4 "illuminating, enlightening and helpful" stars !

Thank you to Netgalley, the doctor/researcher and Perseus Books. This was released May 2020. I am providing an honest review.

I am not going to write a long review as I do not want to confuse my readers but just to let you know that as a Canadian mystified by certain aspects of America that this was extremely enlightening. I have family in America (ohio, pennsylvania and south carolina). I lived for over a year in Savannah and Miami and have visited at least thirty states. I loved both a Georgia gal and New Mexico boi and love the American spirit, friendliness and generosity of many of the people I have met. Despite my long association and frequent visits I don't get many aspects of America and this book really helped.

The author is a psychiatrist and public health expert who also does social science research. He very helpfully explores the dynamics of working class whites in Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas. He believes that the rich white republicans have sold a load of shit to these people and kindled racial distrust and fear in order to further certain agenda items that benefit big business and the wealthy. As I am reading a book on American Conservative thought currently I am aware that Republicans are not truly Conservative but often xenophobic, mean spirited and self serving. I am not going to lie though I do not have much more faith in Democrats and the ridiculousness and polarity of wokeness and identity politics. Anyhow back to the book....

He explores through research, focus groups, sociological and historical theorizing and even some psychodynamic thinking the following three areas

Missouri and the laxity in gun laws that have led to poor whites in accidental and intentional suicides and murders.

Tennessee and the long resistance to socialized medicine.(health insurance)

Kansas and the huge drop of education standards and quality of life due to short sighted and substantial tax cuts.

I learned so very much about some regional subcultures.

Thank you so very much !

I've never said this before, but I think this should be required reading. It's clear that America has a white supremacy problem and there is no way out of the corner we've painted ourselves into without recognizing it.

Oof, this one hit right in the heart. Hailing from a predominantly white rural area, I have struggled to understand how the people I had grown up around failed to grow up as well--confirmation bias, voting against their own interests, blaming the government and anyone different from them for the slow deaths of their small towns. It always seemed to be so self-inflicted, but I could never fully wrap my brain around why it continued year after year, and I found myself frustrated with every attempt to discuss it. Every answer in politics, philosophy, and psychology seemed to come up short on explanations, and with this book, I realize why: the answer is a little bit of all of those things, and how they weave together. I found myself whispering, "yes, this is it!" and "exactly..." so many times throughout this book. It was truly eye-opening, and will be on my list of recommendations for all of my friends.

Doing of Whiteness is an important read at this point in history. It explores how white people advance policies that harm their own self-interest, especially when it comes to health care, education, and gun safety. It's a needed companion to other anti-racist literature.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

There were some interesting ideas brought up in this book, but ultimately, it read way too clinically to hold my interest. I got to 20% (during the gun control section) before admitting to myself that I just wanted to be done. It was bogged down in facts and statistics, way too many to keep track of, and not enough personal anecdotes to make me care to finish.
Thanks to netgalley and #basicbooks for this ARC of #dyingofwhiteness

I've read a lot of books covering the topic of anti-racism. Those books dealt with the subject of racism, but covered what white people can do to became anti-racist. "Dying of Whiteness" is the first book I've read that dealt with how white people vote against and go against their own best interests to hold onto their white privilege. It fact to what some of already know -- that racist white people feel (either consciously or sub-consciously) that people of color are lazy and violent. In these times, this book is more relevant than ever. Its content is more important.

Mr. Metzl is much politer than I am. I would have subtitled this book "How Racists Cut off Their Racist Noses to Spite Their Racist Faces." Probably why I am not an author nor a politician. This book offers three solid studies that support the premise that white people will vote against their own best interests if they think it will help them hold on to their white privilege. My apologies to Mr. Metzl as I skimmed over most of the numbers and charts. It was a bit overwhelming for me at this moment. But, even I saw how he was able to boil all the data down to something that everyone should be able to understand. In each case, Mr. Metzl and his team were able to derive the number of years of life lost based on the changes in gun regulation, healthcare reform obstruction, and defunding of education. Yes! People will lower education levels have shorter lives. If you defund your schools, you are directly impacting the lifetime health and length of your children. Even if you lightly skim the numbers, this book is hard to read. But, it is important to understand how political decisions have potentially unintended consequences. Those that single issue vote jeopardize us all.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book offers a realistic picture of how many Americans especially in particular southern states reject laws that relate to universal healthcare and restrictive gun laws even at their own peril. The author brings up a good point that many white men cling to their right to bear arms due to their sense of patriotism and privilege. They reject Obamacare because it provides healthcare to all especially the lower class. The book depicts a society that votes based on these ideals that are ingrained from a history of racism and classism.
My only criticism is that the author does spend a considerable amount of time going over the raw data collected on these issues and I found myself a bit lost in the calculations.
Overall, definitely worth reading as it provides a clearer picture of what could be the reasons so many voted for Trump.

