My family has COVID & the health authority told my mom that if her lips turn blue to go to the hospital. She’s Black. Her lips will not turn blue. This is how public health sets us up for poor health outcomes + nudges us towards death by operating with whiteness as the norm.
Wow thx all 💖 She got a pulse oximeter long before they got sick because she knows the drill, being a Black health scientist. ❗️Anti-Black racism is a public health issue. We’re ok but a Black person I know who could use some help has a GoFundMe here >>> gofundme.com/f/black-alumni…
To be clear, we live in BC 😬👍🏾Canada is a white supremacist state built on genocide and ongoing colonization, interested in dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their land. Indigenous peoples continue to experience violent systemic racism here #cdnpoli #JoyceEchaquan
At the nexus of tech/race/public health, pulse oximeters are not something to completely rely on either (she knew). None of these things are answers on their own and they serve to illuminate the different ways white supremacy shows up in healthcare bostonreview.net/science-nature…
Wow. My family seems to be doing a lot better, thankfully. And this damn tweet has not slowed down?? I have a pitch about it for the Twitterverse: 1/
I've been studying public health for 10yrs+ and in June began writing a piece about necropolitics, how Black people are positioned on a continuum closer to death by the police + public health failures, and how we're going to survive. Who will publish? 2/
This is pro-public health, pro-vaccine. It’s about the social determinants of health + how public health must act in the interests of people, not capitalism. We need care, not cops. The field of public health is positioned perfectly to disrupt the violence of systemic racism. 3/
Public health work was first conceived of as a type of medical police and has often harmed marginalized people. What does it mean when the institutional violence of policing and poor public health approaches converge upon Black people in a pandemic? And how do we push back? 4/
Systemic oppression and the health inequities it creates harm and kill people, not just Black people. And Canada is not special. In fact, I wrote my whole master’s thesis on this: open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collect… 5/
And a piece about tech, inequities and COVID, making reference to the work of @ruha9 and @safiyanoble ottawacitizen.com/opinion/barret… /6
And most recently, about Canada's national police force and the systemic racism that kills Black & Indigenous people thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/… /7
The original tweet is an example of how white supremacy + systemic racism manifest in small interactions with potentially large and devastating impacts. Race is a made up concept but it tangibly affects our lives daily from policing to public health 8/
See: Fatal Invention by @DorothyERoberts "Race is not a biological category that is politically charged. It is a political category that has been disguised as a biological one." Also, check out @policingblack and @DesmondCole 9/
Anyway, I'm out of this jabbering zoo and going to check on the fam. Take care out there pals ✌️🏾💖 /10
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