Race

In the United States, racial minorities tend to experience poorer health compared to their white counterparts. For example, the death rate for all cancers is 30% higher for African Americans than it is for whites, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanics are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes.

Given the nearly 2,000-mile border shared by the United States and Mexico — and the sharp differences in economic opportunity that each country offers — it is perhaps no surprise that Mexicans make up the largest immigrant group in America.

Few public issues are more weighted with tragic history, negative stereotypes and complex social dynamics than the intersection of race and violence in America. In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., and the controversial legal fallout — and now with a New York grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner — commentators and media members continue to formulate theories and opinions of all kinds.