TL;DR

Jonathan Metzl’s Dying of Whiteness exposes the effects of conservative policies upon conservatives themselves. This thoughtful book is perplexing but worth the read. It opened my eyes to how deeply people will injure themselves to maintain an identity. Highly recommended.

Introduction

I grew up in a conservative household in a conservative village in farm country Illinois. My father and mother were both state employees for most of their lives, and for as long as I could remember, both railed against the Democrats that ruled Illinois government. To say that my environment prepared me to be a conservative is a bit of an understatement. Because my frame of reference was a very small, very white town, it was easy to believe the myth of the rugged individual, that government imposed too much on our lives. Then, I went to college. I met the real demographics of America. The contrast between what I’d been told and what I saw could rival the Grand Canyon. From children of single mothers on assistance to people of color to rich brats, I experienced an awakening that eighteen year old me wasn’t ready for. I remained a conservative, listened to talk radio, debated with conservatives, and tried to convince myself that the ideology that I believed in would help everyone and not just me. Various incidents over the years made me begin to question whether I truly believed in conservatism and its ideology. During George W Bush’s presidency, I knew my answer. Yes, I did believe in conservatism, still do. So why did I feel uneasy? Because the U.S. as a nation moved the overton window farther and farther to the right every year so that I ended up being on the liberal side of the divide without shifting in ideology. I was one of those liberals that I and my family had dreaded all my life. This caused me a lot of internal strife. I tried listening to Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck. I read the National Review. It was all playacting. I had to admit to myself that I was a liberal, and the rest is a story for another day. The point is that I’ve been on the political Right, and as such I understand where those on the Right stand. I understand the people that Jonathan Metzl interviewed for Dying of Whiteness. They are people who are good at heart, generous by nature, and loyal. Like I did, they exist in a political ecosystem that ties directly to their identity. This ecosystem takes all the best of their traits, even praises them for it, and turns those traits into something that applies only to people like them. In Metzl’s book, he does what conservatives want Liberals to do. He got out of his ‘bubble’ and talked to residents of what rich, elite Republican politicians call ‘real America.’ He does the research, not by an internet or YouTube search, but by generating the data. Dr. Metzl traveled to Missouri, Tennessee, and Kansas for this book. What he found was a culture dedicated to an identity that is killing them in larger numbers every year.

Disclaimer: I was given an electronic copy of the paperback ARC in exchange for an honest review. But I didn’t read the eARC. I already owned the hardcover version, but it languished on my to be read pile. I requested the eARC as a way to give myself a deadline for reading the book. All quotes come from the hardcover version.

Review: Dying of Whiteness

Dying of Whitness focuses on three topics at the heart of the conservative-liberal divide: guns, healthcare, and eduction. For each topic, he visits a different state to show the effects of conservative policies upon its populace. He travels to Missouri for guns, Tennessee for healthcare, and Kansas for education. In each state, he shows the effect of policies upon the white population of the state. Throughout he also shows the effects on minority populations and notes that the effects are worse for minorities. But the focus is to try to understand why the white population continues to advocate for beliefs that kill more and more of itself. His underlying argument is that these policies maintain – explicitly or implicitly – a racial hierarchy with white people at the top. He reinforces W.E.B. Du Bois’s notion that whiteness serves as a wage in and of itself, psychologically and as public recognition. As soon as I read this, I knew it was correct.

Haven't We Talked Enough about White Voters?

Upon Trump’s election in 2016, the media ran endless pieces about white, rural voters. The white working class was everywhere. So, do we really need another book about them? Since a lot of my family are white, rural voters, I would say yes. This book isn’t meant to praise or placate them. I’m not even sure it’s meant to change their minds; though, I wish it would. This book shows how structural racism works. A lot of the people in this book wouldn’t consider themselves racist. They don’t burn crosses; they don’t hate people of color (some do). A lot of them would call themselves caring Christians; yet, they continue to vote for policies that reinforce racial hierarchy.

