1/ I am so proud of my mentor @ChiTrust's Dr. @HeleneGayle. Thank you @BillNye for inviting Helene to speak on our parallel crises: the #COVID #coronavirus pandemic and #racism. stitcher.com/podcast/scienc… #RacismIsAPublicHealthCrisis #BlackLivesMatter #BLM
2/ Comparing protesters who’re wearing masks, who’re marching outside, protesting against another public health emergency – to compare them with protesters crowded in statehouses, armed to the gills, not wearing masks? That’s FALSE EQUIVALENCE.
3/ If you’re outside and wearing a mask, your risk of contributing to #COVID #coronavirus transmission is exceedingly low.
4/ But what we need to be talking about are these twin public health emergencies. One’s new, so it’s been news. The other is old, so it's taken not 1 but 3 egregious killings—#GeorgeFloyd, #AhmaudArbery, #BreonnaTaylor—one after the other after the other… to get our attention.
5/ Racism is a public health emergency. And it’s not just about interpersonal racism, which is alive and well. It’s also about structural racism, the kind that’s baked into our laws and institutions.
5/ Here’s one example. In the '30s FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act. Guess who was left out of those health and safety protections on the job? Agricultural workers & domestic workers, who were and remain overwhelmingly POC.
6/ Here’s one example. In the 1930s, when FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act, guess who was left out of those health and safety protections on the job? Agricultural workers and domestic workers, who were and remain overwhelmingly POC.
7/ It was a bargain made with southern lawmakers to get the law passed. So is it any accident that we’ve now got huge outbreaks in places like meatpacking plants? Not at all.
8/ And here’s another example. Why do we insist on tying health insurance to employment in this country… and not all jobs… jobs that are QUOTE good jobs… jobs that are overwhelmingly white jobs. Why are certain kinds of work deserving of health insurance but not others?
9/ Because it’s white work. Why are we so opposed to expanding access to Medicaid… a minimal form of health insurance… in much of the country? Because we’d be giving QUOTE undeserving POC health insurance.
10/ And so now, who doesn’t have health insurance in the middle of a pandemic? POC. That’s structural racism. And it’s a public health emergency. #RacismIsAPublicHealthCrisis
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