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Alders from the Health & Human Services Committee with members of the Racism As a Public Health Issue Working Group at Thursday’s hearing.
Alders heard ideas Thursday night about how to tackle racism’s public-health effects, and voted to affirm them.
Members of the Health & Human Services Committee unanimously approved a report from the Racism as a Public Health Issue Working Group to go before the full Board of Alders.
The vote took place at a committee hearing held online.
The working group’s report recommends that the city secure Covid-19 testing for all public school students and staff; rename the city’s Affirmative Action Commission as the Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with funding of $75,000; and guarantee healthful food for every student, three times a day, 365 days a year. That includes “providing ‘gap’ meals during times when children are out of school (such as vacations and summer breaks).”
The report also calls for the city to support free public transportation for all, including free access to CT Transit buses and better routes to work sites; and to create a community health workforce. This workforce would train New Haveners as mental health ambassadors and offer help in stress management and case management.
Other recommendations include:
• “Support for development of Black and Brown businesses, as well as expanding cash assistance under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
• “Continue implementing recommendations of the Alders’ Affordable Housing Task Force and support statewide advocacy efforts to reduce segregation by creating more affordable housing in affluent suburban towns.”
• “Reduce food apartheid and insecurity, both of which are related to low-cost and low-nutrient foods such as sugar-sweetened beverages which are disproportionately marketed to Black and Hispanic/Latinx communities causing negative health outcomes like obesity, hypertension).”
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“I must admit I’m slightly overwhelmed because we are the first city, might I say, probably in the country to not just declare racism as a public health issue, but to actually fast-forward comprehensive recommendations to move forward to the full Board of Alders,” said Upper Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen, Jr., who introduced the resolution to the Board of Alders in July.
Before Thursday night’s vote, the committee heard public testimony in support of the recommendations.
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Claudette Kidd walked through the history of scientific and medical racism as demonstrated by Samuel George Morton’s pseudoscientific phrenology, sterilization laws, and the case of Henrietta Lacks.
“With the history of what’s been put upon people of color from colonial times, this is why a lot of people in the community have fear when it comes to getting the vaccination for Covid and even the flu. This is all based on the systematic racism in the medical healthcare field,” Kidd said.
“We need to make changes, just to be treated as any other race when we go into a medical health center, that we get the same amount of time and the same amount of treatment. We need to make it today, we need to make it now.”
Thomas Breen Photo
Remidy Shareef at a 2019 anti-racism protest.
Remidy Shareef, director of outreach for violence prevention program Ice the Beef, also spoke in favor of the report’s recommendations. Through Ice the Beef, Shareef works with young people who have committed gun violence or are at risk of committing gun violence.
“In these meetings, I talk to them about racism and unfair obstacles that they face. One of the first steps to leaving violence behind is recognizing these obstacles and recognizing the frustration and anger that they cause,” Shareef said.
Shareef discussed how neighborhoods with more residents of color suffer from higher asthma rates, higher Covid-19 infection rates, higher unemployment rates, and shorter life expectancies. “Cities were not set up to give Black youth opportunities and hope. New Haven is a clear example. It is a city that has suffered from decades of segregated development.”
The working group report notes that communities of color in New Haven have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Thirty-three percent of New Haveners are Black/African American, 30 percent are Hispanic/Latinx, and 31 percent are white. Meanwhile, almost twice as many Black New Haveners, and two and a half times as many Hispanic/Latinx New Haveners, as white New Haveners have contracted Covid, based on known percentages. The working group report recommends the city ensure that Covid-19 vaccination outreach, education, and distribution be prioritized in communities of color.
“I’d feel remiss if I didn’t say that I think Yale has a real opportunity here to address racism as a public health crisis head-on and make testing more rightly available to New Haven residents. I think that in and of itself, although not a recommendation in this report, certainly would make a world of a difference given the new strains of this virus that are likely coming our way,” Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo added before the unanimous vote.
“I just simply want to say how powerful and how timely it is. It reinforces that we are the changes and the change that we are looking for in terms of changing systemic racism in this country,” Brackeen commented after the vote. “This committee and our working group have taken a hammer at systemic racism from our corner of the U.S. to dismantle it.”
And this is why we are a City who is projecting a 66 million dollar deficit. Meals 3 times a day, 365 days a year? Are you out of your freakin minds.
When you elect people so disconnected from reality who have no hesitation to piss away other people's money this is what you get.
And Brackeens full of himself comment say it all:
"This committee and our working group have taken a hammer at systemic racism from our corner of the U.S. to dismantle it."
No you didn't. You've done the same thing everyone else has done that has come before you. Came up with foolish ideas that take no self responsibility and decide to throw taxpayer money at it because you lack the ability to truly approach these issues.