Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

In Dying of Whiteness, Metzl argues that policies and politicians supported primarily by lower- and middle-class white Americans in the United States heartland significantly impact the health and well-being of all US residents. He argues that voters who generally support GOP tax cuts, healthcare strategies, and loosening gun restrictions do so because these issues are deeply tied to historical ideas of white superiority. Politicians thus draw upon white anxiety to garner support, promising “to make America great again—and, tacitly, white again” (5). However, in an attempt to remain atop the social hierarchy, white Americans are “putting their bodies on the line” (168) to create a system that harms societal well-being.

In Missouri, Tennessee, and Kansas, Metzl illustrates how policies that may not be overtly racist have significant racialized histories and connotations. Gun ownership, for example, was a “privilege” historically granted only to white men, making firearms deeply symbolic of white privilege, autonomy, and masculinity. Furthermore, many interviewees cited the need for protection from imagined “dark-skinned intruders” when they argued against gun restrictions. Likewise, in Tennessee, white men worried about “welfare queens and Mexicans” stealing resources as a reason to oppose the Affordable Care Act. The expansion of Medicaid threatened to create a “network” linking white men to minority groups and, therefore, undermining their authority and autonomy. Finally, in Kansas, conservative legislators repeatedly introduced “race-neutral policies with racially discriminatory effects” that shifted funds away from schools with high populations of minority students (224).

These politics of racial resentment come at a high cost for everyone, even white people. Metzl illustrates how the toxicity of social structures promoting supremacy works only to divide, disadvantage, and damage, even among those who hold positions of power and privilege. Metzl is quick to point out that systems of white supremacy have a “devastating” impact on minority populations; however, his larger argument is that such a system harms everyone, even those it is supposed to keep atop the racial hierarchy. Due to racial resentment, white lives are lost to firearm death by suicide, to treatable diseases due to lack of medical coverage, and to failing education systems.

Racial anxiety causes therefore white individuals to act in ways that end up harming themselves, as policies like expanded access to firearms and reduced access to healthcare become leading manmade causes of death in the US. Instead of the dreaded “other,” Metzl argues that white Americans are “the biggest threats to… themselves” (109). He argues that white Americans need to reassess their conceptions of white identity and to join forces with their fellow citizens to create a better future for all.