By Zachery Williams, Lashale Pugh, Dawn Pullin and Yvonka Hall
The Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition is a social justice organization created to address the impact of racism on African-American disparities including policy inequities, historical trauma, food insecurity , research, behavioral health and addiction services by working to empower, educate and advocate for health equity in under-served communities.
The African American Policy Committee (AAPC) of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition is a committee consisting of public, private and community members working to identify, understand and collaborate around issues to change and influence policies related to black health. The AAPC was created because racism has been declared a public health crisis in a number of local and state municipalities. In response to the growing frequency of these declarations, the AAPC believes that the only way we can effectively address these structural dilemmas of systemic health disparities is through changes to policies that are fundamentally racist in origin, intent and application.
The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Public Health Association have declared racism to be a public health crisis. Across the nation, there appears to be a growing national movement emerging. In addition to the racial wealth gap, there is a parallel racial health gap that has impacted the ability of African Americans to achieve the Declaration of Independence’s mandate of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Concerted action is required at all levels of society and government to adequately address the challenges we have allowed to fester for generations. The racial health gap is not relegated to one region. This is indeed an American dilemma.
The American dilemma around racism against African Americans in the matter of public health is as old as the democracy itself. Further impacting this crisis are interlocking conundrums stemming from mass incarceration, environmental racism, and housing and educational suppression. Only comprehensive solutions can cure what ails African-American communities, from east to west, north to south, and sea to shining sea.
The recent events involving right-wing extremists attempting to take over the Capitol is just part of a long trajectory of the role of white supremacists acting as domestic terrorists, a reality that African Americans painfully know all too well. For far too long, our nation has been in a state of denial about its responsibilities to make its wounded citizens whole, including African Americans, Native Americans, Japanese and Chinese Americans, women, LGBTQ Americans, etc. Instead of speaking to what is apparent to everyone, White America has pretended that the magnitude of the problem was not as bad as it seemed, sought to place blame on the victimized, and even, as a University of Virginia study suggested, propose that African Americans and other Americans of color had the inability to feel pain.
Merely having a conversation around the issue of racism in public health, as with race in America in general, is not enough to eradicate the American dilemma without a serious and sustainable commitment to structural policy change, backed by serious institutionalized economic support. In the words of the memoir of the late historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, this call is a “mirror to America.”
As Youngstown, OH native Dr. Ron Daniels says about Black America, the United States is also in a state of emergency. As the old adage goes, when the nation catches a cold, African Americans catch pneumonia. Well, in the age of COVID-19, African Americans have borne the brunt of America’s disease, from 1619 to now. It is high time that this nation take the wool from over its eyes and attend to the needs of arguably its most loyal and committed citizens, even as they have had to struggle at every turn just to acquire and maintain membership in the American family.
Our goal with the African American Policy Committee is to encourage all those who will, to come to the table to seek out solutions rooted in public policy that will help solve these myriad crises facing African-American communities in Northeast Ohio. As we seek to address these long-standing dilemmas, we will also partner with others around the country seeking to address similar matters.
Come join our effort. The AAPC meets the first Monday of every month from 2-3pm.
18115 Harvard Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44128
216- 295-0283
neobhc@gmail.com