Racism is a Public Health Issue: Examining the Impact of Police Brutality on Black Communities in the Age of COVID-19

When news of a novel coronavirus arrived in the United States in early January, xenophobia was not far behind. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, reports of racist attacks against Asian Americans increased. As the number of confirmed cases exploded in America, racial disparities in health outcomes became starker. The hardest hit are often Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities—many of whom are essential workers. Before and throughout the pandemic, Black and Brown people across the nation have continued to be murdered at harrowing and unacceptable rates by the police. Join For Freedoms, GYOPO, LACMA, and StopDiscriminAsian (SDA) for the second in a series of lively virtual conversations about the pandemic’s impact on the movement for racial justice, and the country’s long standing health, economic, and racial inequities.

Racism is killing Black people in America—both by fueling police violence against them and by propelling adverse socioeconomic conditions that contribute to serious health issues. The killings of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and many other Black people are visceral reminders that racism drives inequities among historically marginalized populations nationwide. Not only are Black people killed by police at an extraordinarily disparate rate as compared to white people, but their health and well-being are also negatively affected by environmental exposures, limitations in access to health care, and other factors. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the inequities even further, with Black communities seeing three times the rate of infection—and six times the rate of death—as white populations.

Join us for the second conversation in the series “Racism is a Public Health Issue” as we discuss the ways in which racism and discrimination create chronic physical and emotional health conditions. The trauma of racial violence reaches further than any single individual, especially when the news cycle about Black deaths is unavoidable. Panelists will discuss the way violent images of Black suffering have been mediated, circulated, and weaponized; the reinvention of one’s relationship to those images; the utilization of those images without re-traumatization; and the power of art to address anxiety and other harms of racism.

Panelists include Eraka P. Bath, MD, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Psychiatry at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA; Ava DuVernay, Filmmaker and Founder, ARRAY; Darnell Hunt, Professor and Dean of Social Sciences, UCLA; and artist Rashid Johnson. Introduced by LACMA Curator of Contemporary Art and GYOPO co-founder Christine Y. Kim and moderated by LACMA Vice President of Education and Public Programs Naima J. Keith.