Sickening: Anti-Black Racism and Health Disparities in the United States

Anne Pollock

May 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kirsten Potter

About this audiobook

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 the author

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.

Actress Kirsten Potter has performed on stage, film, and television, including roles on Medium, Bones, and Judging Amy. Her narrations have won AudioFile Earphones Awards, and she earned an Audie nomination for her reading of Rise Again by Ben Tripp.