Dr. Yolonda Wilson: “Squaring the Circle, Or How I Became a Black Woman Scholar”

Dr. Yolonda Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include bioethics, social and political philosophy, race theory, and feminist philosophy. She is broadly interested in the nature and limits of the state’s obligations to rectify historic and continuing injustice, particularly in the realm of health care, and is developing an account of justice that articulates specific requirements for racial justice in health care at the end of life.

Her article, “Intersectionality in Clinical Medicine: The Need for a Conceptual Framework,” is a consideration on applying intersectionality’s intellectual approach (how race, gender, and other social identities converge in order to create unique forms of oppression) in the clinical environment. Professor Wilson was the lead editor of a forthcoming special issue of The Journal of Social Philosophy entitled Exploring Racial Injustice. Her article, “A Postmortem on Postraciality,” appears in that issue. Dr. Wilson has also worked on a monograph, "Black Death: Racial Justice, Priority-Setting, and Care at the End of Life." She uses racial disparities in end of life care to argue that, "given historic and continuing racial injustice leading to African Americans being unfairly burdened with ill health, African Americans have a special justice claim on health care."