Chicago's black people die younger. And it is getting worse.

The Sinai Urban Health Institute recently came up with some findings on the health of black people and white people in Chicago. They were published in the American Journal of Public Health. They compare the health of black people to that of white people in the Chicago area. Nationally the gap between black people and white people improved from 1990 to 2005 for six of the fifteen health categories studied. However in Chicago the gap widened in eleven of the fifteen areas. That is in Chicago the gap overall worsened.

An author of the study, Steve Whitman says:"The underlying issue here is racism and poverty. In Chicago it is exacerbated by segregation. Black people in Chicago are forced to live in neighborhoods where there are no stores to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, where schools are failing, where they don't have parks to exercise in and where they tend to go to segregated health facilities that are poorly funded, and, in different ways, failing." Whitman goes on: "Despite Chicago's transit system, it still has pockets of people where people have tremendous problems accessing care, and that's a huge overlay. Part of it is lack of accessibility and part of it is lack of insurance." And he goes on to underline his point. "At the end of the day, there is a very strong correlation between health and wealth."

The study showed that death from breast cancer was 99% higher for black women in Chicago than for white women in Chicago. A five fold increase since 1990. Yes 99% higher. This is a huge difference. In 1990 blacks were 8% more likely to die in Chicago than whites. By 2005 this had gone up to 24%. This is criminal.

Look at the big picture and make a few comparisons. If health care for black people in Chicago was equal to that for white people 3,200 less black people would die in Chicago every year. This is about nine a day. So if health care for all Chicagoans was equal to that of what it presently is for white Chicagoans then 3,200 black people a year would not die. 3,200 people dying is a lot of people. If there was a 9/11 in Chicago that killed this many, if the swine flu in Chicago killed this many, if there was a gang war that killed this many, this would be world news. But because it is the creeping insidious racism and poverty of capitalism then there is practically no talk about it. But every year 3,200 more black people die because their health care is not up to that of whites and because they live in greater poverty and because they have less accessibility to transport. This is a crime of capitalism and its stooges in the Republican and Democratic parties and locally here in Chicago the Democratic Party organized in the corrupt Daley machine which controls the city's politics.

Capitalism is a murderous racist system. Help us build a Mass Working Peoples' Party and a Democratic socialist Society.

Sean.