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White Privilege vs. White Invisibility and the Creation of White Fragility: How Social Normativity Negatively Impacts White Health

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.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03282016-150600
Date11 April 2016
CreatorsChampion, Sharon Zipporah
ContributorsJonathan M. Metzl, M.D., Ph.D., Hector Myers, Ph.D., Dominique Béhague
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03282016-150600/
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