Dear HU Colleagues,
This week’s digest was guest edited by Daniel Reeves
This second week of Black history month brought exciting news. The Black Lives Matter organization was nominated for the Nobel peace prize because it is “bringing forward a new consciousness and awareness about racial justice.” (nominator Petter Eide), and now has won the 2020 Olof Palme prize, an award for anti-racism, human rights, and global peace.
The Biden administration will return to the initiative of replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. There are complexities to this issue.
Feb 7 was the 20th National Black HIV/AIDS awareness day. Many Hutch researchers continue to fight for vaccines and cures for HIV. This month, the Hutch/UW-led Antibody Mediated Prevention (AMP) studies showed that HIV is preventable by long lasting human antibodies. Like COVID-19, the burden of HIV/AIDS is still unevenly felt by Black Americans. As long as 12 years ago, the civil rights pioneer Dorothy Height urged African Americans to “talk about HIV, as we talk about jobs, as we talk about housing, as we talk about civil rights.” The right to equity in health care matters more now than ever and as racism is a public health crisis, asymmetric public health responses are in themselves racist.
Attend. This week the Southern AIDS Coalition in partnership with “Let’s Stop HIV Together” is putting on 3 virtual events aiming to “harness our collective power to end HIV” on Facebook. Click to register for “The Rural Black Experience” on 2/10, “Faith and Fighting to End the HIV Epidemic” on 2/11, and “Self-Care is the Source of Our Power” on 2/12.
Explore and advocate. A lagging factor in health equity is support for disAbilities, People First Washington aims to promote respect, self-determination, and human rights for people with all kinds of (dis) ABILITIES.
Attend. Free RSVP for a Gates Foundation virtual program featuring storytelling and artivists from the Seattle Black community on banishing HIV/AIDS stigma.
Watch/listen. Public health and social justice professionals from the Bay Area give a primer on health disparities and human rights.
In solidarity,
Hutch United
Hutch United was founded by Fred Hutch graduate students and postdocs in 2013 with the mission of fostering a supportive and diverse community of scientists. We promote equity and inclusion through community building events, inclusivity training, and by providing access to resources and mentorship. It is up to all of us to create an inclusive scientific community. As such, we welcome all underrepresented groups (all races/ethnicities, genders, ages, national origins, physical abilities, and sexual orientations; as well as veterans, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, etc) and, of course, allies and advocates.
