Cities declare racism a health crisis, but some doubt impact
Degallerie’s has become a priority for a growing number of local governments, many responding to a pandemic that’s amplified racial disparities and the call for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd and other black Americans. Since last year, about 70 cities, roughly three dozen counties and three states have declared racism a public health crisis, according to the American Public Health Association.
Local leaders say formally acknowledging the role racism plays not just in health care but in housing, the environment, policing and food access is a bold step, especially when it wasn’t always a common notion among public health experts. But what the declarations do to address systemic inequalities vary widely, with sceptics saying they are merely symbolic.
Kansas City, Missouri, and Indianapolis used their declarations to calculate how to dispense public funding. The mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, a mostly white community of roughly 40,000, used a declaration to make Juneteenth a paid city employee holiday. The Minnesota House passed a resolution vowing to “actively participate in the dismantling of racism”. Wisconsin’s governor made a verbal commitment, while governors in Nevada and Michigan signed public documents.
“It is only after we have fully defined the injustice that we can begin to take steps to replace it with a greater system of justice that enables all Michiganders to pursue their fullest dreams and potential,” Michigan Lt Governor Garlin Gilchrist II said in a statement.
Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County takes credit for being the first, with its May 2019 order. It acted because of sobering health disparities in Wisconsin’s most populous county, where nearly 70 per cent of the state’s black residents live. It’s the only county with a significantly higher poverty rate than the state average, 17.5 per cent, compared with 10.8 per cent statewide, according to a University of WisconsinMadison report.
County officials developed