Individualism and ‘perceived threats’ to their social status
A new study by a pair of Georgetown University professors claims the concept of “whiteness” can negatively affect the health of white rural Americans.
“Whiteness: A Fundamental Determinant of the Health of Rural White Americans” by Professors Caroline Efird and Derek Griffith also asserts that “rurality” affects whites in ways “that are not present for racially minoritized populations or nonrural White populations.”
“Whiteness,” as the authors point out, is a system “that typically upholds White Americans’ social supremacy” (emphasis added).
Academics have linked “whiteness” to virtually anything imaginable including the opioid crisis, religious appropriation, “all psychic suffering,” the conflict between Japan and the U.S. during World War II, and even one’s humanity.
Universities and school districts have courses and workshops dedicated to examining — and then eradicating — “whiteness” from whatever the topic du jour is.
Efird and Griffith zero in on two specific attributes of “whiteness” in their research. Individualism — panned by so-called diversity experts as, among other things, a “cultural trait chosen and emphasized to favor whites to the detriment of non-white groups” — can be a negative in terms of mental health.
As noted by Medical Xpress, the study says “an embrace of individualism results in some rural white patients and providers blaming individuals for developing diseases such as mental illness, and criticizing the use of medication for an illness except for conditions perceived as outside an individual’s control, such as cancer.”
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Further, “the presumed financial success intrinsic to being racialized as a white person can also adversely affect rural white Americans’ health if they perceive a threat or actual loss of their social status. For example, whiteness undergirds some rural White Americans’ fears that their cultural norms are diminishing and the collective social status of White people in the United States is deteriorating. Prior research indicates that these beliefs could have negative physical and mental health effects for white people.”
The professors say not taking “whiteness” into account “could exacerbate health inequities” like those during the COVID pandemic. Campaigns urging mask use “for the health of the collective, for example,” proved largely fruitless in rural areas due to (rural) whites’ “ideology of individualism.”
According to her faculty bio, Efird (pictured) teaches in the Department of Health Management where she “uses mixed-methods to investigate how whiteness influences the health and well-being of racially majoritized and minoritized populations.” She also held a postdoctoral research fellowship with Georgetown’s Racial Justice Institute.
Griffith’s research “focuses on developing anti-racism approaches to achieve racial, ethnic, and gender equity in health.” He also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a senior advisor on health equity and anti-racism at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
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IMAGES: YouTube; Georgetown U.
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