Sickening, Anne Pollock
Sickening, Anne Pollock
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Sickening
Anti-Black Racism and Health Disparities in the United States

Author: Anne Pollock

Narrator: Kirsten Potter

Unabridged: 5 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/10/2022


Synopsis

A crucial component of anti-Black racism is the unconscionable disparity in health outcomes between Black and white Americans. Sickening examines this institutionalized inequality through dramatic, concrete events from the past two decades, revealing how unequal living conditions and inadequate medical care have become routine.

From the spike in chronic disease after Hurricane Katrina to the lack of protection for Black residents during the Flint water crisis—and even the life-threatening childbirth experience for tennis star Serena Williams—author Anne Pollock takes listeners on a journey through the diversity of anti-Black racism operating in healthcare. She goes beneath the surface to deconstruct the structures that make these events possible, including mass incarceration, police brutality, and the hypervisibility of Black athletes' bodies. Ultimately, Sickening shows what these shocking events reveal about the everyday racialization of health in the United States.

Concluding with an examination of racialized healthcare during the COVID pandemic and the Black Lives Matter rebellions of 2020, Sickening cuts through the mind-numbing statistics to vividly portray healthcare inequalities. In a gripping style, Pollock shows the devastating reality and consequences of systemic racism on the lives and health of Black Americans.

About Anne Pollock

Anne Pollock is professor of global health and social medicine at King's College London. She is author of Medicating Race: Heart Disease and Durable Preoccupations with Difference and Synthesizing Hope: Matter, Knowledge, and Place in South African Drug Discovery.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bronwyn on March 04, 2024

Dr. Pollock's rigorous and transparent focus on research and her description of how to engage with the material in a deep and scholarly way are particular strengths of the book.......more

Goodreads review by Amy on August 22, 2022

Fantastic book, shows that racism today affects health disparities today, not just in ancient history.......more

Goodreads review by Emma on February 18, 2025

While I definitely enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it, there were chapters that lacked for me. Particularly for the chapters on hurricane Katrina and the Flint water crisis, the racial component of these problems felt poorly explained, such that I wonder if different examples may have been......more

Goodreads review by Petty Lisbon on July 21, 2023

I read this book thinking it would be about the social determinants of health (which are still important) but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was about the impact of race in different health current events. I barely know anything about the 2001 anthrax attacks (and ironically, one of the......more