4 Facts About Colon Cancer in the Black Community

This post was originally published on Word In Black By: Alexa Spencer 2020 was a hard year for Black folks in so many ways: COVID-19, police brutality, job loss. But what else made it hard? Colon cancer. On August 28, we lost Chadwick Boseman. The Black Panther star was just 43-years-old when he succumbed to the disease. And only three months later on Dec. 7, Natalie Desselle Reid, an actress known for her roles in “Madea’s Big Happy Family” and “B.A.P.S.,” died from it at age 53. The public deaths of Boseman and Reid remind us of the many Black men and women who die from colon cancer each year behind closed doors. According to the American Cancer Society, Black people are 20% more likely to develop colorectal cancer and about 40% more likely to die from it than most other groups. “This disease is ravaging the Black community, and it is as important as ever that everyone has access to and is receiving the recommended screenings,” Durado Brooks, vice president of prevention and early detection at the Society, said in a statement after Boseman’s passing. So here are four facts to help folks  better understand what colon cancer is,...