Secrets to living longer, healthier, and aging well….

…seems to be being a ‘white’ person (and probably living in a gated community)…

Yea, basically, the ‘science of aging well’ isn’t really solvable through 100% ‘hard science’ (and anyway, even hard science has implicit bias). It’s more like systemic racism and poverty that influence ‘living longer’ and being ‘healthier’. Social science and public health research make it clear that the ‘healthiest’ groups are white middle to upper class people in the USA. Not because of ‘racial superiority’ (wouldn’t the FOX News folk LOVE to think that that is the ‘fact’), but because of systems of racism and poverty that obviously negatively affect ‘living longer’ and being ‘healthier.’ If health and food resources are organized via racial and socio-economic class lines, then being white and financially stable will ensure the ‘healthiest’ and ‘longest’ life because that is the demographic that has the ‘easiest’ access to these things due to a white supremacist capitalist based racial caste system that is the USA.

But Time magazine certainly won’t go there. So, I did (….with some editing software and a snarky attitude). I saw the above magazine cover at CVS the other day and could not resist taking a snapshot. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have them put the top 23 things as things like, “Try not to be a victim of racial battle fatigue….” and “Try not to be racially profiled and then beaten by the police.” Or, how about, “Avoid being an exploited migrant farmworker who is so destitute you can’t even afford to buy the organic kale you are picking for the wealthy Silicon Valley hipster class.” “Racism cause high blood pressure in Black people, so…be white and live in a gated community that is fervently protected by your local police force.”

Can someone at Time please update this issue with a different photo that doesn’t position a white person as the rubric for ‘living longer’? That reflects the realities of systemic racism (white supremacist capitalist system) on the effects of health and living longer?

Snarky is fun.