…tax cuts and the school-funding overhaul allowed Kansas GOP politicians to enact an agenda with significant racial implications without expressly needing to talk about race. (Metzl page 216 Hardcover edition)

The above quote shows exactly how structural racism works. Throughout the book, Metzl shows how the policies white people support are both tied to their identity and killing them in ever larger numbers. While some of the measures he uses are a stretch, such as education levels as representation of health outcomes, others – gun suicide rates in Missouri – are apt. This book looks at the structural and historical forces that influence white ideology. The Tennessee section had a nice little paragraph describing the history of Southern, white opposition to government healthcare initiatives, such as in 1965 when hospitals needing to integrate to receive federal funding. This is a legacy of Reconstruction when the Northerners ‘occupied’ the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. The passing down of this distrust of the federal government comes directly from having their way of life destroyed by the government. The fact that their way of life required the suffering and subjugation of others doesn’t matter. Hopefully, Dying of Whiteness will show how this distrust is used by the elite to keep middle class and poorer whites from pursuing policies that help them.

Missouri

Metzl starts the Missouri section off by attending a grief group for families of suicide victims in Cape Girardeau. The group is dominated by stories of gun suicide deaths. It’s heartbreaking to read these accounts. Metzl treats each person with care and respect that many conservatives wouldn’t expect from a liberal. It’s hard not to care for these people given their stories. Yet, no one in the group asks whether the loosening of the laws might have saved their family members. Guns are a way of life for everyone in that group. For many Missourians, the rationale for having a gun switched from hunting and fun to protection. Who they need to protect themselves from is rather ambiguous, but the statistics aren’t. In the state of Missouri, a white male is seven times more likely to turn the gun on himself than to be killed by homicide (Metzl page 108 Hardcover edition).

…a double standard through which society coded white gun owners as “protectors” and black gun owners as “threats.”2 (Metzl page 27 Hardcover edition)
Metzl combines these stories with history of the state’s gun laws, with a comparison to Connecticut’s gun laws enacted after the Sandy Hook tragedy, and by diving into the death statistics in each state. Mainly he advocates for studying the problem. The information available to researchers is limited because the government forbids the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to fund gun violence studies. The only current method for studying gun violence is to look at deaths caused by a gun. Suicide by gun is a permanent solution to often temporary problems. The author compares death rates for suicide by gun versus other methods, and the lethality of suicide by gun far outstrips all other methods. This section makes a powerful case for studying gun violence. How many lives could be spared if we understood early warning signs? One of the right’s constant and consistent talking points is that anti-depressants are common in all mass shootings. Is that true? If so, shouldn’t researchers look deeper into the link? More study of gun violence needs to be done. After the publication of the hardcover version, the U.S. government included $25 million for gun violence studies for the first time in 20 years. It’s not enough, but it’s a beginning, and I’m grateful for it.

…at present death represents the best available metric to study one potential outcome of gun possession without actually doing a study on guns. (Metzl page 42 Hardcover edition)

Where I’m sure conservatives expect the author to advocate for a ban, instead Metzl wants to go back to the laws on Missouri’s books prior to 2000. No new laws, just back to the old. As Missouri loosened its laws, Connecticut added new laws that resembled Missouri’s pre-2000 laws. This makes a good contrast of where Missouri could be, and without a doubt, it links more guns to more death.

…states with strong gun laws had lower firearm suicide rates. (Metzl page 42 Hardcover edition)

Tennessee

Tennessee steps in for healthcare because it rejected Medicare expansion under the Affordable Care Act. It’s neighbor, Kentucky, opted into the program, and so the two states provide a nice contrast for each other. The conclusion is that Kentucky has better healthcare outcomes statewide as compared to Tennessee. It turns out that when healthcare is available to a wide spectrum of people, the population is healthier.

Behind concerns […] lay anxieties about limited funds, support services, and other essential commodities for which they might have to contest, should equal distribution become the law of the land. (Metzl page 153 Hardcover edition)

In this section, the author and assistants conducted focus groups about healthcare in Tennessee. The author leads groups of white men, and an African American colleague of his conducts groups of black men. The similarities are heartbreaking, but when it comes to the differences, it’s clear that each group has completely different motivations. The white men, as a group, have a scarcity mindset that is paranoid about others. The black men, as a group, tend to think about community and others more than themselves. They have an abundance mindset. Where the white men were suspicious, the black men were generous. The groups of white men were worried about paying for the program to a fault even if they were on government assistance themselves. You really have to read this section to believe it. It’s heartbreaking to think that a person would sacrifice their own health to deny another person healthcare. Yet, Dr. Metzl documents just that.

Whereas white men jumped unthinkingly to assumptions about “them,” black men frequently answered questions about health and health systems through the language of “us.” (Metzl page 159 Hardcover edition)

The above quote isn’t to say that black men are better than white men. It just shows that the groups with the black men tended to be inclusive and the groups of white men tended to be more exclusive. Metzl includes snippets from interviews here to define just this point. But what gain did the white men get by being exclusive?

