Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland - Softcover

Metzl, Jonathan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1541644972 ISBN 13: 9781541644977

Publisher: Basic Books, 2020

Synopsis

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 shorter in the very populations they purported to aid. Thus, white gun suicides soared, life expectancies fell, 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.

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of its Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. He is the author of several books and a prominent expert on gun violence and mental illness. He hails from Kansas City, Missouri, and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1541644972
• ISBN 13: 9781541644977
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368