BBC: What's Killing America's White Men? (MAGA related)

What's Killing America's White Men?
Our World

Every year, nearly forty five thousand people in America kill themselves. That's more than twice the number that die in homicides, and while in the rest of the western world suicide rates are falling, in the US the numbers have increased by nearly a third. And there's one group causing this spike. Middle aged white men. And Race is relevant because the suicide rates for Black and Asian Americans haven't changed much in years. India Rakusen has been to the Montana town of Missoula, where suicide rates here have increased by more than fifty percent in the last five years, to find out what's driving so many white, middle aged, and often working class men to despair.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3ct4f25

Here is an article that perhaps has the solution:


“In America, we divide our adult life into two categories: Our work life and our retirement life,” he says. “In Okinawa, there isn’t even a word for retirement. Instead there’s simply ‘ikigai,’ which essentially means ‘the reason for which you wake up in the morning.’”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/22/the-japanese-secret-to-a-longer-and-happier-life-is-gaining-attention-from-millions.html

that renders aging adults--at least those who are not overwhelmingly wealthy-- feeling as though they are expendable, even worthless.

We have a very libertarian society; it's part of the reason why we don't have healthcare as a basic human right.

for a long time." It was as if he felt he maybe didn't have a reason to complain too much?

Good point but there is a reason to complain when jobs are being snatched away, quite often by corporate/hedge fund/repug policies that benefit the few at the top but screw over the rest.

Makes one wonder if our candidates should seize on this reality and appeal to these guys that they are not being served by the repugs they continue to vote for , as Sanders and a couple of others have done, or should we concentrate getting out our vote and increase our base and to hell with down-on-their-luck repug voters who can't seem to get who is screwing over them?

In this context see Jonathan Metzl's book, Dying Of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland. Metzl points out that rural whites vote to support conservative political policies that are killing them, for example, as mentioned in the BBC clip, the cuts in funding for mental health services.

I started reading it last week. Even if you don't read the whole thing (I'm just a few pages in), the introduction is jaw dropping in its descriptions of people willing (?) to die just to be sure that people of color don't get health services.

Many books have already been written on this issue, so this isn't really all that new, but it's still an eye opener.

Great report. Highly recommend.

The humanity of it really struck me.

American white men have had the opportunity to watch it, and what some reactions to it have been. Relief that the silence may finally be breaking?

I hope the report has sparked more attention to this issue and given some folks the impetus to talk more.

I try to get out in the community more. It's too easy to disconnect from real people.

The internet is part of the problem and can be part of the solution but we still need real human and caring contact.

However, there are millions of others who are not white men living in the same despair. I think we all need to understand that so many of us are suffering in our own ways and that we are not each other's enemies.

The real enemy is the wealthy 1% who are keeping us all down and do not care one bit how much the majority of the people in this country are living in desperation. Not only financially, but emotionally as well, because of this sense that we are not all "winners" and that we continue to become downwardly mobile because of their greed, creating a sense of desperation.

Very sad. The guy with the dog really broke me up.

They also determined that it was the availability of guns.

The plethora of Guns in this country is certainly a factor.

I actually discussed this issue with my brother today - he inexplicably brought it up because of something he saw on TV recently - and he also watches FOX News!