FEATURE BLIND SPOT
The city of Cleveland has declared racism a public health crisis. Staff say discrimination plagues its own health department Rachel Dissell and Jordyn Grzelewski Photo by Erik Drost/FlickrCC
Cleveland City Council, in an “emergency” move last month, declared racism a public health crisis.
The resolution, set against the backdrop of a nationwide reckoning over anti-Black racism and amid a pandemic that has taken a disproportionate toll on Black communities, followed downtown protests against police brutality. It was backed with promises to form a working group that would “develop strategies” to tackle inequities and was followed by a fiery screed adopted by more than 70 community organizations agreeing to face the issue “head on.” “We have to look at the City of Cleveland and ask ourselves, ‘Have we been a part of the problem? How have we been doing business?’” Councilman Basheer Jones, a cosponsor of the resolution, said at a June 5th press conference on the stairs of City Hall. Jones was talking about Cleveland’s safety forces, which don’t reflect the city’s racial makeup (about half of city residents are Black) , as well as local banks and foundations. But if the city wants to prove it’s ready to turn a tide that has resulted in an embarrassingly high Black infant mortality rate, a lead poisoning problem that all but throws open prison doors for Black boys before they start kindergarten, and acknowledge — not on paper or maps or at a press conference — that racism and the stress it causes is toxic to Black lives, there’s one place it might start: its own public health department. (Editor’s Note: After months of refusing to answer specific questions for this story, and after being told the story would be published this week, the city on Friday afternoon told Scene that, based on staff calls and emails, it re-launched an investigation into allegations of discrimination in the department, which will be led by Mayor Jackson’s executive assistant Martin Flask, but otherwise had no comment.)
Not a ‘healthy place to be’ No representative of the city’s public health department spoke at that June 5 press conference. It’s not clear why. “The timeliness of this couldn’t be more apropos,” Natoya Walker Minor, the city’s chief of public affairs, said speaking on behalf of the city administration that day. “This allows us to take a deep dive into structural racism and its health consequences.” It’s a message that at least one health department employee said felt “like a joke.” For nearly a year before the proclamations and promises, health department staff were filing complaints, resigning and, in recent months, talking to reporters about what they deemed to be a toxic culture within the department — one
that was particularly centered on and harmful to Black and brown women. It was these employees’ job to tackle public health issues compounded by the toxic stress of racism and long-standing racial inequities in health care, including infant mortality, HIV, and, now, COVID-19. Yet, many say that discrimination, micro-aggressions and outright racism within their own department made it difficult for them to carry out these urgent tasks. It was a problem so pronounced that several white women quit their jobs, citing the mistreatment of their coworkers of color. As Stephanie Pike Moore, a white data epidemiologist who resigned in February, put it: “This isn’t a healthy place to be.” It’s this department that will be tapped to help the city fulfill such
a grand promise, and for staffers who describe permissive racism and discrimination, that promise rings especially hollow.
A ‘bullying’ culture Six months earlier, CDPH, long beset by problems, was on the hot seat when it — once again — lost a big grant. This time it was $1.5 million in state funding to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexuallytransmitted infections. The city performed particularly poorly in its outreach to at-risk populations, including young Black men, state officials said. City Council hastily scheduled a meeting to call for answers. At the back of the room, the health workers who ran the program listened as higher-ups — Walker Minor, Public Health Director Merle | clevescene.com | July 15-21, 2020
11
