APHA: Fighting Racism, A Matter of Public Health

DENVER, COLORADO, November 2—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought the fight against racism and for a communist world to the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), an organization of public health professionals and policy makers whose mission is to improve public health and achieve equity in health status. We’ve helped over 300 people think about the relationship between racism and poor public health. Most important, this struggle has translated into bold action. We joined with others in passing important resolutions on police violence and demanding UN financial support for Haiti’s cholera epidemic (see letters). PLP is moving the struggle to the left and exposing APHA as an institution that won’t fix public health. Only communist revolution can deliver the healthcare that workers need and deserve!
Resolve to End Racist Violence
As the fight against racist police terror has intensified in the U.S. over the past two years, PLP members in APHA have called attention to the serious threat to public health that police terror poses. Last year, PL’ers joined with the Black Caucus of Health Workers at the APHA meeting to present a panel on police violence and public health, the only session at that conference to address this problem. Students from California who were inspired by that discussion joined us in introducing a resolution against police terror this year.
After nearly a year of research, we had a resolution condemning the role of police as racist agents of capitalist social control, complete with 82 references to the academic literature. Among the actions demanded by the resolution were decriminalizing homelessness, loitering, sex work, and drug use; tougher police accountability and demilitarization of police departments; putting money into promoting racial and economic equity; and creating community-based alternatives to policing, including more jobs and restorative justice programming for addressing problems like drug use and prostitution.
As expected, the APHA Joint Policy Committee (JPC) that previews resolutions prior to submission for a vote, gave the paper a negative assessment. Capitalist-supported institutions like the APHA will not oppose racism because they support a system that needs it. However, the crowd refused to accept the racist ruling. The hearing was intense, with dozens of supporters demanding to override the JPC’s disapproval.
Beyond Police Reform
The next day, a student co-author of the resolution gave a talk to 300 people called “Beyond Police Reform,” demonstrating that police serve the capitalist class and calling for fundamental revolutionary change. “Law enforcement,” she argued, “cannot be reformed for the benefit of the working class. Education for the police, body cameras, or tasers aren’t answers,” she declared; instead, she said that cutting policing and using funding instead for strengthening working class communities was a solution.
Police terror and other aspects of capitalism like unemployment and unsafe housing are the root of workers’ poor health. Good public health requires addressing these things. The authors of the resolution insisted, “This is what public health should fight for.” However, the JPC deemed this as too impractical and far-reaching, showing that APHA cannot really giving the working class the healthcare it deserves. In fact, capitalism will never be able to eliminate unemployment because it needs to hire and fire workers to deal with periodic crises and keep wages low. The bosses will never give workers safe housing or clean water, as we’ve seen in Flint, Michigan where they poison the water with lead and in rural working-class white communities where they poison the water with cancerous fracking chemicals. For working people to be healthy, we must eliminate this deadly capitalist system. In fact, the essence of public health must be fighting for a world of equality where all working people will have healthy, productive, and creative lives, the opposite of the exploited lives of workers under capitalism. Communism offers this possibility.
The Struggle Intensifies
We would not let the JPC’s negative evaluation slow the momentum we had achieved. PLP prepared and widely distributed a flyer calling for a public rally in support of the resolution. Over 60 public health professionals rallied in front of the convention center, signaling a unique moment in history: the first time that APHA members have publicly protested en masse against a position of the APHA leadership! Militant chants rang out for over an hour, including:
No public health silence in the face of police violence!
Indict, convict, send killer cops to jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell!
An unusual parliamentary ruckus ensued on the floor of the 300-delegate Governing Council as the resolution was brought forward for a vote. Fearful that the resolution as written would become APHA policy, the leadership suspended the rules and labelled it a “latebreaker” so that it would only be in effect for a year and would come up for reconsideration next year. This is further proof that the APHA is not interested in or capable of creating the necessary changes to fix public health. We can make progress in reform struggles like these, but we can’t expect to create permanent solutions without a communist revolution.
The resolution passed in this modified form. Making the resolution permanent APHA policy will be part of our continued efforts next year in Atlanta. Although reforms are limited, passing the resolution against police terror had a mass character and brought us in close contact with many young public health activists. This would not have been possible without parallel activities in the broad anti-racist movement, including the actions and rebellions against racist police murders in Ferguson and Baltimore supported and led by PLP, Black Lives Matter, and the families of victims of police murders. Similarly, within the APHA, the past year’s president, a friend of PLP, played a positive role by making anti-racism the centerpiece of APHA activities this year and supporting the resolution against police violence on the floor of the convention.
On to Next Year
“Health equity” was the theme of the convention, but only the unflagging, consistent work of the Party and friends clarified the role of racism in the struggle. Look forward to next year in Atlanta, when the theme will be climate change. We welcome you to join us in the struggle to eradicate racism, end capitalism, climate change, and realize a communist world.