#senseless shit

Recent research by sociologist Rashawn Ray, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, found that black men are less likely to run outside if they live in a predominantly white neighborhood. The opposite, however, was true for black women. They were more likely to be active in predominately white communities. Ray surveyed 500 college-educated African-Americans living in urban and suburban areas across the United States in 2011 to explore why middle-class blacks were less physically active than their Caucasian peers. “Research has shown that the higher one’s social class, the more likely she or he is to be physically active,” says Ray. “However, among blacks, social class does not explain the high prevalence of physical inactivity. Why do we see this? Without a better understanding of the barriers that lead to racial differences in physical activity among the middle class, we cannot devise effective policy solutions to combat the obesity epidemic.” Ray says 50% of blacks get no physical activity at all, compared to only a third of whites. He cites racial bias as a key barrier.   “Black men are criminalized by the inability of others to separate a black male from crime,” says Ray. “Black men in white neighborhoods are more cautious of how they exercise and less comfortable in those neighborhoods because many black men have had social interactions in which they were profiled simply for being black and male.” To counter the association, black men exercising outside will try to signal to others that they are not a threat, he says. They may wear a college sweatshirt or cap, or wave and smile at neighbors, and they’ll often limit their running to daylight hours.