Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This essay argues that a failure to think and talk critically and candidly about White privilege and White poverty is a key threat to the United States of America's precarious democracy. Whiteness frames one of America's most pressing collective challenges-the poor state of the nation's health, which lags behind other wealthy nations and is marred by deep and entrenched class- and race-based inequities. The broadscale remedies experts recommend demand what is in short supply: trust in evidence, experts, government, and one another. The authors' prescription is threefold, beginning with a call for intersectional health studies and reports that avoid one-dimensional misrepresentations of widespread health problems as simply Black or White problems. Second, there is the need for a "critical consciousness" about race and class. Lastly, the essay calls for widescale opportunities for Americans to engage in cross-racial and cross-class democratic conversations about their struggles and aspirations in search of common ground.
Source: The Hastings Center Report
DOI: 10.1002/hast.1230
Authors: Erika Blacksher, Sean A. Valles
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Hastings Center
OpenAlex ID: W3131563105