I recently went back to my childhood neighborhood in Staten Island. It had been a while since I walked those familiar streets—the ones where I used to ride my bike, play ball, and just roam wild with my friends. There was even a woman on the sidewalk there who I remembered from when I was a kid. She always walked her collie around the neighborhood. Rain or shine, she was out there, leash in hand. And there she was again, thirty years later. The dog was different, of course—probably the third or fourth since I was a boy—but it was unmistakably her. Now in her seventies, she was still out there, still exchanging friendly words with the neighbors she’s probably known for decades.
In 2021, the National Survey of Children’s Health found that only 62% of children surveyed agreed they communicated positively with their parents. This fact is vitally essential to communication habits in the United States. Why? Our relationship with our parents is the first place we learn to communicate openly and sincerely about our beliefs, feelings, and experiences. This childhood experience is one of the significant objectives listed under the CDC’s Social Determinants of Health and part of the “Healthy People 2030” program, which seeks to improve the health and well-being of US citizens.
Unsurprisingly, an increase in positive communication is a goal for the United States after the 2023 Surgeon General’s advisory on the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. People in the US are experiencing the subjective experience that we capture as loneliness, AND the experience of having few social relationships in their lives at higher rates than ever. An astonishing fact is that loneliness and isolation can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The roots of this epidemic are not an individual crisis but the result of systemic oppression embedded in our social structures, historical legacies, and ongoing inequality.
The Historical Foundations of Disconnection
There is a disconnect between lived experience, history, and the biases we form to survive. Capitalism, colonialism, and the historical legacies of slavery and genocide have shaped our nation, but only some people are aware of this or believe it. Our ability to connect is rooted in understanding, cross-cultural competency, discomfort, or willingness to be uncomfortable.
In this era of politics, society, and economic struggle, rates of isolation and loneliness are increasing. People who would begrudge my existence online openly trade with me on mutual aid Free Exchange Facebook groups in my neighborhood. I have received sideways glances for my tattoos while I say “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am” to people I pick up flowers from. TikTok videos about the South and socialism point out the tension between Southern hospitality and some folks’ refusal to acknowledge the overlap with socialism. Folks will shovel their neighbor’s driveways, bring them food after babies, and organize food drives at churches, but shun what queers call mutual aid.
Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl is a sociological study on the area he calls “Heartland America.” Metzl found that racial resentments, or anxieties about changing racial dynamics and shifts in privileges afforded to white people, lead some white Americans to support policies and vote in ways that harm their communities. Why does this matter? If communication is essential for connection, where do we start when people will hurt their communities to save whiteness? Pew data shows that those in suburban and rural areas are more likely to feel close to those in their communities. However, with both percentages being less than 60%, this is still not a great indication of why someone would vote against their own best interest, even if their community were largely racially homogeneous (primarily white, all white, etc).
I know you may be thinking: “mav, if they struggle with racism and losing white privilege, why are you talking about race first?” Well, regarding our most recent election, race was one of the primary factors in determining which candidate people voted for AND their beliefs on the historical impact of slavery and whether racial privilege is real.
James Baldwin said in his letter to Angela Davis after she was arrested: “What the Americans do not realize is that a war between brothers, in the same cities, on the same soil is not a racial war but a civil war. But the American delusion is not only that their brothers all are white but that the whites are all their brothers.” The point is that disenfranchised white Americans believe they are closer to Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and other millionaires than they are poor people of color, and it is harming them, and has harmed them historically. Conservatives are more likely to think wealth accumulation and success come from hard work and grit, when reality is that much of the wealth in the United States stems from the historical legacy of chattel slavery, white slave ownership, and racial discrimination.
The reason Metzl’s book is titled “Dying of Whiteness” is not for show. His research finds that as a result of voting for the policies and politicians they do to uphold whiteness, white people are dying. To be clear, it is not that policies start targeting White Americans more than they do others; it’s that the policies that whiteness supports to hold up white supremacy hurt everyone.
One of Metzl’s tensions in the book is the relationship between rural white men’s statistically significant rate of gun suicide in the state of Missouri, which has one of the most deregulated gun purchasing processes in the United States. Thus, in Missouri, advocating for fewer gun regulations has led to an increase in gun deaths from suicide, intimate partner violence, and accidental shootings. Men’s suicide rates tend to be higher than women’s due to their shrinking social circles and the minimization of male feelings due to patriarchy.
