets and too much swine from taking their toll. All it seems I needed to do to prolong their lives was make sure they got locked up. What a fool I was to warn about the police who it seems really are about serving and protecting. Snakes on a plane! (The Blackwoman means this as an expression of horror.) Makes me wanna holla.
I am heartsick thinking about all of the traps that are a part of daily living for black men. Most black males don't live long enough to receive Social Security. The words social security are themselves meaningless. Not when you live your life steeped in social insecurities. Not while you can still work in prison for slave wages and live longer to do so.
Only the soul-less find this anything but sickening. Only the willfully heartless are unwilling to see this reflection of a nation who has failed to live up to the promise of justice and equality. Only the most cynical among us would fail to see the racist driven need in our society to demonize, marginalize and as often as possible, institutionalize black men. Makes me wanna holla.
Now run and tell that.