Author(s): Linda Villarosa

Contemporary Thought | NY Times Notable 2022

From an award-winning writer at The New York Times Magazine comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll that racism takes on individuals and the health of the nation.In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among Black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth-grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to 'live sicker and die quicker' compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely.Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading. Praise for Passing for Black-'Passing for Black weaves issues of identity and sexuality into an engaging tale of love, passion and family. Finally the story we've been waiting for, delivered in page turning, finely written prose by one of my favourite writers.'-E. Lynn Harris, New York Times bestselling authorPraise for Passing for Black-'Passing for Black is a lively page turner that follows the complicated process of coming out as African-American and female and middle-class. It is a sweet, romantic, and sometimes funny tale, brushed nicely with issues of race, class and sexuality. As Angela tumbles along her journey to self discovery, I found myself rooting for her to find the way.'-Staceyann Chin, poet, activist, and author of The Other Side of Paradise and CrossfirePraise for Career GPS-'Career GPS serves as the business coach you never had but always wanted. From getting the job you want to getting noticed for the job you've done, you'll find tangible tips for winning in the new world of work.'-Lois P. Frankel, PhD, author of Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office and See Jane Lead