This has been pretty poorly publicized, I think, but worth noting:
Scientists condemn racism and take action with #StrikeforBlackLives this week
By Kimberly Hickok - Reference Editor
Scientists around the globe are taking action and speaking up against systemic anti-Black racism.
This Wednesday (June 10), thousands of people in the science community will #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM and #StrikeforBlackLives. The events call for scientists across the globe to pause their research, cancel classes and reschedule the day's meetings, so they can spend the day taking action against anti-Black racism.
The #StrikeforBlackLives is led by two accomplished Black scientists, Brian Nord, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a cosmologist at the University of New Hampshire. They're supported by members of Particles for Justice, a group of particle physicists who banded together against systemic sexism in academia in late 2018…
Joining the #StikeforBlackLives are #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM. The latter events are organized by an international group of science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals taking action for Black lives. The premise of the event is the same as the strike: no classes, no meetings, no research. Instead, spend the day taking steps to eliminate anti-Black racism.
As I noted in my Good News Roundup Annex, there is also a Scientific American Op-ed that just came out, about how gaslighting enables racism to flourish in the scientific and medical community. It uses the BS medical report which tries to make Floyd’s death partly his own fault as a powerful example.
blogs.scientificamerican.com/…
George Floyd’s Autopsy and the Structural Gaslighting of America
The weaponization of medical language emboldened white supremacy with the authority of the white coat. How will we stop it from happening again? The world was gaslit by misreporting about George Floyd’s initial autopsy report. As concerned physicians, we write to deconstruct the misinformation and condemn the ways this weaponization of medical language reinforced white supremacy at the torment of Black Americans.
In America, widespread anti-Black violence is often paired with structural gaslighting. Racism, after all, thrives when blame for its outcomes are misattributed. When Black families are refused loans in criminally discriminatory housing schemes, their credit is blamed. When youth of color are disproportionately stopped and frisked, they are told the process is random, and for their safety.
And when Black people are killed by police, their character and even their anatomy is turned into justification for their killer’s exoneration. It’s a well-honed tactic. One analysis of the national database of state-level death certificate data found that fewer than half of law enforcement–related deaths were reported. In addition to this undercounting, police actions were further minimized by the use of diagnostic codes that incorrectly labeled the cause of death as “accidental” or “undetermined” rather than police-related. For centuries, our systems have relied on this psychological torture—a host of mental gymnastics—to deny the truth of what Black people have always known. The cause of death is racism.
As physicians, we will not be complicit in the ongoing manipulation of medical expertise to erase government-sanctioned violence. Though we are relieved that two independent examinations invalidated the preliminary findings in the charging document and the headlines that deceitfully undermined Chauvin’s culpability in Floyd’s murder, our initial incense is not replaced by celebration. For three days, Black Americans sat—and still sit—with the all-too-familiar pangs of being told that the truth is not true. Of fearing that the law would believe a physician’s report over the reality they saw with their own eyes, and have lived with their own lives. It's a miscarriage of justice that deepens the cut; not only can Black people be killed with impunity; a physician’s autopsy report can be twisted to replace the truth.
Anyway, the events and the terrific article seem to be teamed up, whether or not that happened on purpose. It is also important to note the racism involved in citing of toxic facilities. Environmental illnesses such as cancer and asthma are much more prevalent in these localities.
www.theatlantic.com/...
Trump's EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real
A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency finds that people of color are much more likely to live near polluters and breathe polluted air—even as the agency seeks to roll back regulations on pollution.
“Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east.” Marvin Gaye wasn’t an environmental scientist, but his 1971 single “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” provides a stark and useful environmental analysis, complete with warnings of overcrowding and climate change. The song doesn’t explicitly mention race, but its place in Gaye’s What’s Going On album portrays a black Vietnam veteran, coming back to his segregated community and envisioning the hell that people endure.
Gaye’s prophecies relied on the qualitative data of storytelling—of long-circulated anecdotes and warnings within black communities of bad air and water, poison, and cancer. But those warnings have been buttressed by study after study indicating that people of color face disproportionate risks from pollution, and that polluting industries are often located in the middle of their communities.
This hasn’t been discussed much, that I have seen. It is part of the whole that scientists need to be taking on, especially under this monster.