Shadow Politics
Shadow Politics is a grass roots talk show giving a voice to the voiceless. For more than 200 years the people of the Nation's Capital have ironically been excluded from the national political conversation. With no voting member of either house of Congress, Washingtonians have lacked the representation they need to be equal and to have their voices heard. Shadow Politics will provide a platform for them, as well as the millions of others nationwide who feel politically disenfranchised and disconnected, to be included in a national dialog.
We need to start a new conversation in America, one that is more inclusive and diverse and one that will lead our great nation forward to meet the challenges of the 21st century. At Shadow Politics, we hope to get this conversation started by bringing Americans together to talk about issues important to them. We look forward to having you be part of the discussion so call in and join the conversation. America is calling and we're listening… Shadow Politics is about America hearing what you have to say. It's your chance to talk to an elected official who has spent more than 30 years in Washington politics. We believe that if we start a dialog and others add their voices we will create a chorus. Even if those other politicians in Washington don't hear you — Senator Brown will. He's on a mission to listen to what America has to say and use it to start a productive dialog to make our democracy stronger and more inclusive. If we are all part of the solution we can solve any problem.
Guest, Dr. Jonathan Metzl
Jonathan Metzl is an acclaimed physician and sociologist who speaks, teaches, and writes on a range of topics including mental illness and gun violence, race and whiteness in America, health and healthcare, and diversity and structural competency in higher education.
Jonathan Metzl is the author of the groundbreaking book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, the book is an in-depth look at why many working-class white Americans support politicians whose policies are literally killing them.
Being a gun violence expert, professor, and psychiatrist is a unique combination that allows Dr. Metzl to speak and write about gun violence in America, and in particular to address stereotypes that link guns with race or mental illness, or that blame mental illness for mass shootings and other gun crimes.
The topic is the focus of Dr. Metzl’s most recent book, What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection. By looking at a racially-charged mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, What We’ve Become reexamines how we as a nation address gun violence.
Jonathan M. Metzl MD, PhD, is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and the director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He received his MD from the University of Missouri, MA in humanities/poetics and psychiatric internship/residency from Stanford University, and PhD in American culture from University of Michigan. Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, the 2020 APA Benjamin Rush Award for Scholarship, and a 2010 Guggenheim fellowship, Dr. Metzl has written extensively about the relationships between guns, mass shootings, and mental illness. His books include The Protest Psychosis, Prozac on the Couch, Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland, and What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms.
Awards
Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
Benjamin Rush Award for Scholarship from the American Psychiatric Association
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
Missouri Library Association Book Prize
Carlson Award, Weill Cornall Medicine Department of Psychiatry, In Recognition of Contributions to the History of Psychiatry
Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research
100 Must-Read Books About The History of Medicine
Top 10 books about being poor in America
