Black women are six times more likely to be killed than white women, data reveals

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 413 points – Black women are six times more likely to be killed than white women, data reveals
nbcnews.com

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.

72

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

The article basically says it’s a pattern driven by poverty and population density. We’ve all heard that explanation before, and it seems reasonable.

But imagine you’re a middle class black woman; how are you supposed to interpret this? I imagine those women (and men too) would have very mixed feelings about being painted with such a wide brush. Not that I’d know, but I would love to hear something from their perspective.

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.

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

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

Cultural reasons seems a bit vague.

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.

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

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.

Don't black folks in USA have a rather distinct own culture?

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

Sure, that is true for any culture.

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.

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.

I think we're actually on the same side here. I think it's fine to assume that a black woman is a part of black culture on a social level. It also makes sense to me that whether or not a person identifies with black culture might be a factor in these statistics. Is it? I have absolutely no idea. Personally, I have my doubts, but I can't say for certain.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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”

Bullshit

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf

Could you quote the part you are referring to, where they normalize for poverty and population density?

The first page is pretty much all you need for the context of the conversation. Basically, according to the paper, Black people in the US are significantly more likely to be exonerated of any crime, but especially murder. This inversely means they're significantly more likely to be found guilty of a crime they did not commit.

The reasoning, I assume, for the person to link you that article is because of your statement about crime rates. I believe the other commenter is trying to say that crime rates are not actually equal once you normalize for poverty because of the high rate of false convictions.

Tbh, I'm not really sure what else to say about that. I just wanted to comment my thoughts on your question since I saw how rude the person you commented to was.

It's an interesting concept, and it could certainly due with some studying. My main thought is that if a cohort (poor people) are more likely to commit crimes, it stands to reason they are more likely to be incorrectly convicted of crimes as well. If there are 7x as many crimes in a population, 7x as many incorrect convictions would be a reasonable baseline.

So, my followup question then, if when normalized for poverty or crime rate, is there still a difference in the data? I unfortunately didn't see any discussion of such in the paper, which left me wanting.

lol. Don’t be lazy and read the article.

People aren't talking about convictions, but about actual murders. The fact that murder rates are higher in poorer areas is nothing new.

If you control for socioeconomic factors, blacks are still more likely to be murdered.

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/regardless-socioeconomic-status-black-communities-face-higher-gun-homicides-says-wharton-study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3455929/pdf/11524_2006_Article_337.pdf

I've never made any claim. I only tried to clarify that people aren't talking about conviction rate as you were alluding to in your original comment. I appreciate you backing up your claims with sources by default though, although commenting in an antagonistic manner isn't really conductive for healthy discussions.

Sorry, there just such a strong undercurrent of racism in a lot of comments that it's upsetting. Yes, of course socioeconomic status plays a big role but racism does as well. And it's not getting better. The implications that it's all due to being "poor" doesn't explain away the systemic racism in American society. Have a great day!

Sorry, there just such a strong undercurrent of racism in a lot of comments that it's upsetting.

That's understandable

Have a great day!

You too mate

Middle class black parents still have to have conversations with their children that middle class white parents do not have to.

The conversations all involve how to handle police and aggressive white people. Basically, how to de-escalate to avoid death.

While I understand the point you're trying to make, I think a lot fewer of them would have issue with this characterization than you would think, partially because they have solidarity with their poorer sisters.

It's easy to have that kind of solidarity when individuals from your community, rich and poor, are constantly targeted simply for the color of your skin.

A 2020 study published in the National Library of Medicine found that Black and Latina women who experienced intimate partner or sexual violence were two to three times more likely to experience abuse or a neglectful response from law enforcement when reporting the incident. Other reasons that may influence Black women’s police engagement for intimate partner violence included institutional racism, self-blame and stereotypical strength, among others.

“When something happens, you’re supposed to be strong,” Cottman said. “But then when law enforcement respond, you’re not seen as the victim because you’re strong.”

Here, now you don't have to imagine:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/

This isn't a new thing. Black women have known about this for a long time.

we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation.

we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being “ladylike” and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people.

let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, Indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere.

Imagine you're a 61 year old Nigerian. On average, you have one year left to live. Should you spend your last money on one 300$ hooker or 300 one dollar hookers?

On average, you have one year left to live.

No, you're misusing the statistic you cited, which says the life expectancy at birth is 61.79 years. That figure includes infant and childhood mortality, so the average life expectancy for people who already survived childhood is always higher than that.

(Your source also shows that Nigerian infant mortality is 10x higher than it is in the US, so that skews Nigeria's average a lot. Considering that your source shows that the Nigerian adult obesity rate is 8.9%, compared to 41.9% in the US, life expectancy at adulthood in Nigeria might even be higher than it is in the US. I'm not saying it is; I'm saying that, given the source you cited, we don't know that it isn't.)

I was joking but thanks for that explanation, it makes sense. My coworker from about 15 years ago was Nigerian and I showed him the stat. I remember it was 48 at the time which seemed insanely low but neither of us could understand why so he just had to accept that he only had 8 years left.