Despite public health interventions, racial health disparities have proven very difficult to eliminate, particularly between Blacks and Whites. Each racial category carries its own health burden but most approaches use White people and their âWhitenessâ as normative health entities to contrast the wellbeing of a racial minority. The literature describes a âwhite privilegeâ carried by these individuals, benefiting them and their progeny socially, economically, politically, physically, and so on, giving an invisibility to move throughout life âunmarkedâ by a racial category. However, this socialized invisibility can both prevent White individuals from being âseenâ in conditions that benefit or disenfranchise them, and socially render them fragile (âwhite fragilityâ) from understanding and adequately responding to important health decisions. Explored are the social reactions to the âwelfare queenâ, opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and nationwide responses to the U.S. heroin epidemic to assert that this âwhite fragilityâ is detrimental to white health individually and as a group. The de-centering, problematizing, and direct addressing of the health impact âWhitenessâ has on White bodies is expected to assist advancements in closing racial health gaps to benefit both Blacks and Whites.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03282016-150600 |
| Date | 11 April 2016 |
| Creators | Champion, Sharon Zipporah |
| Contributors | Jonathan M. Metzl, M.D., Ph.D., Hector Myers, Ph.D., Dominique Béhague |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03282016-150600/ |
| Rights | restrictsix, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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