Abstract
The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racially marginalized communities has again raised the issue of what justice in healthcare looks like. Indeed, it is impossible to analyze the meaning of the word justice in the medical context without first discussing the central role of racism in the American scientific and healthcare systems. In summary, we argue that physicians and scientists were the architects and imagination of the racial taxonomy and oppressive machinations upon which this country was founded. This oppressive racial taxonomy reinforced and outlined the myth of biological superiority, which laid the foundation for the political, economic, and systemic power of Whiteness. Therefore, in order to achieve universal racial justice, the nation must first address science and medicine's historical role in scaffolding the structure of racism we bear witness of today. To achieve this objective, one of the first steps, we believe, is for there to be health reparations. More specifically, health reparations should be a central part of establishing racial justice in the United States and not relegated to a secondary status. While other scholars have focused on ways to alleviate healthcare inequities, few have addressed the need for health reparations and the forms they might take. This piece offers the ethical grounds for health reparations and various justice-focused solutions.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the inequitable mortality across different racial groups in the United States, highlighting the way in which historical racism in healthcare, housing, employment, and education continues to shape life and death today
Delving into the history through the present, we show how physicians and scientists created the racial taxonomy and oppression upon which this country was built, a hierarchy that was further honed and wielded so as to maintain and develop the economic, political, and systemic power of Whiteness
We describe the justification for health reparations and what a blueprint for these policies would look like, with the ultimate goal of achieving long overdue justice for Black people who have suffered because of healthcare’s racist past
Summary
Derek Ross Soled 1,2*, Avik Chatterjee 3,4, Daniele Olveczky 5 and Edwin G. In order to achieve universal racial justice, the nation must first address science and medicine’s historical role in scaffolding the structure of racism we bear witness of today. To achieve this objective, one of the first steps, we believe, is for there to be health reparations. While other scholars have focused on ways to alleviate healthcare inequities, few have addressed the need for health reparations and the forms they might take. This piece offers the ethical grounds for health reparations and various justice-focused solutions
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