The video Unnatural Causes:
http://www.unnaturalcauses.
From: Martha
Matlaw
Last night, my video group watched "Unnatural Causes"
which is sort of like "Race: The Power of an Illusion" except that it
looks at structural racism and its relationship to health care as opposed to
housing/wealth. If you've never seen it, the video is AMAZING. There's
a 29 minute clip specifically about the impact of race on health, but all of
the dvd chapters are eye-popping. (ex: Another segment, "Place
Matters," clearly demonstrates how health and longevity directly
correspond to your street address.)
Anyway, it turns out that the Boston Health Commission has
identified structural racism as the number one health problem in the City of Boston, and they have
been doing AMAZING work with youth and the community in general. Their
staff receives ongoing antiracism training from ARC/Color Lines (see urls
below), and a number of neighborhood health centers have organized youth to
create multiracial "Race healing and reconciliation" teams. This
Thursday, one of the teams is facilitating a "a participatory activity that tests your ability to build an
equitable community in the face of systemic obstacles."
This initiative reminds me of
the work done by Deborah Prothrow-Stith in the 1990s (?or 80s), when she
defined violence as the number one health problem and then provided violence
prevention trainings and curriculum to educate and organize youth and the
community.
Here are some good statistics about racial inequities relating to
race and health in Boston:
