Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: The Impact of Racism on Black Well-Being in Audre Lorde’s “Eulogy for Alvin Frost” and Kamilah Aisha Moon’s “Fannie Lou Hamer”
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Authors
Kennedy Mullens
Issue Date
2026
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Abstract
Believe it or not, it is possible to die from stress. In fact, scientists have developed a term for it: allostatic load. Allostatic load refers to biological stress that one accumulates over time, and it has been known to increase stress responses within the body, causing issues like high blood pressure and cholesterol. As you may well know, such issues contribute to much larger health problems, including heart, liver, and kidney disease. What you may not have known is that Black folk are disproportionately affected by allostatic load, with Black men and women at risk of high levels of allostatic load more than ten years before their white counterparts (Geronimus et al. 828). This idea is addressed in Audre Lorde’s poem “Eulogy for Alvin Frost” in which Lorde expressed tremendous grief and anger at the premature deaths of Black men in her community. Similarly, Kamilah Aisha Moon alludes to her own experience with physiological stress in her poem “Fannie Lou Hamer.” Both poems also address the emotional and social impacts of living in an anti-Black racist society as both poets navigate a world in which they are deemed untrustworthy and incompetent by biased stereotypes and systemic institutions. In this project, I consider the impacts of anti-Black racism on the social, emotional, and physical health of Black individuals as demonstrated in Audre Lorde's “Eulogy for Alvin Frost” and Kamilah Aisha Moon’s “Fannie Lou Hamer” in relation to the impacts discussed in graduate and professional research on allostatic load and cultural and systemic racism.