Racial Justice | Penn Today

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.

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.

A person receives a vaccination at a Penn Medicine vaccine site by a masked professional while other masked people wait on folding chairs in the room.

An approach to COVID-19 vaccination equity for Black neighborhoods

A new paper centers racial equity and address the structural barriers that have prevented Black and other underrepresented minority communities from being vaccinated against COVID-19 at equitable rates.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

‘Traveling Black,’ a look at the civil rights movement in motion

“Traveling Black,” a book by Mia Bay of the School of Arts & Sciences, was featured. The work is a history of mobility and resistance in the U.S.

Black NFL players want new advocate in concussion settlement

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts said algorithms can reflect the biases of their creators. “Technology can be used to promote equality or perpetuate inequality. It depends on who’s in control of it and what data they are putting into the algorithms,” she said.

Who gets to decide what is racism, hate? Atlanta shootings renew debate over white violence, privilege

Anthea Butler of the School of Arts & Sciences commented on how some authorities have hesitated to name the Atlanta spa shootings as a racist attack. “Many of us can see through this racist mess that the police are trying to say isn’t racially motivated,” she wrote. “Let’s be clear. This is terrorism. It’s murder. It’s AAPI hatred and vilification. It is racist.”

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