I have to commend Shannon Curran, our Volunteer Director, for the wonderful article she wrote that faces injustice head-on. I hope you enjoy her article as much as I did:
One measure of the difference between my two Baltimore neighborhoods is six miles. Another measure is 20 years of life.
Born in the neighborhoods of 21210? You can expect to live 82.9 years. Born in 21201 near Hollins Market? You can expect to live 62.5 years. Unbelievably absurd and, unfortunately, believably true.
These figures come from the Baltimore City Health Department’s and JHU Bloomberg School’s Health Profile of 2008. The data was compiled from 2002-2006 and, within that timeframe, I actually lived in both neighborhoods. While my home has been in 21210 for the past few years, my work with our volunteers occurs in 21201. I drive between these two neighborhoods several days each week.
Depending on which direction I am headed, I can imagine either losing or gaining around three years of life per mile. That’s right, three years of life per mile. For over ten years now, I’ve given much thought and time to striving against injustice in the Hollins Market/Sowebo neighborhood. However, never before, has the degree of injustice in Baltimore been so clearly revealed to me.
In addition to life expectancy, the report accounts for “years of potential life lost” which is “the number of years of life lost due to death before age 75” (Poppleton Health Profile, 2008, p. 8). Thus, because “deaths that occur earlier in life contribute more years of life lost than deaths later in life,” this figure “captures the value society places on young lives” (Ibid.). Each year, according to the report, the Poppleton/Hollins Market neighborhood loses 1,304 years of life. This is almost 1,000 more years of life lost than the 332 years of life lost each year in the Evergreen/Roland Park neighborhood.
While navigating the six miles of this commute, I come face-to-face with these 972 years of potential life lost each year. Driving through this difference, I cannot avoid questions about who, at birth, is expected to live and who, at birth, is expected to die.
When we talk about justice and act for justice it is implied that we are talking about life, about people’s ─ about our mothers’, fathers’, sisters’, and brothers’─ lives. Yet, these factors of life expectancy and years of potential life lost indicate that we’ve accepted the injustice of valuing people’s lives and potential for life much differently.
Confronted with the unequal value and expectations we in Baltimore place on life causes me to re-think my perceptions, my words, and my actions related to justice.
On the surface, the difference between my two neighborhoods is simply a matter of reversing the last two digits in the zip code. While it might seem simple, asking questions which reverse our assumptions about who gets to live a full life and who gets to die young might begin to overturn our acceptance of injustice.
And, for those of us who call ourselves “pro-life,” it seems we have much work to do.
Tags: Baltimore, poverty, sisters of bon secours
