Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism

Black and Blue is the first systematic description of how American doctors think about racial differences and how this kind of thinking affects the treatment of their black patients. The standard studies of medical racism examine past medical abuses of black people and do not address the racially motivated thinking and behaviors of physicians practicing medicine today.

Black and Blue penetrates the physicians private sphere where racial fantasies and misinformation distort diagnoses and treatments. Doctors have always absorbed the racial stereotypes and folkloric beliefs about racial differences that permeate the general population. Within the world of medicine this racial folklore has infiltrated all of the medical sub-disciplines, from cardiology to gynecology to psychiatry. Doctors have thus imposed white or black racial identities upon every organ system of the human body, along with racial interpretations of black children, the black elderly, the black athlete, black musicality, black pain thresholds, and other aspects of black minds and bodies. The American medical establishment does not readily absorb either historical or current information about medical racism. For this reason, racial enlightenment will not reach medical schools until the current race-aversive curricula include new historical and sociological perspectives.

“[An] eye-opening work. . . . It is a pioneering, systematic study of racial issues in medicine/health care. . . . Highly recommended.”

“The book comes at a perfect time. . . . Black and Blue goes where previous studies have not. . . . An unapologetic and systematic analysis.”

“Black and Blue should be required reading for medical students and physicians. It is a passionate read.”

“Black and Blue should be required reading for medical students and physicians. It is a passionate read.” Bill Maxwell - Tampa Bay Times

"[Those] who have an interest in the intersection of race and health should be introduced to Hobermans comprehensive work on this thorny and important subject." Kim Read, Reference and Instruction Librarian - Clark College - SRRT Reviews/Tumblr.com

John Hoberman is the author of Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America, Preserved the Myth of Race, Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport, The Olympic Crisis: Sport, Politics, and the Moral Order, and Sport and Political Ideology.

Acknowledgments

1. The Nature of Medical Racism: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism

Introduction

“Avoidance and Evasion”

Judging How Physicians Behave

Judging Physician Conduct: Privacy and the “Halo Effect”

The Oral Tradition

Physicians Share the Racial Attitudes of Their Fellow Citizens

The Medical Liberals

2. Black Patients and White Doctors

The African American Health Calamity: The Silence

Medical Vulnerability and Racial Defamation

How Do (White) Physicians Think About Race?

Evidence of Medical Racism

Resistance to the Critique of Racial Bias In Medicine

Medical Liberalism and the Medical Literature

The Physicians Private Sphere

Playing Anthropologist

From Racial Folklore to Racial Medicine

3. Medical Consequences of Racializing the Human Organism

Racial Interpretations of Human Types and Traits

Introduction

Racial Interpretations of Black Infants and Children

Racial Interpretations of the Black Elderly

Racial Interpretations of the Black Athlete

Racial Interpretations of Black Musical Aptitude

Racial Interpretations of Losing Consciousness

Racial Interpretations of the Nervous System

Racial Interpretations of Pain Sensitivity

Racial Interpretations of Heart Disease

Racial Interpretations of Human Organs and Disorders

Racial Interpretations of the Eyes

Racial Interpretations of Black Skin

Racial Interpretations of Human Teeth

Racial Interpretations of “White” and “Black” Disorders

Black “Hardiness”

Physical Hardiness

Emotional Hardiness

Conclusion: How Human Organ Systems Acquire Racial Identities

Racial Folklore In Medical Specialties

A Century of Racial Pharmacology: From Racial Folklore to Racial Genetics

The Role of Racial Folklore In Obstetrics and Gynecology

During the Twentieth Century

4. Medical Apartheid, Internal Colonialism, and the Task of American Psychiatry

Introduction

“Africanizing” the Black Image

American Psychiatry As Racial Medicine

The Racial Primitive In American Psychiatry

The Task of Black Psychiatry

Colonial Medical Status

5. A Medical School Syllabus On Race

Introduction

The Doctor-Patient Relationship

The Problem Patient

Medical Authors Aversion to Race

Race and Medical Education: the Search For “Cultural Competence”

Two official Versions of “Cultural Competence”

Physicians Beliefs About Racial Differences: A (Belated) Study

A Medical Curriculum On Race

Practical Advice For Physicians

Social Class, Misdiagnoses, and Therapeutic Fatalism

“Cultural Competence” As Knowledge of Stereotype Systems

Raceless Humanism: “Medical Humanities” and the Evasion of Difference

Medical Curriculum Change Is Possible: The Case of Abortion Training

Notes

Index