The Statistics

When I was looking up the statistics for the Men Get Sick Too post I looked up data on deaths broken out by race and gender. I got lucky and found a report that broke down race, gender and age. Two things caught my attention.

1) Skin cancer. It's coming up to summertime and the pharmaceutical companies and the "news" are pushing sunscreen heavily on the public. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be but there is something they aren't quite letting the public know. Looking at the data:

Malignant melanoma of skin (C43) 9,154

Total melanoma deaths in 2010 for the entire US population was just under 10k people.

Malignant melanoma of skin (C43) 8944

This is the total number of deaths attributed to melanoma of the skin among "whites".

Malignant melanoma of skin (C43) 135

This is the total number of deaths attributed to melanoma of the skin among those classified as "black"

That is over an order of magnitude difference in death rates. It's 66x times less than those for "whites". In fact if you break it down by gender the incidences of melanoma among "whites" is two order of magnitudes different.

Two.

Now why is this? Naturally occurring melanin as found in all human beings dissipates UV radiation. In fact it dissipates 99% of UV radiation. The darker a person is the more natural protection against UV radiation one has. So it is a matter of fact that black people do not need sunscreen to protect against UV radiation. The problem of course is WHO we are calling "black". I have no idea how the persons in the study were classified but I'm willing to bet that a number of them, the vast majority of them, were in fact "light skinned". It is known that red headed freckled persons are genetically predisposed to skin cancer. Any African-American (black) who has a red head in their family has a "problem".

Not to say that a melanoma cannot happen to a black person. Anything can happen and clearly does. It's just that I'd like for one of these shows to up and admit that black folks don't need to use the product(s). But y'all still need to use lotion.

2) Life expectancy: According to the CDC as of 2010 White women had the highest life expectancy of all groups in the US. Second to White women were Black women who, interestingly have a similar life expectancy as white males. Black males fall way behind everyone else.

Of course the question is why? That leads us to point three. 3) Violence. Now for the not too good at all. I too was dismayed that mayoral candidate Thompson essentially gave his thumbs up to Stop and Frisk. I still say it is unconstitutional and blatant violation of the 4th amendment rights of the citizens involved. That said, when we look at the killings happening in places such as Chicago and the most recent spate over the holiday weekend in NYC that saw 22 victims of violence. There is clearly something wrong. Lets look at some really sobering facts:

Assault (homicide) (X85-Y09,Y87.1) 7,863

This is the total number of whites killed via assault in 2010.

Assault (homicide) (X85-Y09,Y87.1) 7,818

This is the total number of blacks killed via assault in 2010

The numbers are the same. This is expected as I pointed out in my discussion of Bill Bennett's commentary about aborting all black babies. But here's the problem: black people make up 13% of the US population. If blacks were killed by homicide in proportion to their population then we'd expect something on the order of 1,000 homicides (using white homicide rate as the benchmark). It is clear that the homicide rate among African-Americans (blacks) is way out of proportion.

Looking at the age data we see the that for African-American women between the ages of 15 and 24, homicide is the second leading cause of death. After age 24 homicide drops to the 4th, then 7th and then drops off the chart.

For black males, Homicide is the second leading cause of death for 10-14 year olds.

10 to 14 years of age.

Homicide is the number one cause of death of African-American males between the age of 15 -34.

15 to 34.

So to recap, between the ages of 10 and 34. If an African-American male is reported dead, the most likely cause was a homicide. It is also highly likely that the person who killed that person was also African-American. Going back to the chart where we see that the average life expectancy of the African-American male is just shy of 70, that he on average has to worry about being killed by assault for about one third his life. But wait.

Between the ages of 35 and 44 homicide is the 3rd most cited cause of death. Assault does not drop to no. 7 until age 45. At this point heart disease takes over with HIV complications following close behind. I would hazard to guess that living with the idea that one is at high risk of dying via assault by another member of your group informs much of that heart disease incidence.

In comparison, white women have a death rate that is dominated by "accidents" and "self harm" as the number one and two causes. In contrast to all the dangers that they claim men pose to them, the most dangerous thing to a white woman is herself.

Similarly, white males have a number one cause of death as "accidents". Between the ages of 10 and 14 homicide is the number 4 cause of death (as compared to number 2 for black males of the same age ranger).

White males between the ages of 15 and 19 have homicide as the number 3 cause of death (compared to number one for black males)

White males between the ages of 20 -24 have homicide as the number 3 cause of death (compared to number one for black males).

White males between the ages of 25 and 34 have homicide as the number 5 cause of death (compared to number one for black males).

Homicide drops to number 6 and then off the charts for the remaining age groups.

Don't let the number 3 ranking fool you. When at 20-24 blacks were the victims of homicide to the tune of 1,549, whites in the same group were at 925.

Remember blacks make up a far far smaller percent and number of the population, yet killed off each other at a 50% greater rate.

So lets be clear. While Stop and Frisk is unconstitutional and clearly ineffective (most of the people stopped and frisked had no contraband whatsoever) there is a problem in our communities when it comes to violence that must be addressed. The data does not lie.