Racism is often covered as a political, cultural, or news story. But how is it affecting people's health? That's the question Cara Anthony, a KFF News reporter, wanted to answer: not just on an individual scale, but on a community-wide one. So for the past few years, she's been reporting on a small town in the Midwest that illustrates that health issue: Sikeston, Missouri. Today on the show, Cara walks host Emily Kwong through Sikeston's history — and what locals and medical experts have to say about how that history continues to shape the present. For more of Cara's reporting, you can check out KFF Health News' documentary and four-part podcast series, Silence in Sikeston.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
One quick note before we begin, shortwavers. This episode talks about racial violence and references a lynching. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, short wavers, it's Emily Kwong. And today I'm joined by one of KFF Health News' Midwest correspondents, Cara Anthony. Cara, it is really good to have you here. Great to be here.
For a few years now, you've been reporting on how racism can make a person sick. And I think it often surprises people when we focus on racism as a health story, right?
Definitely, for sure. I mean, I'm a health reporter and I'm also a Black woman. So when I look at an issue, those are two of the lenses I'm looking through. Totally, yeah. I started reporting for KFF Health News in 2019. That same year, a group of researchers found that Black men in the United States are about two and a half times more likely to be killed by police than white men.
On average, they found that a young Black man had a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police, making it one of the top six causes of death for them. It ranked just behind heart disease and cancer. That's really devastating. OK. And the immediate impact of that number is clear for young Black men. But what's maybe less clear is the impact it can have on their loved ones, right?
The community around them, the people who are dealing with the after effects of racism and violence. Yeah. And this has been going on for a long time. Think about what Black communities went through during the lynching era. So I wanted to dig into all of that and find out what's the health impact of this kind of trauma? I talked to Aisha Lee about this.
She's an assistant professor at Penn State and a licensed mental health provider.
For me, as a mental health professional, I get really cautious when using, even using the word trauma. No one actually comes in and says, hey, I'm dealing with intergenerational trauma. Can you help me? Right. You know, they don't have the language. People don't have the language for it. And so part of that. The generational legacy of Black families is we don't talk about our problems.
We just kind of roll through them. We deal with them. We're strong. And we just keep it moving forward.
Yeah, that message within families to just keep it moving. I mean, did you experience this in your own family?
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Chapter 2: How does racism affect health outcomes?
Yeah, young people don't learn about him in Sykeson schools. Older people didn't want to talk about him much either. And fast forward about 80 years, Sykeson is still dealing with racism, violence, and silence. What do you mean by that? Well, in 2020, Sykeson police killed a young Black man named Denzel Taylor.
Even though he was unarmed, the city's chief of public safety told me that officers believed Denzel had a gun and feared for their lives. The officers themselves declined to comment. Denzel's family later sued the city of Sykeston. The city and the family reached a wrongful death settlement for $2 million. Close to half of it went to legal fees.
And in the wake of these events, there was a lot of silence. Emily, multiple people asked me why I was examining the deaths of Cleo Wright and Denzel Taylor side by side. As a health reporter, I wanted to focus on the trauma that remains after the violence against these men, the possible health effects for their families and their communities.
Oftentimes, people who experience racial trauma are forced to not acknowledge it as such, or they're forced to question whether or not it happened in the first place.
Keisha Bentley Edwards is an associate professor in internal medicine at Duke University. She studies structural racism and chronic health conditions, and she knows a lot about what happens to a community after a lynching.
When you're in a smaller city, there is no way to turn away from the people who were the perpetrators of a race-based crime. And that in and of itself is a trauma, to know that someone has victimized your family member And you still have to say hello. You still have to say good morning, ma'am.
And you have to just swallow your trauma in order to make the person who committed that trauma comfortable so that you don't put your own family members at risk.
It literally requires you to silence yourself constantly as you're living your life.
Exactly. And Keisha says part of the stress comes from being Black, being aware that you may be perceived as a threat just by being alive, just by going through your everyday life, which is a factor in Black people's health. Here's Ayesha Lee again.
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