Men are expected to exude ‘masculinity’ in their everyday lives by negating emotions and adopting an aggressive attitude. Boys face ruthless bullying and cruelty from peers if they display sensitivity or other ‘feminine’ traits. As a result, they learn to suppress emotions and adopt a lifestyle that normalizes violence to live up to patriarchal gender constructs [56]. It has been long documented that men, on average, have a shorter lifespan than women. While some of this can be attributed to genetic and biological factors, it is also largely exacerbated by increased risk-taking behaviors and the consequent heightening of stress levels in men [57]. A large proportion of men exhibit signs of stunted emotional development, which eventually leads to difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships as adults.
Data indicates that another incredibly high risk factor for suicide and early death is a lack of educational attainment. Another fundamental case study in Metzl’s book is Kansas’ public education system. The author argues that many white conservatives vote for conservative policies related to minimizing spending on primary education and, as a result, lowering the life expectancy of their children. The data shows an 11% difference between those with high school or lower education and those who graduated from college/grad school in feeling close to others in their community. Those with lower education are more likely to feel isolated than those with a college education.
Beyond Individual Choices: The Systemic Nature of Disconnection
Here is the point of all the data. Metzl confirmed that some of the people in his study were willing to die for whiteness. However, he also showed glimpses into the doubts his participants experienced when they confronted their reality versus the promise of whiteness. Data points may work to sway you slightly, but for most folks who are ideologically attached to their beliefs, facts do not matter.
What makes a difference is connecting folks who have been disconnected from themselves and their histories back to their bodies. White supremacy dehumanizes at its very core. The problem is that many white populations assume they are excluded from this dehumanization, and they are not. Systematic racism, or racism that makes it into our policies, practices, forms, and social norms, increases our risk for disconnection. Poverty increases our risk for social disconnection, disability, single parenthood, and age as well. Let’s take a moment to think about what these communities have in common. It’s that they fall outside of the populations that white supremacy, colonization, capitalism, and other mechanisms of inequality have deemed worthy. The success of white supremacy has been convincing most White people that they are not included in these forms of social inequality. At the same time, their populations also suffer from social disconnection and isolation.
This is not to say that technology has not impacted our well-being. Some studies find that online connections are less beneficial to humans than offline connections. I merely want to draw a connection between more extensive structural mechanisms of individuality, social disconnection, and loneliness, which stem from our prioritization of profit over people (capitalism), our historical legacy of displacement and genocide (colonialism), and the need to emphasize difference across humans to sustain systems of power (racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, etc).
The Intersections of Social Isolation and Inequality
I have spent significant time discussing race because of its role in our social interactions and connections since the 2024 Presidential election. The emphasis on intervention through funding to challenge loneliness, social disconnection, and social isolation reveals a critical tension. Many people conceive of loneliness and social isolation as an individual issue, but our barriers to connection are systemic.
I want to acknowledge that no issue on this planet results from one mechanism. For example, I have mentioned how poverty is a risk factor for loneliness and social disconnection. The Department of Health and Human Services literature review on poverty acknowledges that specific communities are likelier to experience poverty than others. People living in rural areas, people with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQIA+ communities are more likely to experience poverty than others.
Respondents from the study and large federal and non-profit organizations agree with the importance of public spaces. The Healthy Places by Design organization completed a report with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding to create a more connected community. Their report captures how forced assimilation and movement of Indigenous Americans, racial bias, housing inequality, internet access, public space funding, transportation, safety, and incarceration are “system designs that lead to isolation.” One of their solutions to this epidemic of disconnection is creating inclusive public spaces that allow individuals of all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses to engage, resulting in increases in tolerance.
Another example of bias towards a group of people negatively impacting social connection is the fact that hostile architecture, or public space design deliberately created to keep out homeless people by limiting spaces for sitting or resting, operates as a barrier to effective social participation and connection. This disgust for people experiencing homelessness is another example of how inequality impacts our ability to connect, even if we are not the community experiencing the oppression ourselves. Our intentional isolation and stigmatization of communities and populations who fail to reach our expectations, directly contributes to social disconnection. If we took a moment to reflect on why our interactions with people who our society has failed reflect shame or disgust, it would likely reveal the underpinning of insecurity and fear that we could one day be in their shoes.
