Chris Kuzawa’s recent piece for the L.A. Times explores the racial health gap as an argument for reparations in California and across the United States.
Christopher Kuzawa is the John D. MacArthur Professor of anthropology, a faculty Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Kuzawa’s research and teaching interests include developmental origins of adult disease and function; evolutionary theory and human life history; growth and development; brain evolution; reproductive ecology; statistics; and cardiovascular disease in developing nations.
“I am an anthropologist and epidemiologist who studies health inequity, and last year I began my testimony to the California Reparations Task Force by recounting stark figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics: Life expectancy for Black women in the U.S is three years less than for their white counterparts. For men, the difference is a striking five years lower.
Nationwide, much of the reparations conversation has focused on the financial burdens set in place by slavery and subsequent racist government policies. As a direct result of these factors, the median wealth of white households is about eight times that of Black households in the U.S. today.
This racial wealth gap on its own makes a strong case for reparations. But it should be joined by an equally egregious and often less acknowledged health gap: In the U.S., Black lives are years shorter on average than white lives. And as with the wealth gap, racism is a key culprit.” – Chris Kuzawa
Read the full article here.