Theological Journal – July 23 Dying of Whiteness

 

The costs of racism affect all of us, whatever our skin color. As the dominant people-group on America whites and our whiteness have created a costly but inefficient health care system, to diminished community and civic life, and to a scale of wealth inequality that threaten to undo us.

 

“I’d rather be dead than see things get better for those goddamn black people” is the cost of racism and why our whiteness is killing us – all of us! Attempts to strengthen the social safety net as well as to provide adequate health care for all Americans were consistently stigmatized as being “hand-outs for black people.” So issues that weren’t really racial were made so by this attitude and the politicians who use it (Republicans).

 

Nick Kristof laid it out in a recent column.

 

‘The United States faces at least three simultaneous crises: more coronavirus deaths than any other country, the worst economic slump since the Great Depression and overflowing outrage over racial inequity. Yet these crises are all interlinked, all facets of the same core failure of our country, one that has its roots in President Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” of 1968 and in the racialization of social safety net programs thereafter.

 

“Why is the United States just about the only advanced country to lack universal health care? Without universal paid sick leave?

 

“Many scholars, in particular the late Alberto Alesina, a Harvard economist, have argued that one reason for America’s outlier status is race. Investing in safety nets and human capital became stigmatized because of a perception that African-Americans would benefit. So instead of investing in children, we invested in a personal responsibility narrative holding that Americans just need to lift themselves up by their bootstraps to get ahead.

 

“This experiment proved catastrophic for all Americans, especially the working class. Marginalized groups, including African-Americans and Native Americans, suffered the worst, but the underinvestment in health and the lack of safety nets meant that American children today are 57 percent more likely to die by age 19 than European children are.

 

“This boomerang effect of obdurate white racism — what Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl calls “dying of whiteness” — means that Americans now are less likely to graduate from high school than children in many peer countries. Meanwhile, people die in the United States from drug overdoses at a rate of one every seven minutes.”

 

Again, a lot of this can be laid at the door of Republican politicians from Nixon on who were willing to play the race card to rally people to their support. But not only Republicans. Post-World War II housing policy and the development of the suburbs was racist in ways that now account for the huge disparity between black and white family wealth.

 

In the post World War II era, white people aided by federal programs had the opportunity to build equity in their homes, while blacks were forbidden from owning homes in the burgeoning suburbs. Moreover, ownership deeds required homeowners who sold homes to not sell to African-Americans.

We often think that housing segregation just, well, kind of happened. Or it happened because people would rather live with people of their own race. Nope. It was U.S. policy.

 

Just imagine how much healthier a society we would be if African-Americans and other people of color had enjoyed the same opportunity to build equity and establish family wealth sufficient to protect themselves against periodic recessions and employment downturns.

 

https://www.anthonybrobinson.com/dying-of-whiteness/