Lower life expectancy doesn't mean none ever get old

So, the new theory at the DoJ is like the old theory on Social Security: that anything that benefits the elderly (like government-run retirement) discriminates against blacks, and that discriminates against them (like voter ID requirements) discriminates only against whites. Why? I'll let John Tanner, the chief of the Civil Rights Divisions’ voting rights section, explain:

“primarily elderly persons” are the ones affected by such laws, but “minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do: They die first.” So anything that “disproportionately impacts the elderly, has the opposite impact on minorities,” he added. “Just the math is such as that.”

Unfortunately, what this indicates is the Mr Tanner - like the president before him - doesn't get it. I'll let Paul Krugman explain this:

Mr. Bush’s remarks on African-Americans perpetuate a crude misunderstanding about what life expectancy means. It’s true that the current life expectancy for black males at birth is only 68.8 years - but that doesn’t mean that a black man who has worked all his life can expect to die after collecting only a few years’ worth of Social Security benefits. Blacks’ low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood.