{"id":179914,"date":"2021-04-21T16:24:52","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T00:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eugeneweekly.wpengine.com\/?p=182039"},"modified":"2021-04-21T16:24:52","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T00:24:52","slug":"lane-county-commission-says-racism-public-health-threat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/21\/lane-county-commission-says-racism-public-health-threat-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lane County Commission Says Racism Public Health Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than 24 hours after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on three charges related to his murder of George Floyd, the Lane County Board of County Commissioners passed a resolution acknowledging racism as a public health crisis. But a dissenting vote from Commissioner Jay Bozievich kept it from being unanimous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bozievich voted against the resolution because he said it was virtue signaling, the same reason why he said he voted against the 2019 resolution declaring homelessness an emergency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re already doing all of the work that is called for in this,\u201d he said at the April 21 meeting, \u201cI see this as almost an unnecessary piece of virtue signaling.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He added that he did support the definition of racism put forth by staff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Jocelyn Warren, Lane County Public Health division manager, quoted Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, a leading researcher on racism and its impact on communities of color.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Phyllis Jones\u2019 definition, as presented at the April 21 meeting, \u201cRacism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call race), that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Voting as the Lane County Board of Health, the resolution passed by county commissioners promotes active and authentic agreement with BIPOC communities on issues of race, ethnicity and health, according to the resolution. It will also employ an equity lens when forming policy recommendations and obtain and use more data to understand the county\u2019s BIPOC community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is critical that we look at this not as a resolution to look at and put on a shelf,\u201d Vice Chair Pat Farr said. \u201cBut as a resolution as a base for action for this and future boards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The resolution also calls for review and evaluation of the county\u2019s equity and diversity requirements for employees to ensure that training is not only mandatory but also comprehensive, relevant and incorporated into professional development. This would apply to all who represent the county, not just employees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the meeting, Bozievich said the resolution was redundant and that the county was already operating under an equity lens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Lane County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky said county staff feel like they\u2019re not doing enough on equity, \u201cand we are not operating at the level we should be,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And Lane County Public Health Division Manager Dr. Jocelyn Warren said the resolution was about holding the county accountable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

County staff presented the resolution because research shows that racism in the U.S. has had a negative impact on people and communities of color, particularly on their health. During Warren\u2019s presentation to the county commissioners, she said compared to white Americans, data shows racial and ethnic minority groups experience higher rates of illness and death from health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma and heart disease.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRace doesn\u2019t put people at higher risk. Racism does,\u201d Warren said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople of color are more exposed and less protected. Once infected with COVID-19, they\u2019re more likely to die because of a greater burden of chronic diseases from living in disinvested communities with poor food and transportation options and pollution and less access to health care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added that labeling racism is the first step to eliminating health disparities in the community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lane County\u2019s resolution comes weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s April 8 statement that racism is a serious public health threat. <\/span><\/p>\n

To watch the meeting, <\/span><\/i>click here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than 24 hours after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on three charges related to his murder of George Floyd, the \u2026 Continue reading\u00a0\u2192<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,101,106,2,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-ew-extra","category-lane-county-board-of-county-commissioners","category-news","category-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}