Why did black suicides soar during the BLM era?
Blacks have always been less suicidal than whites, but the gap almost closed among young people during the George Floyd Racial Reckoning.
One of the perennial paradoxes of American social science has been that blacks, despite all the oppression they suffer due to systemic racism, kill themselves less often than do privileged whites.
It’s almost as if Charles Darwin was onto something when he wrote in The Descent of Man:
There is, however, no doubt that the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other,--as in the texture of the hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body (2. A vast number of measurements of Whites, Blacks, and Indians, are given in the 'Investigations in the Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers,' by B.A. Gould, 1869, pp. 298-358; 'On the capacity of the lungs,' p. 471. See also the numerous and valuable tables, by Dr. Weisbach, from the observations of Dr. Scherzer and Dr. Schwarz, in the 'Reise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil,' 1867.), the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even in the convolutions of the brain. (3. See, for instance, Mr. Marshall's account of the brain of a Bushwoman, in 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1864, p. 519.) But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatisation and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties. Every one who has had the opportunity of comparison, must have been struck with the contrast between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes.
For example, recently, morose American Indians die by suicide almost three times as often as light-hearted African-Americans.
But, just when the War on Racism became a national obsession during the Great Awokening / Racial Reckoning the gap between black and white suicide rates has closed dramatically. The black suicide rate among young people 15-34 is now around 90% of the white rate.
Paywall here with more graphs below.
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