The history of medical racism and the fight for health equity in the United States, and hear from black doctors working
These books about black health and health disparities in the United States come highly recommended. Read more about the history of medical racism and the fight for health equity in the United States, and hear from Black doctors doing the work.
Sickening: Anti-Black Racism and Health Disparities in the United States By Anne Pollock
From the spike in chronic illness after Hurricane Katrina to the lack of protection for black residents during the Flint water crisis — and even the life-threatening childbirth experience for tennis star Serena Williams — author Anne Pollock calls readers anti-Semitism. Takes you on a journey through diversity-active black racism in health care. She goes beneath the surface to dissect the structures that make these events possible, including mass incarceration, police brutality, and the hypersensitivity of black athletes’ bodies. Ultimately, “Sick” shows what these shocking events reveal about the everyday racialization of health in the United States. Concluding with a critical examination of racialized health care during the COVID pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020, “Sick” cuts through mind-numbing statistics to vividly portray health care disparities. In a gripping and passionate style, Pollock reflects on the devastating reality and consequences of systemic racism on the lives and health of Black Americans.
We’ll Fight It Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity David Chanoff, Louis W. Sullivan
Racism in the US health care system has been deliberately underrepresenting black health care professionals and increasing health disparities among black Americans for centuries. These health disparities only became a mainstream issue on the agenda of American health leaders and policy makers because a group of health professions at historically black colleges and universities banded together to fight for health equality. “We’ll Fight It Out Here” tells the story of how the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools (AMHPS) was founded by this coalition and made a hard-won impact on American politics and health care. Former Secretaries of Health and Human Services David Chanoff and Louis W. Sullivan detail how the struggle for equity in health care has been fought, where bias and disparities remain volatile national issues.
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy
When Damon Tweedy started medical school, he envisioned a bright future where his isolated, working-class background would be largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds he has joined a new world where race is front and center and the Black body is treated as pathological and inherently diseased. “Black Man in a White Coat” examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. Tweedy explores how race often affects their encounters with patients, and illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. Tweedy explores the challenges faced by black doctors and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately finding a way forward for better treatment and more compassionate care.
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson
Between its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party made a distinctive mark in American political culture, citing revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. Alondra Nelson, however, highlights an essential but lesser-known aspect of the organization’s broader struggle for social justice: health care. The health activism of the Black Panther Party—its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness of genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination—was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also the recognition that poor blacks were both were deprived of the mainstream. Very susceptible to the drug and its harm. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to eradicate sickle cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system, which had largely ignored sickle cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent. Is.
Black and Blue: J. Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism by Hoberman
“Black and Blue” is the first systematic account of how American doctors think about racial differences and how such thinking affects their treatment of black patients. Standard studies of medical racism examine past medical mistreatment of black people and do not address the racially motivated thinking and behavior of physicians practicing medicine today. “Black and Blue” enters the personal sphere of the physician where racial stereotypes and misinformation distort diagnosis and treatment. Doctors have imposed a racial identity of white or black on every organ system of the human body, along with racialized interpretations of black children, black elders, black athletes, black music, black pain threshold, and other aspects of the black mind and body.
News Source: Washington Informer.