The Leading Cause of Death Among Young Black Males is Young Black Males

CoCC
November 17, 2013

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved…. After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.” – Jesse Jackson, at a conference for the Rainbow/PUSH coalition Chicago 1993.

lol 20s.
lol 20s.

Based on a 96 page report on the causes of premature death by the CDC, the leading cause of death among young blacks of both sexes are black males. See report.

AIDS.

According to the CDC, black men are ten times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV or AIDS than white men. Among black men who allege that they have never engaged in a homosexual act, the figure rises to about 15 times the rate that heterosexual white men are diagnosed. Studies by the CDC also conclude that black men are more likely to have HIV or AIDS and go undiagnosed than white men.

All of this translates to black women being diagnosed with HIV or AIDS at a rate of over 20 times that of white women. The general trend is for black men to catch HIV/AIDS from each other in prison and then give it to black women when they are released. The CDC believes that 74% of black women who have HIV/AIDS contracted it through heterosexual contact with a man.

A 2004 report by the CDC says that AIDS is the:

the leading cause of death for black women aged 25–34 years.
* the 3rd leading cause of death for black women aged 35–44 years.
* the 4th leading cause of death for black women aged 45–54 years.

By way of comparison, AIDS was only the 11th leading cause of death for white women aged 25-34!

Homicide

The same CDC report says that homicide is the:

the leading cause of death among black men aged 15-34 years. (Three age categories!)
* the second leading cause of death for black women aged 15-24 years.
* the fifth leading cause of death for black women aged 25-34 years.

Among women aged 15-24, homicide accounts for 5% of premature deaths in white females, but 20% of all premature deaths by black females.

Among both black and white men, homicide deaths peak at aged 25-34. The death rate by homicide among white men in this age group is 12.5 per 100k, and accounts for 10% of all premature deaths. The death rate by homicide among blacks in this age group is 101.8 per 100k, and accounts for 48% of all premature deaths.

The majority of black female homicide victims are killed by a current or former boyfriend, which many refer to as “femicide.” About 96% of all black homicide victims are killed by a black perpetrator overall. 85% of white homicide victims are killed by a white perpetrator.

The July 2003 issue of the American Journal of Public Health published a study of spousal homicide. It was conducted by 18 experts in the medical field. The study states “Femicide, the homicide of women, is the leading cause of death in the United States among young African American women aged 15 to 45 years.” Most women are murdered by a male partner.

Another study published in the American Journal of Public Health looked at ten years of data. Black females married to black males are 9 times more likely to be victims of spousal homicide than white females married to white males. The study found that interracial marriages where the male is black had the highest spousal homicide rate. White females married to black males are 12.4 times more likely to be murdered by their husbands than white females married to white males. Source: J A Mercy and L E Saltzman. Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1976-85.. American Journal of Public Health: May 1989, Vol. 79, No. 5, pp. 595-599.

“The National Black Women’s Health Project” has identified the battering of women as the number one health issue for African American women (Joseph, 1997).

Femicide is a leading cause of premature deaths in African American women aged 15-44. (Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol 7, No. 1)

In 1998, Salber and Taliaferro reported that the spousal homicide rate among African Americans is 8.4 times more than for whites. The incidence of spousal homicide is 7.7 times higher in interracial marriages compared to intraracial marriages. (Source WebMD.com)

Relationships with black men dramatically increase a woman’s chances of dying young.

Black females aged 15-19 are 3.9 times more likely to die of homicide or AIDS than white females in the same age group. This increases to 4.4 times for females aged 20-24 and 7.3 times for 25-34.