On Minority Health Month, Public Health Critical Race Praxis, and a Critical Need for Imagination
Excerpt
“…by acknowledging and centering structural determinism, OMH can more appropriately develop and frame thematic foci that do not simply repackage neoliberal, self-help, bootstrap narratives of how to be healthy. As recently noted in regards to COVID-19, communities of color cannot simply “walk off” the systemic effects of racial capitalism. Similarly, we cannot individual-intervention our way out of population health inequities created by systems—especially those related to physical activity—simply by racially/culturally “tailoring” these decontextualized, oppressive narratives: individualist neoliberal public health with melanin is still individualist neoliberal public health. This personal responsibility ideology is not only incongruous with health equity, it’s anathema to public (i.e. population) health itself…”