How Racism Is Bad for Our Bodies

'Stop and Frisk' is a threat to public health on a large scale....

"But racial profiling is not only a danger to a person's legal rights, which guarantee equal protection under the law. It is also a danger to their health.

"A growing literature shows discrimination raises the risk of many emotional and physical problems. Discrimination has been shown to increase the risk of stress, depression, the common cold, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and mortality. Recently, two journals -- The American Journal of Public Health and  The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race -- dedicated entire issues to the subject. These collections push us to consider how discrimination becomes what social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger, one    of the field's leaders, terms "embodied inequality."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-racism-is-bad-for-our-bodies/273911/

See also: Acknowledging Race-based Trauma

http://opendoorsnh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/acknowledging-race-based-trauma.html