Racist Police Violence and Mass Incarceration Make Us Sick

New Orleans, November 19 — PLPers injected a healthy dose of communist politics into the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) national meeting of over 12,500 health care related workers. The theme of this year’s conference was “Healthography” and was focused on the fact that your ZIP code is more important than your genetic code in determining your health.
As we have every year for the past 15 years, a dedicated group of PL members and friends participated in the conference with the goal of spreading our revolutionary ideas, challenging public health workers to think beyond small reforms, and recruiting to PLP.  This year’s conference was one of our most successful.  We helped organize an outstanding session, advanced a policy resolution, and hosted a very successful “Troublemaker’s breakfast.”  
Racist Police Violence and Mass Incarceration Hit Public Health
Louisiana leads the country in prison inmates per capita and their police have a long history of racist brutality and murder. The first speaker exposed how for-profit prisons and jails have proliferated in Louisiana, bringing in money to small communities and police departments.  While mass incarceration of Black men is clearly a method of racist social control, this dimension of making money off each inmate is appalling.  
Another speaker specifically addressed racist police violence in Chicago — 306 people have been shot by Chicago police in the past 5 years (89 have died), and 75 percent of police shooting victims are Black.  She belongs to a community group that petitioned the United Nations to condemn the U.S. for human rights abuses, and this group regularly leads demonstrations against police brutality.  
Another young Black woman’s talk was on the political economy of racism.  She showed how racism leads to the super-exploitation of Blacks, but also hurts workers of all races by dividing us and keeping wages low. Our session attracted 40 people and led to lively discussion afterwards, as well as many people requesting the special Challenge pamphlet written for the APHA meeting.  
When these issues are presented clearly, the limitations of reform (whether it be in healthcare, the prisons or the police) become very clear and lead many to see that the whole capitalist system must be challenged and destroyed.  
United Nations Guilty of Bringing Cholera to Haiti
For the second year in a row, a policy statement on the cholera epidemic in Haiti was brought to the APHA Governing Council. The resolution states that the UN troops brought cholera to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and infected more than 750,000 Haitians and killed more than 8,500 people so far. The resolution states that the UN should pay the $2.2 billion required for the building of a water and sanitation structure in Haiti to help end cholera there.  
The UN tries to hide behind its self-serving claim of immunity from this issue due to their agreement with the Haitian government.  This public health crisis and the ensuing UN and international response clearly show how racism and capitalism on the international stage can have devastating consequences. It is similar to the Ebola epidemic currently ravaging West Africa. The resolution was not recommended by the conservative Joint Policy Committee but it still went to a vote before the Governing Council. While it ultimately did not pass, it was a very close vote and many friends and strangers spoke in support.
Although the APHA leadership is clearly afraid to call out the UN, many general members recognize this injustice and want to hold the UN accountable: another example of how the leadership of many mass organizations is way to the right of the membership. We will continue to bring this issue to the APHA and build even more support for it next year.
Troublemaker’s Breakfast
We distributed 1,500 copies of a special four-page pamphlet detailing how capitalism destroys any possibility of a healthy society, and that communist revolution is our only chance to create a world where everyone has a right to be healthy. One young woman stated, “I knew this conference would be more interesting than usual when I saw this pamphlet.”  
We invited interested people to come to our traditional “Troublemaker’s breakfast” held on the second to last day of the conference. More than 30 people (mostly students and young professionals) attended the breakfast — we completely filled the restaurant and ran out of chairs!  
We broke into two groups for discussion and generated ideas on how to change society and what to do at next year’s APHA convention in Chicago.  We got everyone’s contact information and we will work with them over this coming year to build ties and raise revolutionary ideas.  
Current events are politicizing many people and it is up to us to radicalize them further.  We need public health workers to join PLP and fight for an equal, healthy society for all of us.