The healthcare disparities are the differences in health and healthcare that a minority group receives in comparison with another group from the same society, and in which the first group is more likely and more vulnerable to preventable diseases and tends to have a low life expectancy. In the United States, racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive an inequitable and a low quality healthcare compared to other communities, and among the groups who are mostly and deeply affected by the healthcare disparities throughout history are the African Americans.
During the
slavery era, one of the darkest chapters in American history, the colored were
owned by white masters; they were oppressed; they had no rights nor could they
ever express and voice their thoughts; they were also considered as a valuable
property. Indeed, the abolition of slavery in the United States came through
the Emancipation Proclamation issued by the president of the United States
Abraham Lincoln, and it was supposed to grant Black slaves their freedom and
equal opportunities to those of the whites. However, it was never fully
established; African Americans were again controlled and tied, but this time
legally through the Jim Crow Laws.
Department
of English
Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Master in Literature and Interdisciplinary Approaches
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| Racial Disparities in the United States Healthcare System |
Racial Disparities in the United States Healthcare System
(From The 19th Century till the Present Time)
The African
American population has been controlled through Birth Control Programs. Through
sterilization abuse, African American women were prevented from their right of
becoming mothers and breeding children. Until today Black Americans are dealing
with structural racism and too many disparities in healthcare.
Since the
moment that Black people were brought to the New World as slaves their misery
and dark history started. The chain of abuses, the different kinds of racism,
injustice, and inequality that they had to endure were portrayed throughout
this extended essay.
However,
they still managed to prove themselves as real individuals who contributed and
are still contributing to the change of the American society. Black Americans
were never treated as human beings, and were always inferior to white people
and always at their mercy. They were forced into labor on plantation fields,
taken advantage of from plantation fields’ owners and white who subjugated the
slaves’ bodies, whether they were dead or alive, and used them to reinforce their medical research through
harsh, inhumane and involuntary experiments.
Throughout
the years and by using different discriminatory laws African Americans were
denied healthcare and even prevented from entering hospitals to get treated. As
mentioned throughout this dissertation, the medical experiments were conducted
on the helpless enslaved men and women, poor African Americans and disabled
people.
The fact
that the U.S. healthcare system is still biased, whether consciously or unconsciously,
towards black people when they receive healthcare; and the fact that prejudice,
discrimination, neglection and such disparities are still prevalent within the
American healthcare system are what made the core of this research. Indeed,
through the examination of the different aspects that may have caused such
healthcare disparities, it is evident that many things have changed concerning
the medical care of Black people and the American healthcare system along with
different organizations working on improving the flaws.
Through the examination of different data, one can conclude that regardless of medicine in the United States being extremely developed and despite all the efforts made by the U.S. Healthcare System, healthcare disparities still exist and are due to the accumulation
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