Weathering
The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Fusing science and social justice, renowned public health researcher Dr. Arline T. Geronimus offers an urgent, "monumental" book (Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning) exploring the ways in which systemic injustice erodes the health of marginalized people.
America has woken up to what many of its citizens have known for centuries and to what public health statistics have evidenced for decades: systemic injustice takes a physical, too often deadly, toll on Black, brown, working class and poor communities, and any group who experiences systemic cultural oppression or economic exploitation. Marginalized Americans are disproportionately more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and to die at much younger ages than their middle- and upper-class white counterparts. Black mothers die during childbirth at a rate three times higher than white mothers. White kids in high-poverty Appalachian regions have a healthy life expectancy of 50 years old, while the vast majority of US youth can expect to both survive and be able-bodied at 50, with decades of healthy life expectancy ahead of them. In the face of such clear inequity, we must ask ourselves why this is, and what we can we do.
Dr. Arline T. Geronimus coined the term “weathering” to describe the effects of systemic oppression—including racism and classism—on the body. In Weathering, based on more than 30 years of research, she argues that health and aging have more to do with how society treats us than how well we take care of ourselves. She explains what happens to human bodies as they attempt to withstand and overcome the challenges and insults that society leverages at them, and details how this process ravages their health. And she proposes solutions.
Until now, there has been little discussion about the insidious effects of social injustice on the body. Weathering shifts the paradigm, shining a light on the topic and offering a roadmap for hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Neither genetic differences nor unhealthy lifestyles are at the root of racial health disparities in the U.S., according to this powerhouse study. Geronimus, a professor of public health at the University of Michigan, instead places the blame on "the physiological effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the brunt of racial, ethnic, religious, and class discrimination." Labeling these effects as "weathering," Geronimus documents how the struggles to earn a living wage, to find affordable and safe housing, and to access decent healthcare weaken the immune systems of poor and marginalized people and cascade into early-onset chronic diseases and shortened life expectancies. For people of color, professional success is no refuge, as the effort required to be upwardly mobile and vigilant in the face of systemic discrimination has long-term negative health consequences. Throughout, Geronimus uncovers and forcefully critiques harmful narratives in healthcare and social policy, including an "exaggerated" emphasis on the benefits of postponing childbearing (which puts Black mothers, in particular, at greater risk for "poor birth outcomes") and "age-washing" (which presupposes that there is "a universally uniform growth and aging process" and discounts the effects of racism and classism). Impassioned and persuasive, this is an essential call for change.
