I’ll never forget the first time I ever met my friend LaSha. In the middle of a full day volunteering for the PTA at our childrens’ school, we decided to spend our lunch break together at a local restaurant. We spent over an hour, two moms seated across from one another discussing our shared concerns, and the differences in how we face them, over raising children in the world today. As a white middle-class woman raising a healthy child in America, hearing the concern in my new friend’s voice as she outlined the issues her family faces within our community was an eye-opening experience. 

LaSha is the mother of three incredible, smart, kind, and talented boys who are growing up a mile and a half down the road from my own, predominantly white neighborhood. LaSha’s family is black and while that shouldn’t make a difference in the world we’re living in, it does. By sheer happenstance, I was born into a white family in America. I didn’t choose the set of circumstances that I was born into just like LaSha didn’t choose hers. None of us gets to choose the exact scenario we will face in life but we are each individually tasked with the responsibility of navigating through the set of circumstances we face. I think about that often when I read stories highlighting social justice issues of our time and I wonder what can be done to address the inequality and racism that exists within our culture. 

That day, the first encounter I had with a woman who would become my chosen family, inspired me to dive into the concepts of racism and how I can do my part to make this world a safer place for everyone who lives here. It’s comforting to know that I am not alone in this endeavour as the issue of racial injustice has been at the forefront of our society over the last few years. What started as an individual movement, Black Lives Matters, has grown into something so much larger having reached our levels of government where policymakers, ready to listen to the will of the people, are finally making steps to tackle racism. What started as a bottom up movement, however, can only be truly fixed from the top down. 

In an unprecedented and powerful move, lawmakers and city officials in the state of Ohio have declared racism to be a public health crisis. This is an incredible step in the direction of providing necessary aid to disenfranchised communities that have been unfairly targeted and underrepresented within our society for hundreds of years. Why are declarations like this such a critical step in addressing racism within the United States? Is racism really a public health crisis? Simply put, yes. 

Four types of racism exist within our societal construct and our government can single-handedly address two of those when it chooses to provide adequate funding and relief to the urban communities that need it most. Communities that are approaching systemic and institutional inequality by declaring racism a public health crisis will set the tone for those who choose to follow suit in the coming years. These declarations provide the opportunity for exploratory research, funding, and support in communities where life expectancy, wellness and health, adequate access to affordable housing, equality in education, and the ability to locate reliable sources of fresh foods are grossly unequal to predominantly white areas.

Beyond the immediate assistance within underrepresented communities, addressing racism at a government level will enable lawmakers to look under the microscope at the structural and institutional policies that have a long standing history of marginalizing people of color. With a well rounded approach and policy changes, society can begin to focus more on the interpersonal racism that inspires violence within our culture eventually leading to a shift in the internalized racism over time. It’s clear that individual contributors within our society see the need for reform but true change can only take place with a top-down approach that starts with the leaders we look to. Declarations of racism as a public health crisis are a necessary and important first step in targeting injustice and weeding it out by its roots.