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Black Americans generally have worse health than White Americans, but there is nothing inferior about their bodies, despite what some may believe. Why is this? What are the causes of the health disparities that impact the Black community? Relying on research that shows Black people do not have worse health simply because of their race, bioethicist Keisha S. Ray examines how Black people's lives intersect with anti-Black racism in American social institutions, like health care, law, the environment, and housing. When these intersections occur, they result in inequitable access to the social and political determinants of health needed for proper health: access to clean air and water, health care, transportation, income, and proper housing. In examining these phenomena, Ray pays particular attention to Black people's health in the areas of pregnancy and birth, clinical pain management, sleep, and cardiovascular disease.
Info autore
Keisha Ray is an Associate Professor of bioethics and medical humanities at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on the socio-political determinants of Black people's health and exposing structural racism's effects on Black people's health and wellbeing.
Riassunto
Why do American Black people generally have worse health than American White people? To answer this question, Black Health dispels any notion that Black people have inferior bodies that are inherently susceptible to disease. This is simply false racial science used to justify White supremacy and Black inferiority. A genuine investigation into the status of Black people's health requires us to acknowledge that race has always been a powerful social category that gives access to the resources we need for health and wellbeing to some people, while withholding them from other people.
Systemic racism, oppression, and White supremacy in American institutions have largely been the perpetrators of differing social power and access to resources for Black people. It is these systemic inequities that create the social conditions needed for poor health outcomes for Black people to persist. An examination of social inequities reveals that is no accident that Black people have poorer health than White people. Black Health provides a succinct discussion of Black people's health, including the social, political, and at times cultural determinants of their health. Using real stories from Black people, Ray examines the ways in which Black people's multiple identities--social, cultural, and political--intersect with American institutions--such as housing, education, environmentalism, and health care--to facilitate their poor outcomes in pregnancy and birth, pain management, sleep, and cardiovascular disease.
Testo aggiuntivo
Black Health is a call for bioethics to concern itself with histories and futures alike. Ray strikes a balance between a realistic telling of history -a history that's laden with blatant racism, at that-and a call for hope. If the field reckons with the widespread anti-Blackness that pervades it, a better bioethics is possible.
