THREAD
1/ A very important critique to my recent @NPRGoatsandSoda piece on the need for people from wealthy countries working in #globalhealth to dismantle their own power was this:
Why was this not authored by someone from a LMIC?
It’s a great point.
npr.org/sections/goats…
1/ A very important critique to my recent @NPRGoatsandSoda piece on the need for people from wealthy countries working in #globalhealth to dismantle their own power was this:
Why was this not authored by someone from a LMIC?
It’s a great point.
npr.org/sections/goats…
2/ This brings up a critical question of whose voices are most prominently heard in western media outlets, and why.
The unfair reality is that it is often those who are already in positions of privilege, like myself, who get to write and publish. Let’s call it out right here.
The unfair reality is that it is often those who are already in positions of privilege, like myself, who get to write and publish. Let’s call it out right here.
3/ Western media is not exempt from the colonialism that we see in #globalhealth- it’s an extension and perpetuation of it. While my intention was to connect w/ Western colleagues to say “most of us are thinking about/doing #globalhealth wrong”, a more important voice is missing.
4/ IMO, that is the voice of the people actually at the receiving-end of #globalhealth- those who have no access to Twitter to even be in this conversation; for whom English is not a first language, if a language at all. Even w/in LMIC, there is huge in-country inequity.
5/ Many colleagues in LMICs who spend most of their days fighting the fight for equity on the ground level, have told me how hard it is to even approach writing or publishing in Western media. English is a huge part of this. *Language is/always has been a tool of exclusion.*
6/ It’s not the whole story- even LMIC colleagues who are fluent in English are excluded, no doubt, which is likely a multitude of the neocolonialist forces we’ve been discussing. It’s part of the same problem. But language is not trivial- language inequity is critical.
7/ The voices from LMICs and from the USA who get to speak, tweet, write etc are all in a position of relative privilege- bc there are people w/ even less power who I know are still not part of this conversation. Many of them are the patients I’ve taken care of here and abroad.
8/ I’m very curious to hear from editors of Western media outlets who are in positions of power to actually do something about this. How do we amplify voices that still aren’t heard?
@NickKristof @MalakaGharib @LaurenWeberHP @Laurie_Garrett @juliaoftoronto @LisaRosenbaum17
@NickKristof @MalakaGharib @LaurenWeberHP @Laurie_Garrett @juliaoftoronto @LisaRosenbaum17
Point to remember- many, if not most, people from HICs are coming from a conservative, white, Christian lens. They are not thinking about #globalhealth at all, let alone about “decolonizing” it. I’m a brown man in America. I too am not the messenger that most Americans relate to.
