The paper included a decade’s worth of data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention among Black women ages 25 to 44 across 30 states.

The paper included a decade’s worth of data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention among Black women ages 25 to 44 across 30 states.

In the U.S., Black adult women are six times more likely to be killed than their white counterparts, troubling new data reveals.

A paper published Thursday in The Lancet medical journal analyzed homicide rates of Black women ages 25 to 44 across 30 states. The data was collected between 1999 and 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System.

Homicides were classified in this study as death by shooting, piercing, cutting and other forms of violence. Racial disparities varied among states; in Wisconsin, for example, Black women were 20 times more likely to be killed than white women. Black women living in Midwestern and Northeastern states were also more likely to be killed by a firearm, the paper found.

The study was designed to provide more comprehensive data about homicide rates among Black women and fill in the gaps in the existing literature, said Bernadine Waller, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral psychiatry research fellow at the Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center.

  • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    56·
    9 months ago

    Yep. When you normalize for poverty and population density, the crime rates are basically equal. The story isn’t about a race, the story is poor people are more likely to be murdered because they can’t choose to leave high crime rate areas.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
      60·
      9 months ago

      Well, it’s also about the fact that one race is a lot more likely to be poor than another. Intersectionality and all that.

      • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
        10·
        9 months ago

        Ignoring that cultural reasons may or may not be part of the picture doesn’t help any one solve the problem either

          • AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            9·
            9 months ago

            Distrust of police and lack of faith in the justice system is common among the black population of the USA. However, I don’t know what that other guy had in mind.

            • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
              6·
              9 months ago

              For good reason. Or do you believe that if they report their would-be murderers, the police would act before it’s too late?

              • AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                I think it is bullshit to pretend that black people living in America have nothing in common with each other, which is what the person I responded to seemed to believe.

          • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
            3·
            9 months ago

            It could be linked more to economic opportunity than culture but possibly rates of gangs, the desensitising effects of gang violence and also the reduced rates of married or long term relationships leading to less stable male role models in these communities. There does appear to be a higher rate of idolisation of gang culture in black communities than others.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              5·
              9 months ago

              Many black people share in a distinct culture which has become known as black culture. It is by no means a requirement.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  9 months ago

                  Right, but the point of the person above is that these women did not necessarily feel that they shared in most or any of black culture just because they were black. Does that need to be taken into account? I honestly do not have an answer there.

                  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
                    1·
                    9 months ago

                    I think it’s at least a reasonable assumption that for example Germans share german culture. Doe not mean every German shared the same culture or has the same experience. But than again looking at sociological phenomena involving german people it might be insightful to take German culture into account. An example would be rather unique place guns play in US-american culture, without understanding that aspect it would be hard to grasp the gun violence problem in US and why it’s so difficult to tackle.

                    At the same time I have the feeling we are splitting semantical hair.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Given this (from the grandparent of your comment)…

          When you normalize for poverty and population density, the crime rates are basically equal.

          …“cultural reasons” seem unlikely.

          • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
            1·
            9 months ago

            The idea of crime rates for every crime being even across all cultures is ridiculous if you take second to think about it

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
      10·
      9 months ago

      Well it is somewhat about race as that means more poor people are black and more non-poor people are not black. But yeah it’s stupid to make each and every observation of how black people are more affected by X when that X thing is already linked to poverty, instead of focusing on the core issue

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      When you normalize for poverty and population density, the crime rates are basically equal.

      I don’t disbelieve you, but could you cite a source?

      • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        This paper found that the two largest driving factors were single parent households and lack of a high school education. While they did not find that economic statis was the largest direct factor, it is important to note that things like education (one of the driving factors) increase as poverty declines:

        Much of the racial/ethnic homicide differentials in neighborhoods with high concentrations of African-Americans and Hispanics were explained by two of our four measures of social disadvantage, the percent female head of household and the percent persons with less than a high school education

        This older paper points the finger at income inequality:

        income inequality is the only independent variable with any appreciable explanatory power

        This much more recent article also points the finger at inequality:

        Inequality predicts homicide rates “better than any other variable”