The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said that racism in the United States is “serious threat” that structurally impacts racial and ethnic groups, including where they live, work and gather in a community.
“Confronting the impact of racism will not be easy,” Director of the CDC and Peabody native Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “I know that we can meet this challenge. I know that we can create an America where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy life. I know that we can do this if we work together. ”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC labeled racism an epidemic.
The pandemic thus far has disproportionately affected communities of color. Those communities have experienced higher numbers of infections and deaths linked to the virus.
“The disparities seen over the past year were not a result of COVID-19,” Walensky said. “Instead, the pandemic illuminated inequities that have existed for generations and revealed for all of America a known, but often unaddressed, epidemic impacting public health: racism.”
CDC expanded the definition of racism beyond discrimination but said it also included the structural affects it has on communities. The CDC said over generations systemic inequities have resulted in “stark racial and ethnic health disparities.”
“Confronting the impact of racism will not be easy,” Walensky said. “We must recognize that we are working to overcome centuries of discrimination. We will only be successful in undoing the entrenched systemic and structural barriers if we work in collaboration with our public health partners, and deeply within our communities, across the country.”
In addressing racism, the CDC shared an interactive map created by the American Public Health Association that depicts communities in the United States that have declared racism a public health crisis or emergency. Currently, there are 170 declarations nationwide, including 19 in Massachusetts.
Only California with 27 and Ohio with 25 have more declarations within a state.
The CDC plans to address the crisis in a number of ways.
The agency plans to continue studying the impact of social determinants on public health and share the evidence on how racism affects pubic health.
Through COVID funding, the CDC plans to expand investments in racial and ethnic minority communities that are disproportionately affected by COVID or other health conditions.
The agency also is expanding its efforts to foster greater diversity within the CDC.
Finally, the federal agency is launching a web portal called “Racism and Health,” to serve as a catalyst for public and scientific discourse around racism and health.
“I know that we can meet this challenge,” Walensky said. “I know that we can create an America where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy life. I know that we can do this if we each take responsibility and work together.”
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Of course Racism is a health threat. The Black community hates White people so much they riot, destroy businesses, and attack White people for no reason, other than racism that permeates the Black community like a plague! The NAACP is nothing, if not a racist organization! Without racism the NAACP could not exist, which is why the NAACP promotes racism at every opportunity to do so. We have no White Congressional Caucus, but we do have a Black Congressional Caucus. Black leaders must promote racism to keep themselves employed and rich. It is no more complicated than that. Black people are more racist that are White people!
ITS not just whites they attack. Blacks seem to attack EVERYONE.. EVEN OTHER BLACKS>
So ,since so many black people die at the hands of other black people are black people a public health threat?
That’s racist for speaking facts… How dare you… OFF to the re-education camps!
If the CDC is going to start getting involved in stuff like this , which doesn’t seem to be in its job description, WHEN is CDC going to start addressing mental disorders….like the one called “liberalism”?
The destruction of the black family is the root of many of the problems in the black community and liberal policies like Aid to Families with Dependent Families had a LOT more to do with that than “racism”!
FACT: Slavery did less to destroy the black family than decades of well intentioned but destructive left wing social policies.
FACT: Harlem used to be a black middle class neighborhood.
FACT: The black out of wedlock birth rate is much higher now than it was at the beginning of the last century…35 years after the end of slavery!
The policies of the Left destroy everything they touch!
Democrats still haven’t forgiven Abe Lincoln and his GOP for destroying their perfect social system of dependents!
To start with, what credentials does “Rochelle Walensky” have to be a expert on what racism is and what the ultimate plan is to cure it. She could learn a lot about it if she talked to Joe Biden about it, he is one of the biggest “Racists” on the planet. I am tired of hearing about fraudulent claims of White Supremacist and Institutional racism. This is all B.S. This is no more than Democrats repeating one lie after the other so gullible voters will continue to vote for them.
The progressives are the racists, and in fact the most racist group outside the KKK I have ever seen in this country. The 87% who are not negro, comprise all the other races in the world. I am not saying that the 13% are not important, just that they are after all only 13%.