Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a statement suggesting that Black people may have a genetically different immune response and also have a higher tolerance for pain. This kind of ignorance references long-standing medical justifications for discrimination and mistreatment of Black people within healthcare.
During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation hearing on January 30, Angela Alsobrooks, Democratic senator from Maryland, questioned him about his past remarks suggesting that Black people have stronger immune systems than white people and should follow a different vaccine schedule. “What different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received?” Alsobrooks, who is Black, asked him. Kennedy responded by citing a “series of studies” that he claimed show Black people have a stronger immune response to certain antigens. There has been no medical evidence to support this.
Watching this raised all the red flags and disturbing concerns, as it highlighted how someone with medically racist views is now the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Historically, Black people have faced systemic racism in healthcare, from being subjected to unethical medical experimentation (like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study) to being denied proper care due to biased assumptions about pain tolerance and health. The perpetuation of harmful theories about Black people’s bodies and immune systems can undermine trust in medical institutions, potentially discouraging individuals from seeking care and exacerbating health disparities.
Unfortunately, I see mistrust in my own family. From my dad to older uncles and aunts — they have very little faith in doctors or the healthcare system as a whole. They don’t trust what is being told to them and certainly don’t trust medications or treatments. My mother-in-law is in her 70s and went to the doctor for severe shoulder pain and a swollen hand. After waiting over eight hours in the emergency room, she was given pain reliever and sent home. The doctor called the next day to tell her she had a urinary tract infection — which was not true. There was no mention of what she went to the ER for.
The myth that Black people have a higher pain tolerance than white people may be due to a significant number of medical professionals believing that Black people have thicker skin than white people. A 2016 study highlighted that Black people receive pain treatment less frequently than white people. When they receive treatment, they tend to receive lower doses of pain medication.
In 2012, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found doctors with “unconscious racial biases tend to dominate conversations with African-American patients,” ignoring patient needs causing mistrust, discomfort, and a decreased likelihood to return for necessary follow-ups. In my mother-in-law’s case, she’ll never return.
Medical racism is the ongoing discrimination and bias within the medical field based on race, often resulting in unequal treatment and poorer health outcomes for marginalized racial groups. The roots of medical racism can be traced back to colonialism, slavery, and the exploitation of Indigenous and African peoples.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, European colonizers used pseudoscientific theories like phrenology and craniometry to justify the enslavement of African people and the mistreatment of Indigenous populations, claiming these groups were biologically inferior. These ideas were perpetuated by medical professionals and academics.
In the United States, medical racism became entrenched during slavery, with Black people often treated as experimental subjects. One of the most well-known examples is the forced medical experimentation on enslaved Black women by Dr. J. Marion Sims, known as the “father of modern gynecology.” Sims’ research was conducted on enslaved Black women without using any anesthesia.
After the Civil War and into the 20th century, Black people were frequently denied access to quality healthcare such as discriminatory practices like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Henrietta Lacks. Even today, medical racism continues to manifest in disparities in treatment, outcomes, and access to healthcare, largely due to both historical inequities and ongoing biases in the healthcare system.
If a doctor’s views on race don’t influence their perceptions of Black pain, what does?
Racist misconceptions about Black people’s tolerance for pain and suffering has helped rationalize centuries of cruelty and brutality against Black people. Because pain can present itself in many ways, its management remains at the medical professional’s discretion — which creates an opportunity for biased decisions. The media has perpetuated stereotypes associating Black people with drug abuse, and medical professionals need to recognize their resultant preconceptions.
The notion of Black immunity to pain is a form of magical thinking, grounded in deeply ingrained and scientifically unfounded beliefs that dehumanize Black people. What is most disturbing about what Kennedy said is the implications that mindset holds for the medical undertreatment of Black people or the way those attitudes affect everything from policing to violence against Black women.
It shouldn’t be lost on us how these ideas about pain — who is and isn’t capable of feeling it, and whose pain does and doesn’t deserve recognition — go beyond the physical. The harmful belief that Black people are less affected by pain than white people goes beyond just the physical body. It reaches deep down into other areas where Black suffering is also perceived not to go.
The need to constantly reiterate Black humanity is exhausting and infuriating. Pain is universal, and no community is uniquely immune. Ignoring Black pain produces more pain, and as long as white America refuses to see it, no change will come.
