Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This essay examines the relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and pain, assessing how social, legal, and regulatory responses to racial pain in the United States can enable further discrimination and compound the underlying pain. The essay articulates a conceptual framework for understanding this relationship, contending that: racial discrimination can contribute to pain severity and sensitivity; patients of color seeking pain relief are subject to heavy social scrutiny, including from their medical providers; social scrutiny and regulatory restriction together limit patients’ lawful avenues for pain relief, including their access to controlled substances that are used to manage pain; patients who engage in self-help when denied adequate pain relief face criminalization and further limits on the management of their pain; and the weight of this scrutiny, restriction, and penalization are likely to compound and sustain the painful effects of racial discrimination. In offering this framework, the essay conceptualizes both racial discrimination as a source of pain and pain as a factor that enables subsequent discrimination. This conceptualization thus underscores the significant role of failed pain management policies in facilitating racial discrimination and draws attention to the underacknowledged anti-subordination potential of effective pain management law, regulation, and policy as a tool for intervening in the complex pathways to racial discrimination.
Recommended Citation
Alice Abrokwa,
Regulating the Pains of Racial Discrimination,
18
St. Louis U. J. Health L. & Pol'y
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/jhlp/vol18/iss1/3