Black children more likely to have asthma because of pollution where they live

Black children are more likely to have asthma than kids of any other race in America because racist housing laws placed Black communities near pollution hotspots like power plants and major roadways, and in rental housing riddled with mold and other triggers that go unremediated.  More than 12 percent of Black children in the US have asthma, compared to 5.5 percent of white children.

Black kids also die at a much higher rate because of the disparities engrained in a housing system shaped by the longstanding and ongoing impacts of slavery and Jim Crow laws. “The majority of what drives disparities in asthma, it’s actually social and structural,” Sanaz Eftekhari, vice president of corporate affairs and research of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America told the AP. “People need to demand change for real and people need to not be reasonable,” Kamora Herrington, a community organizer in Hartford, Connecticut added. “At what point do you say, this is bull – – – -? White supremacy and racism have everything to do with it.” (AP)