Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland
ISBN-10
1541644980
ISBN-13
9781541644984
Category
Medical
Pages
336
Language
English
Published
2019-03-05
Publisher
Basic Books
Author
Jonathan M. Metzl

Description

A physician reveals how right-wing backlash politics have mortal consequences--even for the white voters they promise to help In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment fueled pro-gun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and huge spending cuts in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, rising dropout rates, and falling life expectancies. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact threaten their demise.

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