Overview

Why do American Black people generally have worse health than American White people? To answer this question, Black Health dispels any notion that Black people have inferior bodies that are inherently susceptible to disease. This is simply false racial science used to justify White supremacy and Black inferiority. A genuine investigation into the status of Black people's health requires us to acknowledge that race has always been a powerful social category that gives access to the resources we need for health and wellbeing to some people, while withholding them from other people. Systemic racism, oppression, and White supremacy in American institutions have largely been the perpetrators of differing social power and access to resources for Black people. It is these systemic inequities that create the social conditions needed for poor health outcomes for Black people to persist. An examination of social inequities reveals that is no accident that Black people have poorer health than White people. Black Health provides a succinct discussion of Black people's health, including the social, political, and at times cultural determinants of their health. Using real stories from Black people, Ray examines the ways in which Black people's multiple identities--social, cultural, and political--intersect with American institutions--such as housing, education, environmentalism, and health care--to facilitate their poor outcomes in pregnancy and birth, pain management, sleep, and cardiovascular disease.

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9780197620274

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Reviews

Bioethics has not always engaged directly the serious ethical problems regarding health and health care disparities along racialized and gender lines. Dr. Ray tackles these issues head on. She does so in a manner that is accessible and straightforward while raising what is ethically and professionally at stake. I recommend that all of us working in this area read this book. * Patrick T. Smith * Black Health is a monumental contribution to bioethics and contemporary race theory that illuminates the role health disparities have in the maintenance of anti-Black racism. Carefully attending to the consequences of illness and loss, Black Health is a clarion call urging bioethicists and clinicians to attend to the sickness created by racism and the indifference shown towards Black life by the medical community at large. * Tommy J. Curry * Dr. Ray brilliantly amplifies the lived experiences of Black individuals and patients to call attention to long-standing health and health care inequities driven by structural and systemic forces. This timely and humanizing book clearly demonstrates why current and future health care professionals should care about social and structural determinants of health. * Faith E. Fletcher * Black Health is a call for bioethics to concern itself with histories and futures alike. Ray strikes a balance between a realistic telling of history -a history that's laden with blatant racism, at that-and a call for hope. If the field reckons with the widespread anti-Blackness that pervades it, a better bioethics is possible. * Bioethics Today *

Bioethics has not always engaged directly the serious ethical problems regarding health and health care disparities along racialized and gender lines. Dr. Ray tackles these issues head on. She does so in a manner that is accessible and straightforward while raising what is ethically and professionally at stake. I recommend that all of us working in this area read this book. * Patrick T. Smith * Black Health is a monumental contribution to bioethics and contemporary race theory that illuminates the role health disparities have in the maintenance of anti-Black racism. Carefully attending to the consequences of illness and loss, Black Health is a clarion call urging bioethicists and clinicians to attend to the sickness created by racism and the indifference shown towards Black life by the medical community at large. * Tommy J. Curry * Dr. Ray brilliantly amplifies the lived experiences of Black individuals and patients to call attention to long-standing health and health care inequities driven by structural and systemic forces. This timely and humanizing book clearly demonstrates why current and future health care professionals should care about social and structural determinants of health. * Faith E. Fletcher *

Author Information

Keisha Ray is an Associate Professor of bioethics and medical humanities at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on the socio-political determinants of Black people's health and exposing structural racism's effects on Black people's health and wellbeing.

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