THREAD: #Data4BlackLives Movement Pulse Check and #COVID19 Roundtable

First of all, welcome! We are so glad you joined us today.

Please use our hashtags ( #Data4BlackLives and #d4bl) to join the conversation!

Before we dive into our discussion on structural racism and epidemiology and organizing around public health, @YESHICAN, executive director and co-founder of #Data4BlackLives, encourages us to take a moment of silence to honor the lives lost due to #COVID19.

@YESHICAN: We've lost so many people but we have to remember that everyone that we've lost has joined the realm of ancestors. They are with us here and now, guiding us forward.

@YESHICAN: There will be many calls to action on this webinar, one of which is that their lives and death were not in vain. This is about long-term change, not short-term reform.

Our future survival depends on our ability to make radical demands.

A quick intro to the #Data4BlackLives team:
- Stacy, Director of Operations
- Nicole, Director of Policy
- @lucasmasonbrown, Co-Founder
- @JamelleWD, Director of Research
- Tara from Purpose Productions ( @KwanzaaKid)

Kicking us off is Dr. Irene Headen, Assistant Professor of Black Health in the Department of Community Health and Prevention at @drexelpubhealth.

Today, she'll be talking about #COVID19 disproportionate impact on Black Folks, specifically on systems of racism as a root cause.

Black communities are disproportionately impacted (infections and deaths) by #COVID19 across a number of states. Not all states have been collecting these data by race (see our tracker here: https://twitter.com/YESHICAN/status/1247961689741496387?s=20)

Chronic conditions disproportionately impact black communities. But this does not capture why or how these inequities persist - which we know to be racism.

Racism in the inability to access care or insurance, in diagnoses and medical testing, and in the QUALITY of care.

And we know that racism as a root cause is not just in healthcare. It's embedded in the labor market, housing, and transportation.

It doesn't operate in silos but rather connects across these domains, reinforcing and amplifying the impact of this oppression.

#Data4BlackLives

It's not just structural racism, but the system CREATED by structural racism that has to be called out and reimagined.

#Data4BlackLives

#COVID19 data must be collected by race. That's not a question. But we also have to account for racism in order to inform an effective response.

#Data4BlackLives

Dr. Headen leaves us with three main takeaways as we respond to #COVID19:

1. Black folks must be guiding data collection efforts, interpretation, analysis and use
2. The work of Black organizations must be uplifted
3. Black communities must not only be heard but centered

Next up, @zinzinator presents how racism impacts #COVID19: from prevention to survival.

Starting with prevention, we know that hand washing, social distancing, and other common preventative measures are NOT one-size-fits-all.

#Data4BlackLives

@zinzinator: Black and Native folks are disproportionately represented in communities and housing conditions where keeping distance and access to clean water (like in Flint, MI) is difficult.

#Data4BlackLives

What about exposure to #COVID19 and access to testing?

POC are much more likely to be less protected "essential workers" mandated to work. Additionally, severe inadequacies in testing and surveillance disproportionately burden communities of color.

#Data4BlackLives

@zinzinator: On top of that, undercounting infections and deaths (silent epidemics) is likely even more pronounced among marginalized race groups.

#Data4BlackLives

@zinzinator: What about treatment and survival from #COVID19?

Pre-existing conditions, criteria for prioritizing resources and pre-existing racial bias disadvantage Black folks.

#Data4BlackLives

For more details on @zinzinator work, check out "Racism in the Time of COVID-19" (for @black_epi):

https://iaphs.org/racism-in-the-time-of-covid-19/

#Data4BlackLives

Most of the Black population in the U.S. is in the South, many in states that did not expand Medicaid. The long-term medical and financial impacts of #COVID19 will hit POC much harder.

#Data4BlackLives

@zinzinator: As we move forward with antibody testing, we need to be aware of how that might be weaponized in our communities.

#Data4BlackLives

Dominique Day, vice-chair of the @UNHumanRights Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent ( https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Racism/WGAfricanDescent/Pages/WGEPADIndex.aspx) is speaking next on how #COVID19 response is racialized.

Stress, speed, and lack of sleep make existing racial bias in decision-making even worse. This kind of unfettered discretion affects physicians, policymakers, police, and politicians.

Who gets turned away for treatment? Who gets stopped for not wearing masks?

#Data4BlackLives

These are things we knew before the #COVID19 crisis. Tools could have been provided to health care workers to mitigate this bias, but there hasn't been an appetite for that conversation.

WE need to be having these conversations in our communities.

#Data4BlackLives

For example, an email was leaked last week from the head of the NYU hospital: "...[we] don't have the luxury of time, data, or committees to help with our critical triage decisions".

Sole discretion like this is the playbook for institutional racism.

#Data4BlackLives

The racialized, anti-Black response to #COVID19 is a GLOBAL concern too. There is a clear link to the historical context for institutionalized racism: trade and trafficking in enslaved Africans and colonialism.

Black folks are not disposable.

#Data4BlackLives

For example, in France, medical leaders proposed testing Africans, and in China, Black folks were signaled out for evictions and forced testing, because they were thought to be "importing" #COVID19 to China.

#Data4BlackLives