OxyContin marketing capitalized on the concept of pain in the US that had already been racialized for centuries. "The very understanding of human capacity to suffer pain has long been deeply shaped by racism," she says. There's a reason why most academic medical centers leading, you know, research, medical research centers are located in poor black and brown neighborhoods.
Featuring Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg on how American capitalism and its illusions of whiteness both created the opioid crisis and shaped the response to it. We are discussing their book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America.
Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
Check out our newsletters and vast archives at thedigradio.com
Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin and Catalyst bit.ly/digcatalyst