Re: Staggering Death rate for black pregnant women

[kelley <kcwalker@xxxxxxx>]

wojtek writes

>How do those factors relate to "racism"?  Are the hypertension, diabetes
>and obseity diabolically inflicted by white men?

well wojtek, how 'bout thinking of it in terms of institutional and
structural racism?  i mean, you just wrote eloquently about whole/part and
cultural determinism and radical analysis, so i think you could understand
that, while no one necessarily sets about to discriminate or harm
individuals necessarily [tho that happens], institutional racism means that
entire sections of urban inner cities have no hospitals, few physicians and
when they do they have poor quality and understaffed public hospitals, and
ambulances sometimes won't venture into neighborhoods.  etc.   have you
ever had to use public health care and insurance?  i'm eligible and have
been but i won't use it; not after the horrors my sister went through.  you
get shoved around, mistreated, snarled at, are made to wait incredibly long
hrs, and have absolutely no power to demand better treatment even when
you're smart enough to know what should be done.

hypertension, diabetes, obesity are difficult conditions to connect
directly to social class/race, that is clear.


 Do the poor white women
>in say, a WV trailer park have better access to pre-natal health care than
>poor black women in say, Baltimore?

no.  when they use better and more nuanced comparative analysis by moving
from national level social indicators to geographical comparisons which
control for things like the fact that in florida menail, unskilled jobs pay
tops 8$/hr, as opposed to upstate new york where it 3-4$/hr higher, the
social indicators reveal that the quality of life  or lack thereof is similar.

i haven't read these studies in yrs so i can't recall the details of the
critique that show how class is truly a significant factor.  but when
health indicators are examined comparing middle class black neighborhoods
with impoverished black neighborhoods there is a big difference too. so
income does matter here, but the racism comes into play to insofar as
blacks are disproportionately poor, right?  that's a problem.

what that research is getting at though is  health indicators, but i'd like
to doug to tell us a bit about what that study said they were.  i'm
familiar with some of them but i'm not sure what navarro was using.

Are the black women in any any way
>forced by white men to do drugs and alcohol?  Are they killed or injured in
>any significant numbers by white men?

wojtek, do you teach?  have your students trek to a neighborhood you'd
consider poor then have them count the number of adverts for cigs and
booze.  have them look at the billboards.  the corner markets.  everything.
 then have them go to a suburban neighborhood and check it out or even to a
wealthier city neighborhood and check it out.  also have them count the
number of liquor stores and look at how much shelf space is devoted to what
kinds of products.  yeah yeah demand and all that but the ads....  now if
some yuppie can be easily persuaded that s/he absolutely NEEDS that jeep
grand cherokee then i suspect same holds for everyone else.