…white men gained group cohesion by ‘fighting back’ against healthcare reform or retaining their own notions of status and privilege, even as they themselves suffered from conditions that required medical assistance.” (Metzl page 169 Hardcover edition)

The assistance in the above quote was financial assistance provided by either the state or federal government. Yet often these same men – as many conservatives do – lash out against the very assistance that helps them. These men use the very systems they want the government to get rid of. See if you can guess the race of the men discussed in the below quote.

Here were men who depended on assistance for stents, antibiotics, operations, or oxygen tanks decrying the very networks that potentially provided lifesaving help. (Metzl page 152-153 Hardcover edition)

Kansas

Kansas represents education as Metzl looks at the effects of the Brownback experiment. Prior to reading this book, I knew the Brownback experiment was a failure, but I didn’t know quite how much of a failure it truly was. The effects will be long lasting if they’re not permanent. Funny enough, public education affects a lot of people, not just white folk. Cuts to education funding save money now at the expense of the future. This seems obvious, but this is too simple a statement. Cuts to education funding fundamentally changed the state’s education. Programs that made Kansas exceptional in the area of education disappeared and aren’t likely to return. With less importance focused on education, with loss of programs, the states ranking in education dropped. They went from near the top to floundering near the bottom.

Educational disparities became so extreme that the Kansas State Supreme Court intervened. (Metzl page 217 Hardcover edition)

In addition to the tax cuts not providing the promised job growth, it turned out that the tax cuts weren’t universally beneficial. In fact, the tax cuts often resulted in higher tax bills for a wide swath of Kansans. Some small business owners found no real benefit to the lower tax bill because it raised their federal tax bill. Large corporations took advantage of the situation by buying up small businesses to decrease their taxes.

…the poorest 40 percent of Kansans saw an average net tax increase. (Metzl page 207 Hardcover edition)

Meanwhile, in 2015, road repairs fell by 1000 miles from the previous year because it turns out that the wealthy don’t give money to maintain roads. Taxes do that. Kansas ranked near the bottom of states in 2016. While the state fell apart, Kansas politicians benefited from these tax laws. The Brownback experiment is yet another version of right wing economics that pay the rich at the expense of the poor.

…”nearly 70 percent of Kansas lawmakers or their spouses” owned a business or property that allowed them to benefit from paying no state tax on business income. (Metzl page 214 Hardcover edition)

At the time of the hardcover publication, the citizens of Kansas were dealing with the effects of the Brownback experiment. Unlike Missouri or Tennessee, Kansas – even die hard conservatives – talked about the failures of cutting taxes and funding so deep. The interviews in this section indicate buyers remorse that was born out in the 2018 election when Kris Kobach who ran on pushing the Brownback cuts further lost his gubernatorial bid. The 2020 election will let us know if Kansas considers the change worth keeping.

Dying of Whiteness and the Coronavirus

Reading this book during the coronavirus epidemic had a surreal quality to it. As I read, white people began protesting to show their willingness to get sick, to infect others, and potentially sacrifice the elderly rather than follow government shelter-in-place instructions. Texas Lt Governor Dan Patrick said, “…there are more important things than living.” To him, the economy is more important than living. There are large groups of white people who agree with him. Preliminary data showed black and Latinx Americans were disproportionately dying from the disease. Protests increased soon after demographic data of Covid 19’s victims were released. As Adam Serwer said in the Atlantic, “That more and more Americans were dying was less important than who was dying.”

I doubt Dr. Metzl would have predicted that protesters would be screaming to open up the country during a pandemic. But if you had told him that during a pandemic people would protest to go back to work, he’d have guessed they were white people. Dying of Whiteness doesn’t explain these protesters, but it does make their existence less shocking.

Conclusion

Jonathan Metzl’s Dying of Whiteness blew me away. The stories inside it shocked me, frustrated me, and depressed me. The data shows that conservative policies, policies that supposedly favor white people, have deadly effects on the very people championing them. White conservatives vote against their own interests. Since 2016, we’ve seen that at least 30-40% of the population will rationalize any old thing to protect their identity. I have little confidence that anything can convince them to vote for policies that will better their lives. A beautifully researched and written book like this won’t do it. While I’ve moved on from my conservative beginnings, the one philosophy that’s followed is trust but verify. Since the 2016 election, I’ve thought that the modern Republican party acts against the interests of its constituents. Dr. Metzl verified this in Dying of Whiteness.

Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan Metzl is available now in hardcover and paperback formats from Basic Books.

8.5 out of 10!

