Dying of Whiteness
"With the rise of the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump, many middle- and lower-income white Americans threw their support behind conservative politicians who pledged to make life great again for people like them. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the right-wing policies that resulted from this white backlash put these voters' very health at risk--and, in the end, threaten everyone's well-being. Physician and sociologist Jonathan M. Metzl travels across America's heartland seeking to better understand the politics of racial resentment and its impact on public health. Interviewing a range of Americans, he uncovers how racial anxieties led to the repeal of gun control laws in Missouri, stymied the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and fueled massive cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. Although such measures promised to restore greatness to white America, Metzl's systematic analysis of health data dramatically reveals they did just the opposite: these policies made life sicker, harder, and shorten in the very populations they purported to aid. Thus, white life expectancies fell, gun suicides soared, and school dropout rates rose. Powerful, searing, and sobering, Dying of Whiteness ultimately demonstrates just how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation, rather than chasing false promises of supremacy"--Publisher's description.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
7mentions
7people
2021–2026years
14% recommend86% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I don't know why you got downvoted. If you don't believe this, read "Dying of Whiteness" by Jonathan Metzl. Something like 30% of this country will reject quality of life improvements for themselves if they see that it will also benefit people of other races who "don't deserve it".
- Yes. Jonathan Metzl wrote a book about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
- The United States will never have universal healthcare because a subset of the population would rather pay more for worse health outcomes than participate in a system the provides abortions, HRT, or PreP, or any healthcare at all to Black people.
See, for example, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland” by Jonathan Metzl
- > When you grab em by their Amygdala, the naked monkeys will do what you want. Even to their own detriment.
Even to their own death (and the death of friends/family):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40697553-dying-of-whiten...
- Some of these folks are willing to kill themselves as well if they think the alternative is some minority receiving benefits. See Dying of Whiteness.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/jonathan-m-metzl-dying...
> Even on death’s doorstep, Trevor was not angry. In fact, he staunchly supported the stance promoted by his elected officials. “Ain’t no way I would ever support Obamacare or sign up for it,” he told me. “I would rather die.” When I asked him why he felt this way even as he faced severe illness, he explained: “We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.”
> At the most basic level, Trevor died of the toxic effects of liver damage caused by hepatitis C. Yet Trevor’s deteriorating condition resulted also from the toxic effects of dogma. Dogma that told him that governmental assistance in any form was evil and not to be trusted, even when the assistance came in the form of federal contracts with private health insurance or pharmaceutical companies, or from expanded communal safety nets. Dogma that, as he made abundantly clear, aligned with beliefs about a racial hierarchy that overtly and implicitly aimed to keep white Americans hovering above Mexicans, welfare queens, and nonwhite others. Dogma suggesting to Trevor that minority groups received lavish benefits from the state, even though he himself lived and died on a low-income budget with state assistance. Trevor voiced a literal willingness to die for his place in this hierarchy, rather than participate in a system that might put him on the same plane as immigrants or racial minorities.
- This study is essentially saying the same thing that Jonathan Metzls' book, Dying of Whiteness said in 2020, in that a major cause of this is red controlled states rejecting Medicaid expansion vs. blue states embracing it leads to obvious worse outcomes for those folks who lack healthcare coverage.
https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Whiteness-Politics-Resentment-H...
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