For two years in the 1940s, Dr. Seuss published a series of political cartoons while being the chief political cartoonist for the PM, a New York newspaper. While there, he drew over 400 editorial cartoons. This post isn’t about him. (For more information, see this UC San Diego website.)

What this post is about, is a recent article in the journal of Child Development which states that racism can make children sick.

According to ABC News:
The researchers found those who reported more discrimination — name-calling, insults, etc. — were more likely to experience depression as they became teens. Those children who had been discriminated against also had more sleep problems and trouble at school.

Unfortunately, this is not surprising. Racism, or rather, the institutionalization of racism creates a great many factors that affect children. Factors such as limited access to healthcare, unknowledgeable parents, limited (or nonexistent) access to proper diet, environmental stressors (such as overcrowding, single-parent homes, and pest infestation to name a few) all leave children who advertently, and inadvertently, experience the effects of racism at a greater disadvantage than those who do not. It is not hard to see how racism can breed disease.

While this study did not follow Latinos (The study followed more than 700 Black children for five years, starting at about 10 to 12.) Latinos feel the effects of racism in this country as well.

So maybe we should all have some of that pesticide applied to our minds, the one that will kill the “racial prejudice bug” in our heads. (I can’t imagine Uncle Sam doing it though…) Think about the children, they deserve better.

Image Via / Dr. Seuss Went to War
Story Via / ABC News