The Huffington Post, February 8, 2017: Dr. Mary Bassett: We Must ‘Name Racism’ As A Cause of Poor Health
“There are many well-meaning and well-trained public health practitioners who disagree from the outset that we must name racism. That argument will sometimes claim that the very essence of public health is about helping people, pointing to increased lifespans and decreased infectious disease outbreaks over time. Their argument will at other times claim that we don’t want to muddy the clear waters of public health with the messy politics of race, that this sort of a topic is best left to protesters, opinion editorials and campaign stump speeches. I have also heard the claim that identifying racism opens this Pandora’s Box of problems that our modest field cannot hope to address comprehensively – that identifying racism hoists too heavy a burden. Last, there are those who say that racism is not the core issue, but instead poverty. We cannot fix racism, but we can fix poverty.”