Racial Justice

African American COVID patient wearing a respirator in a hospital bed.

Racial bias in mortality prediction scores

In mass casualty situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, mortality prediction models alone could divert scarce critical care resources away from Black patients.

From Penn LDI ・

Cartoon montage of a protest, a raised fist, a gun, and a masked African American individual.

In These Times: Black lives and the call for justice

The first two episodes of the Omnia podcast’s second season discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism on the laws and policies that have governed Black lives throughout history.

Two incarcerated people seen from above and behind with their hands handcuffed behind their backs outside in a prison yard.

Annenberg researchers use data science skills for social justice

Data scientists at the Annenberg School for Communication are working with the Amistad Law Project to create an open access dashboard of data that can aid efforts to help the incarcerated communiy.

From Annenberg School for Communication, Ashton Yount ・



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

Relief, calm, and a sense that ‘justice was served’ as Philadelphia watches Chauvin’s guilty verdict

Krystal Strong, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Philly and assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education’s Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division, says justice was not obtained in the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin. “Justice means that George Floyd would be here,” she says.

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WITF.org

Anger, anxiety, stress, relief: Therapists say it’s OK for Black people to feel it all

In addition to the next slate of trials for Chuavin’s colleagues, Philadelphians are still processing the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. and the city’s own checkered history of policing Black and other communities of color. Ariane Thomas of the Graduate School of Education comments on the importance of talking about feelings and leaning into their complexity. 

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The New York Times

The White House issues its first-ever proclamation on Black maternal health

Elizabeth Howell of the Perelman School of Medicine said that severe maternal morbidity, in which women experience severe complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, impacts more than 50,000 U.S. women each year. “Similar to maternal mortality, Black and brown women have elevated rates of maternal morbidity,” she said.

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Time

‘Haunted countries deserve haunted stories.’ How America’s history of racial housing discrimination inspired Amazon’s new horror series THEM

Camille Z. Charles of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about how discriminatory housing practices like redlining shaped U.S. neighborhoods in the 20th century. “If you take the redlining maps that were used before the passage of fair housing legislation and overlay them on present-day maps of pretty much any major city in the U.S., and certainly any city that has any meaningful Black population, they look really similar in the sense that Blacks are still largely shut out of those neighborhoods that they were legally shut out of during that time period,” she said.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Race-based hate is out there, but it’s inside of us, too. Here is how to disrupt the pattern

Vice Provost for University Life Mamta Accapadi said people cling to biased beliefs because these ideas help define who they are, and pandemic-related isolation has only intensified polarization. “At the end of the day we have to wonder if we are more interested in learning from a new opportunity or holding on to old ideas that don’t serve us,” she said.

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Vox.com

Trial by trauma

Howard Stevenson of the Graduate School of Education spoke about the trauma Black Americans experience when watching footage and reading news coverage of George Floyd’s death amid the Derek Chauvin trial. “Even if this justice happens, we won’t fully get over all of the other injustices,” said Stevenson.

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