RMAPI Call to Action

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The Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative has endorsed the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group declaration of racism as a public health crisis and stand behind their call for urgent action. Structural racism has had a profound effect on the health and life expectancy for too many of our neighbors in Rochester, and the coronavirus pandemic has only widened these disparities.
All around us are reminders that racism is thriving—the disproportionate suffering and deaths of Black and Brown people from COVID-19 and the murders of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in her bed in Louisville, George Floyd in Minnesota, Rayshard Brooks in a drive-thru of a fast food restaurant and an interminable list of other Black people murdered by law enforcement

The effects of racism on public health in Rochester are well-documented. Common Ground Health’s 2019 report “Overloaded: The Heavy Toll of Poverty on Our Region’s Health” found that poverty and poverty-driven health disparities disproportionately affect Black and Latino residents, and that racial inequities further increase the burden of poor health. These disparities remain even as incomes increase—the premature mortality rate for Black residents is on average 29 percent higher than white peers living in areas with the same socio-economic status.
RMAPI has also outlined the effect that structural racism has on poverty, documenting in the 2016 Guiding Principles Report how structural racism leads to toxic stress and trauma, which combine to increase poverty and poor health outcomes.
The members of the RMAPI coalition renew their commitment to work every day to address structural racism in our systems, our insititutions and our organizations, so that all members of our community have equal opportunity to achieve self sufficiency.
RMAPI calls on all individuals and organization to join in endorsing the declaration of racism as a public health crisis. Urgent action is needed by individuals and institutions to actively participate in dismantling racism
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(CNN) As protests over George Floyd’s death continue nationwide, several doctors’ groups — the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association and American College of Physicians — are emphasizing that racism is a public health issue and they’re calling for police brutality to stop.
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HELP END RACISM NOW!
Click HERE to sign the declaration
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