Thread by @DrBrittaniJ

Get this.

Last night I, along with a coalition of Black physicians, met with the President and Senior Leadership of the AMA.

Here’s what went down:

A thread.

2/ They held their cards close. They started on the defense.

I expected that.

Most white folks clam up when Black folks enter the room meaning business.

They tend to assume the worst of us.

An MD doesn’t stop that.

3/ The theme of the conversation was straight talk, no chaser.

We told them, to start, that it wasn’t acceptable to distance themself from what happened at @JAMA_current.

JAMA is their house. If JAMA missteps, they are accountable.

The need for accountability was a big theme.

3/ We reminded them, as @rcg1812 put it, @AmerMedicalAssn has a legacy of “brutal racism”.

We told them, in so many words, that that “legacy” continues unchecked today.

And it’s killing Black and Brown folks in droves.

4/ When Martin Luther King Jr, famously said: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in Heath is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”

...he was responding to the “conspiracy of inaction” at the AMA.

Let that sink in.

5/ Just as the AMA barred Black physicians from their ranks well into the 60s, and vocally opposed the integration of hospitals...

6/ the AMA continues to ACTIVELY block the progress of racial justice in medical scholarship and practice — just as it continues to exclude people of color from its internal ranks.

Enough is enough.

7/ Together, we call upon the AMA to work toward a new legacy. A legacy befitting of its great name and powerful reach across the world.

8/ We call upon the AMA and the broader medical community to fight for the physical and mental health of Black and brown people as vehemently as they fight for that of white people.

9/ We call upon them to fight for the physical and mental health of transgender people as vehemently as they fight for that of cis people.

We call upon them to fight for the physical and mental health of the poor & working class as vehemently as they fight for that of the rich.

10/ We call on them to stop being ableist.

We call on them to stop being misogynist.

We call upon them to first protect the most vulnerable among us.

We call upon them to honor their most solemn oath:

First, do no harm.

11/ But beyond that, we call for healing.

Healing of the individual body, but also of the social body too.

12/ But here’s the thing:

As Black physicians, we know this truth: Black and brown bodies cannot be healed if their minds and bodies are being crushed by racism.

We can only be healed through justice.

It is the only way.

13/ That, above all else, is what we need the AMA and the white medical community to understand.

14/ We agreed to meet in a month’s time to check in on the AMA’s progress. We are beyond believing words.

We need action.

The lives of Black and brown people depend on it.

15/ We believe and hope that the AMA will rise to the occasion.

Leaving the initial meeting, I am hopeful.

But I, and my colleagues, also know the game of these Institutions well. We have lived the shared trauma of their empty promises so many times.

And so...we are watching.

Shout out to the amazing team of Black physicians who risked their careers to speak truth to Power.

Because we had to.

So proud to call you colleagues and friends.

@DrAlethaMaybank
@rcg1812
@innodim
@thenephrologist
@QaaliHussein1 @RamlaKasoziMD @DrBryanLeyva
Ijeoma Ekeruo

We won’t stop until this is done.