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland is the story of three states and three different policies have had detrimental effects on the population that continues to vote in the politicians that enact these laws. Jonathan Metzl focuses his research and interviews on Missouri, Tennessee, and Kansas with specific policies of gun policies, healthcare, and education funding respectively.

Throughout the book JMM talks about the research that show each of these policies cause more pain on the white society of each state than they do on the groups that the white voters are intending to restrict. In Missouri JMM talks with several people who have lost family members to suicide by gun but none of them blame the gun or think there should be any restrictions put on guns. In Tennessee JMM talks with groups of poor white men with health issues and groups of African American men in the same position. Tennessee did not expand medicaid with the ACA expansion and studies have found that if they had white men would have had the largest impact to lives saved. Finally in Kansas JMM talks about the impact of extreme cost cutting measures by the governor, which were not needed, has on their once great education system.

Dying of Whiteness is one of those non-fiction books that only a part of the population (mostly liberal) will read. I wish more people would pay attention to the message that JMM puts out in this book. So often the people hurt the most by these restrictive policies are the exact people that are asking for the measures. Throughout the book you repeated read about how minorities and immigrants are using up our resources at the cost of the white tax payer as the view of these poorer white interviewees. What the research JMM brings to these stories shows that these views are incorrect, but how do you convince someone of the long held belief that immigrants come in and use up or healthcare making it cost more and that blacks are going to break into your home and hurt your family. We need to find a way to start to have these conversations and trust studies and not political viewpoints.

Metzl explores how, over the last decade or so, a large swath of white Americans in red states like Missouri, Tennessee, and Kansas have consistently supported conservative policies that actually run counter to their self-interest; topics range from gun control (or the lack thereof), the Affordable Care Act, and education funding. The author digs deep into the bleak and sobering data and, as a physician, focuses specifically on the implications of these policies with regards to mortality. He also looks into the historical and cultural reasons for their positions, without coming across as particularly partisan. Prior to reading this book I hadn't known the extent of these policies' effects on white Americans in comparison with other racial/ethnic groups. His extensive focus groups and interviews with people in these states were perhaps the most eye-opening parts of this book. Rather than coming into these meetings with clear-cut judgments of these people that were seemingly irrational in their positions, Metzl comes across as empathetic and cognizant of the historical context in which the interviewees formed their opinions.

I see these issues everyday living in the south. I have heard white people who do not work and live off the government complain about people of color who are too lazy to work and live off the government. I am not sure how they assume they are different. But white privilege is the only explanation.

It is sad and the far right is so good at convincing them that they are being worked by the vary programs they take part in that they would prefer not to have them than to think they government is taking advantage or that people of color are benefitting from them as well.

Thank you to Perseus Books & NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy.

This edition is available May 12 2020.

A careful, painful read, Dr. Metzl's Dying of Whiteness tries to portray the many Trump supporting Americans, those who we see angrily yelling on stage. Divided into three sections, Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas, Dr Metzel presents the history, socioeconomic context and current debates about gun control, healthcare and public school funds. With a touch of love and dry humor, he painstakingly shows the disparity between the white folk being the beneficiaries of public policies and their staunch opposition to more public health funding. The first section on gun control is the most emotionally difficult to read as he tragically discusses the high rate of suicide by gun in white males. As medical students, we are often taught this factoid and it is quizzed on every board exam, but to see the impact of guns on tearing apart families and then to hear the families defending gun rights is another experience altogether. Overall, the book tries to humanize whiteness & shows its very fragile, though at times quite racist and hateful, core.

As a progressive who lives in liberal Massachusetts, it’s often difficult for me to comprehend the problems that many working class whites in middle America face and especially their political leanings supporting Trump. If you've read 'Hillbilly Elegy,' you're probably already aware of the myriad of issues facing working class white Americans, such as lack of well-paying jobs, drugs, violence, etc. ‘Dying of Whiteness’ illustrates this depiction with facts and statistics accounting for why people are succumbing to much earlier deaths. The part of this book that stayed with me the most were that of first-person accounts of family members who had died by suicide and gun violence. That being said, this seems like an outsider view of why working class whites are facing so many issues. It’s clear, the author had a particular idea of the problems and what he wanted to prove with this text. In that sense, I preferred ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ as the author provided an insider look at why people face so many problems. I personally preferred Nicholas Kristof's 'Tightrope' to this as he provides a more compelling picture and offers possible solutions and alternatives to these, as he calls them, “deaths of depair.” Kristof also went a bit deeper as he ties issues back to lack of employment, social safety nets, and depression. Overall, ‘Dying of Whiteness’ is certainly worth the read and pretty eye-opening at points.

Thank you NetGalley and Basic Books for providing this ARC.