Cultural Humility and Personal Growth
I emphasize the structural mechanisms of social isolation and loneliness to tie our individual and community interactions to larger forces. The work does not stop with challenging social systems; we also need to shift our bodies and their reactions.
As a disabled person of color who grew up low-income, I have had a range of experiences that have shaped my ability to communicate. My experiences as a child and my education as an adult have opened me up to the realities of many while being able to hold on to my truths. I remember moments of severe isolation where I felt like the world’s weirdest human being. I would find out in my late 20s that I had both autism and ADHD, and this dramatically shaped how people perceived me alongside my brownness.
I was the perfect ADHD brown kid stereotype. I was never recommended for testing, but I was accused of being defiant, hyper, and a smartass. When individuals with more privilege interact with those who are different from them, cultural humility and empathy can be difficult. White teachers struggled to comprehend a world where I had ADHD, as most diagnostic criteria are for young white boys. However, despite these experiences as a kid, which I can recognize as bias and disconnection, I recreated some of the same dynamics in my relationships.
I have an excruciating memory from childhood, where I was sitting in the car with a family close to my father. These people who had welcomed me into their lives and whose daughters I was friends with got to listen to me say, “EW DOMINICANS.” As an adult with an education, I know much of the beef between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans is the interpersonal mirror for anti-blackness. They were kind to me at the moment and asked me who taught me that instead of assuming there was just an innate part of me that had a deep capacity for hatred.
I will not say that the people who parade around celebrating domination and racial hierarchy are incapable of hatred. If I believe in liberation, the movement away from punishment and punitive relationships, I must hold a version of the truth that folks can unlearn the same way I did. This does not free white men who do not want to associate with people of color and actively hate immigrants from accountability and the consequences of their racism. It expands the conversation beyond the self to determine how we teach people that, under these systems of oppression, there is no well-being or connection without the recognition of previous and ongoing harm toward those who are marginalized.
In workplaces and during training, I am often told I model authenticity. I come across as confident and sure of myself, but the first time I spoke at Take Back the Night; my voice shook as I mentioned I was a terrible victim of sexual assault as I stayed at the house with the man who raped me. I would spend the rest of the night thinking to myself while MCing the event, “I know the point is to normalize different experiences of sexual violence, but should I have said that?” My air of confidence may not be false, but it is propped up by fear and the decision to do it anyway.
Combatting the systemic forces and mechanisms that perpetuate harm towards all humans will require us to a) care even when we are not the people up for harm and b) sacrifice comfort for connection. A few years ago, my best friend of 20 years pulled me aside and mentioned how something I did in college negatively impacted her and our relationship. I remember how angry I was internally, from the shame I wanted to deflect. I apologized and listened quietly instead. The harm was real, and my ego was not worth the love and relationship we had built together.
Connection Across Difference
When I started writing this article, I thought about a song I heard on TikTok. Trans artist Sasha Allen wrote a song documenting coming out to his grandma about being trans. The lyrics feel increasingly relevant in a society filled with disconnect:
“My grandma grew up in the ’30s She’s a Catholic through and through I would have understood If she had been abrasive and confused She could have turned away And simply washed her hands of it Instead, she’s bragging to her friends How great her grandson is […] It makes me wonder Would it all change if we just sat down to speak? I’m not fed up with you for fearing something that you’ve never seen When people paint you a picture of who I am, supposedly It’s not surprising that you’re trying to not get too close to me”
In a world where Presidential Actions include dismissing the history of violence and inequality in the United States to embrace a false narrative of American exceptionalism, we must build new pathways for authentic connection. The crisis of loneliness we face isn’t just about individual choices or technology – it’s rooted in systems designed to separate us along lines of race, class, ability, and identity.
Genuine connection requires acknowledging these systemic barriers while doing the personal work of cultural humility and empathy. It demands creating more inclusive spaces where people can engage across differences and build genuine understanding. Most importantly, it asks us to recognize that no path to collective well-being doesn’t include addressing historical and ongoing harms while holding space for growth and transformation. Through this challenging but necessary work, our ability to communicate our struggles across our differences can emerge and flourish.
What’s Next?
There are several resources for parents of children they would like to raise anti-racist and videos on the importance of public spaces. There are actions you can take today to close the gap between communities by learning about the experiences of others and how they shape our social interactions. To get to a kinder, more connected world, we need to open our brains and our bodies to difference and get used to the discomfort. I’ve included some resources below to help start the process.
