In This Issue

It has been a week since a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, refused to indict Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown. When I first heard the news about the verdict I was numb. But I woke up the next morning in tears. I was angry, and frustrated by the verdict. But that was not why I was crying, and not why I am still crying. I am crying because I was not surprised and I don't believe anyone in America was.

Michael Brown's life did not warrant a day in court. The Ferguson grand jury decision sent a clear and unambiguous message: Michael Brown's life and the lives of young Black men do not matter! And it breaks my heart that this was not news to me. I should have been surprised.

The evidence that the lives of young Black men and boys don't matter starts long before our brothers, nephews and sons are gunned down in the streets by those sworn to "protect and to serve".

We start failing Black boys early and we continue to fail them at every turn throughout their increasingly too-short lives.

The disparities between the experiences of young Black men and the experiences of young men of other racial ethnic groups are staggering. Black males are less likely to graduate high school than their White and Asian peers. They also have lower literacy rates and levels of college preparedness. As a result, many young Black men are virtually locked out of employment. This increases their risk of going to prison and experiencing higher mortality rates from homicide.

These and other differences develop in the very beginning of Black males' lives. Black infants are often born at a developmental disadvantage compared to White infants. A study by the California Endowment showed more than 12 percent of Black infants are born at low birth weight, compared to 6.5 percent of white infants. This increases the risk of neurological, cognitive, behavioral and academic problems, and, ultimately, poorer health and mortality, as compared to infants born at a normal birth weight. Let's look at some key areas of racial disparity:

Poverty: Black children, including boys, are 3.4 times more likely to live in poverty than White children are. For example, around 27 percent of Black children in California live in poverty.

Education: According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, there is a 28 point achievement gap in math and reading scores between 4th and 8th grade Black boys and their White counter parts. Said another way, Black boys are years behind their classmates.

Unemployment: Americans are obsessed with the unemployment rates. The current national unemployment rate in the United States is about 5.9 percent. But according to a National Urban League study published in January, the unemployment rate for Black male teens is an astounding 83 percent.

HIV/AIDS: Yesterday was World AIDS Day, and here, again, we fail young Black men. Young Black men have a nearly seven times higher risk of contracting HIV or AIDS and four times higher mortality rate from HIV infection than their White peers do. Indeed, young Black gay and bisexual men are the most at-risk population for HIV infection on the planet. In some major cities in the United States, HIV rates among Black men who have sex with men is nearly 50 percent.

Trauma: Nationally, Black teenagers are 2½ times more likely than White teenagers to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition, according to the Developmental Victimization Survey on Children's Exposure to Violence, Black youth are more likely to witness violence than White children. Children who witness violence are at increased risk for becoming victims themselves, as well as for developing PTSD and experiencing other negative health consequences.

High mortality rates from homicide: Some conservative talking heads have been trying to change the subject away from police brutality and racial profiling by drawing a false equivalency between police gunning down unarmed young black men—and, more recently, a 12-year-old Black boy in Cleveland—and disproportionately high mortality rates from homicide in some Black communities. Yes, we need to continue to be alarmed by the high rates of gun violence in our communities.

It's shocking the degree to which it is affirmed over and over and over again that the lives of young Black men in America just don't matter. And we don't seem to have either the capacity or the will to change that. We should not remain naïve to the myriad factors that contribute to this phenomenon, including remembering that White people aren't the only ones who see images that diminish the lives of young Black men. Young Black men, themselves, see the images and learn the negative and limiting messages and lessons, as well.

We have to be steadfast in not allowing these two issues—police brutality and high rates of gun violence in Black communities—to be conflated. We give police sanctioned weapons. They have a higher responsibility for when and how they use those weapons. The bar for proving racial bias has gotten so high that it's virtually impossible to even see it anymore. How is it that an unarmed Black teenager can be gunned down in the streets of an American city in broad daylight and it's not even worthy of a jury trial? And how do the killings of young Black males by police, security and pseudo-security officers repeat themselves over and over and over again, whether we're talking about Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown or, now, Tamir Rice?

Clearly, we need to change the way we do policing in this country. But the lives of young Black men deserve a more robust response—a response that covers the landscape from the cradle to old age. If we refuse to look at all the factors, young Black men will continue to pay the price for that refusal every single day.

Please do not forget: If you are purchasing health insurance on HealthCare.gov and want your insurance to begin on January 1, 2015, you only have 13 days left to buy it.

In this issue, the Affordable Care Enrollment Technical Assistance Center (ACE TA Center) offers several recommendations to help PLWHA clients of Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs to get coverage in the Healthcare Marketplace.

Gerald Garth reports on the weeklong African American HIV University Science and Treatment College intensive training that 2014 Fellows recently completed. We run the first in a very important series about how and why the Affordable Care Act failed in Mississippi.

Through a partnership with the Black AIDS Institute and JSI, the ACE TA Center will offer "Financial Help for Marketplace Health Insurance: Cost Sharing and Tax Credits" on Thursday, December 4 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. We provide you with all the details.

Finally, Kai Wright, Colorlines' editor-at-large, reports on the conflict between the ACA's promise and the reality that its success depends upon an anti-poverty infrastructure that's in a state of collapse.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill