BookBrowse Reviews The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts

Population health experts have found that the least-educated white Americans have begun dying younger. While Black Americans still have a lower life expectancy than their white counterparts, the downward drift of this segment of whites arguably indicates two class developments: First, that the education gap is growing; and second, that those who believe in a zero-sum game of racial hierarchy and therefore feel demoted by the progress of minorities are reacting against their self-interest. Interpreting the ascendency of different-looking people as lost ground, some are entrenching themselves and others in isolationist, anti-"elite" policies that wall them off from the educational opportunities and cultural diversity that could otherwise nourish their communities. The rise in mortality is affecting white women without a high school diploma especially; their average life expectancy has ...