“Under the Skin: the Hidden Toll of Racism in America" by Linda Villarosa began this year's Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences’ Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation series with its new theme — health equity. 

Villarosa is a professor at Brooklyn College and the City College of New York, and she is also a contributing reporter for The New York Times. Villarosa’s lecture was hosted at the Musco Center for the Arts on Sept. 26, where she spoke about the ongoing problem of racial discrimination in the healthcare system.

Her non-fiction book is both a New York Times bestselling book and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. 

The book not only shares the stories of many African Americans who dealt with racial disparities in the healthcare system, but it also shares factual scientific evidence, consisting in DNA. It also gives readers an eye-opening perspective on the racial disparity in the healthcare system and how it has impacted many African-American women.

“Everyone should be treated with care and kindness; if you believe in them, we have to support the activism happening now,” Villarosa said during the lecture.  

Wilkinson College Dean Jennifer D. Keene selected Villarosa as a speaker due to her influential journalistic investigations and her dedication to speaking out about the racial bias in the healthcare system. 

”(Villarosa) offered a factually-based dissection of racially-based health inequities, but masterfully brought those numbers to life by sharing the stories of her own family and others,” Keene said. “We must become aware before we can act effectively for change.”

Villarosa began the lecture by sharing a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” 

Villarosa continued her lecture by stating that the lack of access to healthcare and poverty, causes many complications and deaths in African American women. 

Junior screenwriting major Jessica McCrorie described Villarosa’s lecture as informative and powerful. 

“Her lecture gave me insight into the injustices in our system,” McCrorie said in an interview with The Panther. “She boiled down the wealth of information she has into an easily digestible lecture that left me with a new perspective on our medical system. We got to hear firsthand how individuals and families are affected by this health crisis.” 

McCrorie continued: “The studies she used in her PowerPoint were eye-opening and made her lecture powerful. As a broadcast journalism major, it was great to hear from a journalist who investigates topics she is passionate about.” 

The lecture discussed many topics with significant history, such as the weathering hypothesis. This hypothesis states that the lingering exposure due to social and economic disadvantage will affect physical health outcomes negatively. 

Senior creative writing major Lauren Moyle attended the lecture and described how Villarosa sharing her personal stories offered a new perspective on the topic of healthcare. 

“Villarosa brings the often-hidden issue to the forefront of the conversation of America’s broken healthcare system,” Moyle said. “She said that in order to really change a system as broken as this one, a little burning would be required.” 

Moyle continued: “I think the main takeaway I received from the discussion and novel was how deeply health in America is impacted by racism. She really made me understand how the added layer of racism makes the system even worse for Black Americans, regardless of social or economic class.”

The lecture concluded with questions from students and faculty about health equity and the healthcare system, as well as Villarosa’s advice on how the future looks for the healthcare system. 

“You don’t always want to talk about it because it hurts. I try to be optimistic,” Villarosa said. 

The next “Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Health Equity” event will be held on Oct. 10 through Zoom, discussing the film “Fixed: The Science Fiction of Human Enhancement.”