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Under the Skin

Under the Skin

The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America

From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.

Product Code: 9156
ISBN: 9780525566229
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: Anchor
Pages: 288
Published Date: 05/09/2023
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Price: $18.00
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In 2018, Linda Villarosa’s New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa’s article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today’s medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.


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Contents

One Everything I Thought Was Wrong
Two The Dangerous Myth That Black Bodies Are Different
Three Unequal Treatment
Four Something About Being Black Is Bad for Your Body and Your Baby
Five Where You Live Matters
Six Strong, Loud, and Angry: The Invisibility of Black Emotional Pain
Seven Discrimination and Ill-Treatment Can Harm Every Body
Eight Putting the Care Back in Health Care: Solutions

Afterword
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index

“Brilliant, illuminating. . . Meticulously researched, sweeping in its historical breadth, damning in its clear-eyed assessment of facts and yet hopeful in its outlook, Under the Skin is a must-read for all who affirm that Black lives matter.” —The Washington Post

“Singular and expansive. . . In this eminently admirable book, there are no easy answers or platitudes.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Perhaps one of the most important and thought-provoking publications of the year is Linda Villarosa’s groundbreaking Under the Skin. . . It’s a stunning exposé of why Black people in our society ‘live sicker and die quicker’—an eye-opening game changer.” —Oprah Daily

“Gripping, incisive” —The Boston Globe

“Villarosa’s empathic and sharp-sighted journalism is as astute as it is groundbreaking, as brilliant as it is timely. Let the conversations begin!” —Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone

“It’s no secret that Black people are subject to the cumulative effects of systemic racism. But Linda Villarosa’s Under the Skin walks us through the inevitable consequences of living in a racist country on our bodies, our environments, and our healthcare system. The cultural manifestations of the physical and psychological traumas affecting Black People alter or distort all our lives. Those of us who understand that structural violence has physical ramifications will be in debt to Under the Skin. I am grateful for the arrival of this book. It is a relief to have the truth of racialized trauma exposed in such cogent, undeniable writing and with such genius analysis. This is journalism at its finest. If you read one book this year, let it be this one.” —Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric
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In 2018, Linda Villarosa’s New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa’s article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today’s medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.


Bookmark and Share
Contents

One Everything I Thought Was Wrong
Two The Dangerous Myth That Black Bodies Are Different
Three Unequal Treatment
Four Something About Being Black Is Bad for Your Body and Your Baby
Five Where You Live Matters
Six Strong, Loud, and Angry: The Invisibility of Black Emotional Pain
Seven Discrimination and Ill-Treatment Can Harm Every Body
Eight Putting the Care Back in Health Care: Solutions

Afterword
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index

“Brilliant, illuminating. . . Meticulously researched, sweeping in its historical breadth, damning in its clear-eyed assessment of facts and yet hopeful in its outlook, Under the Skin is a must-read for all who affirm that Black lives matter.” —The Washington Post

“Singular and expansive. . . In this eminently admirable book, there are no easy answers or platitudes.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Perhaps one of the most important and thought-provoking publications of the year is Linda Villarosa’s groundbreaking Under the Skin. . . It’s a stunning exposé of why Black people in our society ‘live sicker and die quicker’—an eye-opening game changer.” —Oprah Daily

“Gripping, incisive” —The Boston Globe

“Villarosa’s empathic and sharp-sighted journalism is as astute as it is groundbreaking, as brilliant as it is timely. Let the conversations begin!” —Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone

“It’s no secret that Black people are subject to the cumulative effects of systemic racism. But Linda Villarosa’s Under the Skin walks us through the inevitable consequences of living in a racist country on our bodies, our environments, and our healthcare system. The cultural manifestations of the physical and psychological traumas affecting Black People alter or distort all our lives. Those of us who understand that structural violence has physical ramifications will be in debt to Under the Skin. I am grateful for the arrival of this book. It is a relief to have the truth of racialized trauma exposed in such cogent, undeniable writing and with such genius analysis. This is journalism at its finest. If you read one book this year, let it be this one.” —Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric
Be the first to submit a review on this product!
Review and Rate this Item

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