
Courageous Conversations: What’s next?
Social Justice Book Group takes on the politics of racial resentment
The next book St. Paul’s Social Justice Book Group is sharing will be “Dying of Whiteness: How the Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland,” by Jonathan Metzl.
Metzl is a sociologist and psychiatrist who grew up in the Midwest and who, according to the Boston Globe, uses the book to examine how "segments of the American electorate support candidates and political ideas that run contrary to their own self-interest,” examining ways that “policies of right-wing backlash (pro-gun laws, cuts to education, social services, and health care) affect the lives and life expectancies of these people.”
Adds the Star Tribune, “Metzl has science and Heartland street cred on his side; as a public health instructor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, his clinical approach doesn't overshadow his skill as a wordsmith. As a result, Dying of Whiteness is a weighty but smooth read, devoid of polemics or jargon."
David Swope, who leads the book group, notes that this book and the last, “The Sum of Us,” focus on solutions by sharing the effect of racism on all. The book group will begin reading “Dying of Whiteness” in January. The book will be free to participants and available at Stark Fresh.
Social Justice Book Group takes on the politics of racial resentment
The next book St. Paul’s Social Justice Book Group is sharing will be “Dying of Whiteness: How the Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland,” by Jonathan Metzl.
Metzl is a sociologist and psychiatrist who grew up in the Midwest and who, according to the Boston Globe, uses the book to examine how "segments of the American electorate support candidates and political ideas that run contrary to their own self-interest,” examining ways that “policies of right-wing backlash (pro-gun laws, cuts to education, social services, and health care) affect the lives and life expectancies of these people.”
Adds the Star Tribune, “Metzl has science and Heartland street cred on his side; as a public health instructor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, his clinical approach doesn't overshadow his skill as a wordsmith. As a result, Dying of Whiteness is a weighty but smooth read, devoid of polemics or jargon."
David Swope, who leads the book group, notes that this book and the last, “The Sum of Us,” focus on solutions by sharing the effect of racism on all. The book group will begin reading “Dying of Whiteness” in January. The book will be free to participants and available at Stark Fresh.