Blog of Rights
Swati
Prakash
07/08/2011
Housing Discrimination

Racial Segregation Kills More Than Lung Cancer

By Francisco Pardo, Racial Justice Program & Swati Prakash, Racial Justice Program at 12:23pm

Each year, 176,000 Americans die as a result of racial segregation, according to a study reported in The New York Times this week. That's more than the number of people killed by strokes or in accidents each year. While the study does not describe precisely how segregation — defined as living in a neighborhood with more than 25 percent African-American population — kills, other research has noted that segregation is linked to inferior health care, inadequate access to healthy food, substandard housing, environmental conditions and lower quality schools, all of which can contribute to health problems that ultimately lead to early death.

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06/24/2011

Why Men of Color Aren’t Graduating From College

By Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Racial Justice Program & Swati Prakash, Racial Justice Program at 7:17pm

Let’s be straight when we talk about why it is men of color aren’t graduating from college.

It’s true, as this week’s College Board report notes, that just one in four African-American or Native-American men, and one in five Latino men, hold an associate’s degree or higher. But how can we be surprised about this outcome when boys of color attend public schools more segregated today than they were in the 1960’s? Since Brown v. Board of Education officially ended racial segregation in schools, white flight to private schools combined with residential segregation has isolated children of color. The way we finance schools concentrates funding in wealthy communities, which dooms poor children, often children of color, to attend schools severely lacking in resources.

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