On April 11, 2021, Duante Wright, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer, just miles from where George Floyd was murdered. In 2020, an average of three people were killed by the police every day of the year.
The highly respected medical journal, The Lancet, and the CDC both state that racism is a serious threat to public health. As healthcare professionals, we know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We need to direct more funds and efforts toward improving preventative systems, supporting communities, and advancing antiracism efforts, and away from policing and incarceration. Policing is supposed to protect, not threaten lives, and yet Black people are killed by police at 2.6 times the rate of white people. The constant stress and fear this causes as well as the trauma every time another person of color is killed, create long-term health harms. Mass incarceration adds to this burden by harming more than rehabilitating. We must reimagine and reform our social systems so that they protect public health.
We will explore these issues and more with expert guest speakers Zach Norris, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center, and Dr. Jennifer James, bioethics researcher, professor, and Black feminist scholar at UCSF. Please join us.
This online event is sponsored by San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility (SF Bay PSR), a nonprofit education and advocacy organization that combines the power of community activism with the knowledge and credibility of health professionals to promote public policies that support human and environmental health.
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