Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

by Jonathan M. Metzl

Moreover, this idea of cost also frequently assumed that health was fair and equitable—I pay what I owe, and I pay for the consequences of my own actions—and conveniently overlooked the deep unfairness of medical expenses. According to the World Health Organization, for instance, determinants of health largely result from community and communal factors in addition to individual ones: To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health… the context of people’s lives determine their health, and so blaming individuals for having poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate. Individuals are unlikely to be able to directly control many of the determinants of health.24 People often get sick despite their attempts to stay healthy. They get sick not because of their poor choices but because they happen to live near plastic factories or drink water tainted with lead, or because of radiation, global warming, or secondhand smoke. Yet this notion of health as a communal responsibility, a network, or an economy remained elusive in the dialogue of the white men in our groups and in the language of Donald Trump. Here, notions of cost sounded as if phrased through the Castle Doctrine, brought to bear on the castles of white bodies. I smoke, I drink, I ride a motorbike without a helmet, the logic implied, and I alone r...