Again, the health risks that Dyson describes go along with substantial real-world benefits, such as not being disproportionally shot by police, deported, or mass incarcerated. Yet present-day social scientists now catalog the trade-offs that many white Americans make to maintain a system that appears set up for their advantage. As a team of researchers led by sociologist Jennifer Malat writes, white Americans increasingly represent a “paradox” of privilege, access, and social rewards on one hand and relatively poor health outcomes on the other.
