Dr. Mary T. Bassett, François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights and Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, has recently been featured in “After the protest … what next?” in The Harvard Gazette.
In the article, Dr. Bassett and other Harvard faculty members share their thoughts about what could be the next actions to transform the protests of George Floyd and other African Americans’ deaths into meaningful and just changes. Among actions such as collecting better data on police violence, Dr. Bassett advocates reinvesting in minority communities and breaking down structural racism in institutions.
“As a public health expert, I know that where you live determines a whole host of health outcomes,” she says. “We should defund police departments and reinvest that funding to improve communities of color, where bad policies have driven generations of deprivation.”
“It’s also important to look to ourselves and take up the call for institutions, including Harvard, to move beyond the rhetoric of ‘diversity and inclusion’ and become anti-racist. Look at how we spend our money, determine our research priorities, our leadership teams, and our hiring practices, and ask ourselves if we are reinforcing structural racism.”
