At Mercer University, they’re concerned about health.
Hence, the Mason, Georgia college’s director of Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives has pinpointed a “public health crisis”: racism.
In an article published on school news site The Den, Dr. Ansley Booker says the judging of people according to skin color has become an emergency.
She notes she’s not alone:
Across the country, local and state leaders are declaring racism a public health crisis or emergency. These declarations are an important first step to advancing racial equity and justice and must be followed by allocation of resources and strategic action, according to the American Public Health Association.
Only two Georgia governments have announced the same — there’s a great need to “educate Georgians on this health crisis.”
As for an area of said emergency’s emanation, Ansley fingers maternity:
Rural Black women have double the maternal mortality rate of rural white women, according to research conducted by Dr. Jacob Warren, Rufus Harris Endowed Chair and director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities, a National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence within the Mercer School of Medicine. Dr. Warren’s research has also established that no rural county in Georgia has a maternal-fetal specialist — a doctor who helps care for pregnant patients who are having complications or high-risk pregnancies.
Additionally, minorities “suffer greater racial disparities in food insecurity when compared to their white, non-Hispanic counterparts.”
For example, the rate of food insecurity in the white, non-Hispanic population is 7.1% versus 17.2% for Hispanics and almost 22% for non-Hispanic Black people. That is three times the rate as compared to white people.
It also noted that almost 19% of the state of Georgia, or about 2 million people, including 500,000 children, live in areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy products and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet. We call those areas food deserts.
And nonwhites are more likely to suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease:
In the United States, COPD is the fourth leading cause of death. … Communities within the lowest socio-economic status are 14 times more likely to have a respiratory disease such as asthma, tuberculosis and lung cancer.
Furthermore, she asserts redlining relegates “Black, indigenous, Hispanic and other minority neighborhoods” to “areas with poorer land quality, less access to healthy foods and voter disenfranchisement.”
If I accurately understand, they’re made to drink and smoke:
Even when controlling for factors of social determinants of health, research shows socio-economic status disproportionately impacts certain communities. Black and Hispanic individuals, even those with high education levels, had higher exposures to secondhand smoke and were more likely to engage in tobacco or alcohol consumption, possibly explaining the higher incidence of COPD in these populations.
We’re living in revelational times. Ubiquitously, there’s tremendous talk of “structural racism”:
Elite College Announces It Will Help Rid White Churches of Their Systemic Racism
In Order to Attack ‘Systemic Racism,’ a School Eliminates Failure and Time Constraints
American Psychiatry Association Condemns the ‘Structural Racism’ Murder of George Floyd
Air Force Academy Professor Defends Teaching Critical Race Theory and ‘Structural Racism’ to Cadets
Professor Preaches Parenting to Parents: School Your White Preschoolers on Structural Racism
The Commander-in-Chief concurs:
Joe Biden Admits ‘Systemic Racism’ is ‘In Everything We Do’
Biden Commissions the Class of 2021: Rise up and ‘Root out Systemic Racism’
If racism is doubtlessly embedded into America’s systems, such could only be known if it has been discovered. And if the jig is up, it would seem easy to call out the mechanisms and simply remove them at once.
Yet, for Joe Biden and others so far, mum’s the word.
Surely at some point, someone will break the silence.
Meanwhile, we’re being robustly informed of structural racism’s egregious effects.
Is racial prejudice the reason select people are smoking and drinking, and possibly developing COPD as a result?
According to Dr. Ansley Booker, yes.
Once the presumably-upcoming whistleblower emerges, America’s public health crisis will hopefully be ended for good.
-ALEX
See more content from me:
Report: University Schools Midwifery Students on the Handling of the Birthing Penis
A Ghost Reminds Six Students of a KKK Equestrian, and That Alone May Unsaddle a $100,000 Statue
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