(Radio Iowa) — A new analysis shows Iowa and the Midwest have some of the widest disparities in racial equality in the country. A researcher at the Iowa Policy Project found patterns of segregation and discrimination are pervasive in employment, home ownership, infant mortality and prison sentences as well as test scores and suspensions in schools. State Representative Ras Smith is one of five African Americans in the Iowa House. Smith says he’s very aware of these disparities, but he feels many white Iowans are not.

“Honestly I think sometimes in our Midwest mindset of being very neighborly people, it really sometimes serves to kind of cloud our…perspective or our view to see things as really what they are,” Smith says. Smith is from Waterloo. Last November, a financial website owned by Huffington Post called Waterloo-Cedar Falls the worst metro area in the country for blacks.

“For me I don’t know what it’s like to operate from a privileged position. I’ve just never had that benefit,” Smith says. “In the same that way it’s going to be hard for my white counterparts to really understand what it’s like to live with disparities all of the time.” The Iowa Policy Project report found black residents are less likely than whites to get a college degree and black students in elementary and high school are five times more likely to be suspended than are white students.

The latest information from the State Data Center show the poverty rate among black Iowans is about three times greater than for the general population. The unemployment rate for black Iowans is significantly higher, too.