Hundreds of medical students and staff stage die-in at UNM
Event focused on racial disparities
Future health care workers at the University of New Mexico are fighting two enemies on the same battlefield: racism and COVID-19.
Around 200 medical students and staff staged a die-in Thursday afternoon at the Health Sciences Library to bring attention to racial disparities within the medical community and to honor George Floyd, the man killed in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Several of the demonstrators lay face down on the ground for 8 minutes and 46 seconds
— the length of time a police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, killing him. Others kneeled. Some prayed.
Alexis Gough, a third-year medical student at UNM, helped organize the event.
“In order to address the systemic racism in our medical field, we have to take it on as a society … the best way to combat that is to have open, honest and long discussions with one another,” Gough said.
After the die-in, participants began chanting “I can’t breathe.”
Organizers of the event called on UNM administrators to meet with them within 72 hours to address concerns about the underrepresentation of Native Americans and African Americans in the medical field.
They also asked that officials withdraw funding, if UNM Hospital provides any, to the Albuquerque Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or New Mexico’s correctional institutions. And they’re asking officials to support “racialbased” data collection to show how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting indigenous and black communities.
“We fully expect that the university will be receptive to our concerns and we’re excited to see how that materializes,” Gough said.
Hours later, a group of around 100 demonstrators marched through Nob Hill, chanting and waving signs in another night of protests on Albuquerque streets.