Race Can Create Some Big Health Gaps

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"What do any of the categories mean, for example, for people who are biracial?"
This is something that always frustrates me about white America - this fallacy that most blacks are of "pure" west African racial background, ignoring centuries of racial mixing during slavery and segregation. Conservative estimates are that 66% of blacks have white European ancestry, but the realitistic estimate is closer to 90-95%. Let's not forget a small percentage share Native American and Asian ancestry as well. You can't even go by skin color - some dark skinned blacks have pale parents/grandparents, belying their European background. Indeed, there are many blacks in the US who are "more white" than Barack Obama yet are categorized as black, not mixed. Someone like Jay-Z or Beyonce may have more European ancestry than Obama or Halle Berry. This is NOT something new or even post Civil Rights era - this is centuries of racial mixing that hasn't been acknowledged in the modern era.
Why bring this up? Because it means that many blacks inherit health issues that are based on *both* genetic and lifestyle/cultural choices from at least two different continents. So please, spare me the false concern about "biracial" babies - as far as blacks are concerned, that means all of the above.

of OH 12:20PM June 13, 2008

So now we have a system that is clearly broken...has been broken for years (the legions of the uninsured and underinsured are swelling), poverty is growing untamed, we are losing good jobs to overseas cheap labor, a worthless dollar...and you want to keep doing it the same way? It goes to show that American ingenuity and education is fast becoming too much for the average Joe to get. The way to make America stronger is to make everyone that lives here healthier and stronger. What is the big fear in trying something, like universal healthcare, available for people who are running up costs for us that have healthcare, or need to use the emergency room for legitimate reasons? The productivity of America is tied directly to her health. You have to be insane to think that a healthier America would be worse...That a child without healthcare, or a mother or father who can't work, because they have let an illness go so far unchecked, thrusting their children into a cycle of poverty is better for this country in the long run...It isn't. It will cost us less to do the right thing, than end up footing the cost for a person that had a treatable illness, who's child ended up growing up kicking your door in! McCain is a con man. Anyone that thinks the country will get better under the same stressors it is being challenged with must be as old and senile as he is!

Duane of DC 4:02PM June 12, 2008

I recall hearing a doctor on some TV medical panel state that black men had a 5% higher level of testerone than whites or aisians. This,according to him, increases the risk of prostate cancer.
Does this make sense?

James Biggar of MA 2:16PM June 09, 2008

I think the white man, McCain, has seen enough of how the government can screw up and have massive cost overruns on anything they get their hands on. Obama is pro-choice on abortion, McCain is pro-choice for insurance. I don't think I would desire what the government would concoct for me let alone what it would cost all of us taxpayers, thank you!

T M of IL 1:34PM June 09, 2008

There's another curious thing about health and race this year. Obama (a man of mixed race) wants everybody to be able to obtain substantive health insurance and health care. McCain (a white man) wants a "market" solution for this topic which means he'd like the insureds to be limited to those from whom incorporated insurers can make an underwriting profit.

Daniel David of NM 3:31PM June 06, 2008