The latest installment of CNN's docuseries Black in America asked the question "Who Is Black in America?" and examined the issue of colorism: bias based not just on race but also on actual skin color. The news special cited well-documented research confirming that lighter-skinned immigrants earn more than their darker-skinned counterparts. But one topic the special did not explore is whether skin-color bias has a tangible impact on American politics, particularly at the national level.

Are Americans more likely to vote for a minority candidate who is lighter-skinned? The experts we spoke with said it appears so.

David A. Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank specializing in research relating to blacks, said that the numbers speak for themselves. "You can't think of many [black politicians] who are very dark," he noted.

To his point, most elected (as opposed to appointed) black American politicians who have broken a significant barrier have either been extremely light-skinned or part white. Examples include Edward Brooke, the first black senator to be popularly elected; Adam Clayton Powell Jr., New York's first black congressman; Douglas Wilder, the first black governor in the U.S.; and David Dinkins, New York's first black mayor. Then, of course, there is President Barack Obama, who is not as light as the others, but is also not dark -- and whom most Americans are aware is of biracial parentage.

Read more at The Root.

Concerned about the plight of African-American men and boys, several philanthropic organizations have launched initiatives to improve opportunities for them to succeed. Some programs address the structural bias that leaves these men more likely to be incarcerated, jobless and disproportionately affected by other social disadvantages.

One of every 15 African-American men is in a U.S. prison or jail compared with one of every 36 Hispanic men and one of every 106 white men. Moreover, scores of African-American men are affected by chronic unemployment, lack of education, poverty and poor health outcomes.

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Last September, Kellogg sponsored "Too Important to Fail," Tavis Smiley's PBS report on health and education disparities among African-American boys. The foundation also funded a University of North Carolina project, the Promoting Academic Success initiative, which worked with families, schools and communities to improve academic achievement of African-American and Latino children in Lansing, Mich., and Polk County, Fla.

Under its America Healing Initiative, the foundation funds many organizations, such as the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, that engage in efforts to address the challenges faced by black males. One grantee, the Opportunity Agenda, recently released a report on perceptions of black males in the media. The report seeks to educate media makers, educators and others on how negative images of black communities perpetuate negative stereotypes.

Read more at BlackNews.com.

Many nonwhite populations in the United States have poorer health relative to whites across a wide array of health measures. Many also face greater barriers to accessing high-quality health care than whites, barriers that a growing number of public and private sector actors seeks to eliminate. These efforts, however, have been impaired by an inadequate understanding of race and ethnicity in the U.S. context. What defines a “racial” or “ethnic” group? Why do race and ethnicity matter when it comes to health research and health care? Absent clear answers to these questions, researchers, policy makers, and the general public frequently resort to antiquated assumptions about race, ethnicity, and human variability that obscure a more accurate understanding of the role that these factors play in contributing to health inequities.

This brief serves as a starting point for those who wish to better understand race, ethnicity, and the use of these categories in health. In the first half of the brief, the difference between race and ethnicity is reviewed and an overview of genetics is presented in order to explain why race is in fact not genetic. The second half of this brief reviews the history of race data collection by federal agencies. This history demonstrates the social construction of race by chronicling how race categories
have changed over time. In addition, it reminds us that government agencies are crucial sites for determining what race is and how it will be used. Finally, in the last section of the brief, major challenges to accurate data collection are reviewed and several actions are recommended that the federal governmentcould take to move the field of health and health care disparities research to its next stage.

Black-white marriages are on the rise, a sign that those racial barriers are slowly eroding, but they still lag far behind the rate of mixed-race marriages between whites and other minorities.

"It does suggest that the social distance between the two groups has narrowed," says Zhenchao Qian, a sociology professor at Ohio State University and lead author of a new study on interracial marriages. "The racial boundary is blurred, but it is still there."

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"Blacks are still the least assimilated," says Roderick Harrison, a demographer at Howard University and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "It does suggest that the divide in this country remains between blacks and everybody else."

Read more at USA Today.

From a health equity standpoint, one of the most important provisions of the Affordable Care Act is the requirement that all health and health care institutions that receive federal funds must collect data on the race, ethnicity, and primary language of the patients they serve.  Having this information will allow policymakers, researchers, and advocates understand when, where, and under what circumstances health and health care inequities may occur.  There is disagreement in the field, however, about how to collect this data, and even about what the terms "race" and "ethnicity" mean.
 
In response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' call for comments, the Joint Center prepared a letter to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius outlining some considerations for the collection of race and ethnicity data, available here.