Attack Racist Bloomberg Award; Expose UN’s Cholera in Haiti

BOSTON, November 6 —  “Bloomberg is NO Public Health Hero” was the rallying cry of activists at this year’s meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA).  APHA leadership was giving New York City Mayor Bloomberg the “Legislator of the Year” award, down playing the NYC mayor’s racist stop-and-frisk program targeting hundreds of thousands of young black and Latino men was unimportant, given his anti-smoking, anti-gun and anti-soda stances.
PLP members and friends organized several anti-racist campaigns at this year’s public health meeting, along with the Medical Care Section of APHA, and Radical Public Health students from Chicago informed the 13,000 attendees. They worked with fighters in several APHA Sections to write a formal protest letter to the Executive Board, and distributed over 2,000 leaflets exposing the Board’s decision.  Many thanked us and could not believe racist Bloomberg would be given a public health award.
The Black Caucus of Health Workers sponsored a session on Mass Incarceration that drew over 50 people. Students presented data on the full scope of damage by the “War on Drugs” on communities and individuals.   This war targets black and Latino men and women with arrests and imprisonment for minor drug possession and non-violent crimes.  While government data show that white and black people use and sell drugs at similar rates, the cops arrest and courts convict blacks at a disproportionate rate.  In Washington, DC, 90 percent of adults arrested for drug possession are black while they represent less than 50 percent of the residents.
Conviction for drug offenses deprives communities of parents and workers, social support, and partners.  Returnees face barriers to housing, jobs, food stamps, and other necessities, keeping the unemployment and homeless rates high among black workers.  The APHA journal reported that people on parole lose two years of life for every year in prison, leading many to call this an “early death sentence.”
The ruling class uses this policy to criminalize, pacify, and marginalize a population that has led major rebellions and reform movements in the past.  The policy continues the enslavement of black workers that started with slavery and continued with Jim Crow laws. Like stop-and-frisk practices, it increases the stereotypes that black men are all drug dealers who deserve punishment and blame for high unemployment rates, poor graduation rates, and violence.  This lies at the base of the racism the capitalists need to deflect anger from their exploitation of all workers.
Speakers analyzed the superprofits the capitalists make off  racism and the loss of wages and jobs from privatization of schools, transit and housing.  A member of PLP highlighted the fight for jobs at Washington, DC METRO for people returning from prison.  Plans for protests, resolutions and sessions at next year’s meeting in New Orleans came out of this intense program.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Think Global, Act Local”.  Our continuing fight against cholera in Haiti showed that PLP and our friends go way beyond this sloganeering.  We were important in helping organize an extraordinary evening session on Haiti that was put on by the Black Caucus, anti-cholera campaigners and people from Haiti who are suing the UN to compensate victims and develop clean water systems. Sanitation and mass vaccination against cholera are effective and possible, but the countries that want to profit from Haiti as a mass sweatshop are not interested.  Only 1 percent of Haiti’s population has been vaccinated because there is no money to ramp up vaccine production there.
A Center for Disease Control engineer described a “long-term” safe water project but said only about 10 percent of the needed money is in the pipeline. Cost estimates range from  $800 million to $2 billion, which  the UN should pay and pull out it troops.  A sharp debate at an earlier session focused on the role of the U.S. in destroying the economy and autonomy of Haiti and allowed a political discussion of the role of imperialism.  
Many other activities linked our Party to this mass organization.  We presented a poster on “Capitalist Determinants of HIV” which compared a communist approach to public health to the limited programs in the U.S.
A friend chaired the growing Jail and Prison Health Committee within the Medical Care Section.  This committee can sponsor events next year and her  resolution on Mental Health and Prison  can be used in advocating reforms during the year.  The traditional Troublemakers Breakfast also drew in new students and APHA members to discuss the role of APHA under capitalism and the need to challenge the system as we build for revolution.  On to New Orleans!