6th Annual President’ s Breakfast Highlights the Life and Work of Dr. Angela Davis( continued)
impact on low-income patients, has been a milestone that has further established the University’ s value as a research-driven, community focused institution.
Promise Health Plan Vice President Yungkyung Kim introduced Dr. Davis. She further elaborated on Blue Shield’ s mission in the fight to eliminate health care disparities. The association of poverty and racial discrimination was a persistent theme throughout the event. Ms. Kim effectively added to the conversation.
Dr. Carlisle’ s questions were framed in a way that information about Dr. Davis and the challenges of her work were in the forefront of the conversation as much as the issues themselves. Dr. Davis reminded the audience that she had spent 18 months in jail earlier in her activist life. That experience gave her a direct, close up view of the prison industrial complex. That consideration was key to an opening exchange as President Carlisle and Dr. Davis discussed the possibility of a world without prisons.
Dismantling such a system will take a proactive approach to the multiple factors of such a radical systemic change. The institution itself must conduct a self-assessment. The problems with the American system of incarceration are linked to racist structures that provide institutional inequality. Dismantling the system as it currently exists will be a protracted process.
What is in motion now, according to Dr. Davis, is the refashioning of democracy. Revamping the student admissions process, greater diversity amongst faculty and students, interdisciplinary teaching methods are the beginning of an answer. Education has been systematically commodified over the years and that must be an important consideration in this push for change.
To the question of what is social justice and equity, she offered the assessment that the new approach must be holistic and offer a range of solutions. In the current paradigm, racism is at the heart of the struggle. Gender justice and economic equality are core components of this new push for a more equitable world, and she argued for advocacy that supports a broader palate of issues.
Think in a global framework about environmental justice, the treatment of animals, and food production, she stated. But in recognizing the breath of the intellectual scaffolding that she was building, she readily acknowledged that there is no way that a single individual can address such a broad framework by themselves.
She spoke on the recent rise in violence mounted against Asian Americans as being an important component of the cluster of racial justice issues. Achieving racial justice will happen only in the process of doing the necessary work. To be effective, we must broaden our viewpoint and address issues of which we are aware. That will produce fruits of the work even for people that we do not directly see. Enslaved Black people did not accept the terrain of struggle, the corporate plantation system, she said.
To the question of corporate philanthropy’ s role, she stated that if corporate philanthropy is to be effective, it should be on a course to ensure its own ultimate obsolescence by providing opportunity for people to rise out of the cycle of need. Though we benefit from capitalism, many of society’ s ills are byproducts of corporate capitalism. People should not have to depend on corporate capitalism to receive what is necessary to live. Corporations should fund organizations that engage in serious cultural transformation.
To the question of how corporate executives can be agents of change, it is recognized that all kinds of organizations and individuals are addressing issues of structural racism. COVID-19 has added another layer to the discussion. The circumstances of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor caused awareness that racism is not an individual flaw. More people than ever in history are aware of the challenges and are developing frameworks. There is no easy answer, Dr. Davis stated. Diversity, inclusion, and thinking about institutional solutions in a broader context are important.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 9