Understanding Roots of Racism - Part 1: Health - Recap and Resources

Thank you for joining United Way of Central Indiana at our first session of Understanding the Roots of Racism, an educational series on policies and practices of the past that have created barriers to service, resources and opportunities for Black Americans – many of which still exist today.
We hope you found our first session on health informative, and are looking forward to our upcoming sessions focusing on housing, food, and transportation. 

View the Recording Below

Meet Our Panelists:

Senator Jean Breaux was elected to the State Senate in December of 2006 and elected Assistant Democratic Leader by the Senate Democratic Caucus in 2012. Breaux formerly served as Assistant Democratic Caucus Chair.
Breaux is a member of the Indiana Recycling Market Development Board and the State Workforce Innovation Council. She is appointed to serve on the Health and Human Services Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the nation’s 50 states, its commonwealths and territories.
In 2009, Breaux was selected to attend the Program for Emerging Political Leaders hosted by the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
Breaux attended Boston University and graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She also earned professional certificates from the Economic Development Institute and the International Economic Development Council.
 Carl Ellison is President and CEO of then Indiana Minority Health Coalition, an organization with a statewide network of local minority health entities.
Ellison graduated from Notre Dame with a BA in English and Black Studies.
In his career, Ellison has run an anti-poverty agency, a public housing authority, an economic development authority, a minority small business unit within the U.S. Small Business Administration, a network of federally qualified health centers, a national healthcare diversity organization, and many hospital sponsored community health improvement programs.
Ellison currently services on the Boards of Covering Kids & Families of Indiana, the Martin Center Sickle Cell Initiative, and Indiana United Ways.
 Ramarao Yeleti, MD, provides clinical leadership across a continuum of care that includes eight hospitals and more than 200 sites of care through his role as Community Health Network’s Chief Physician Executive.
Dr. Yeleti moved into his current role in 2017 after leading Community Physician Network as the entity’s president. His past leadership experience also includes a period during which he served as president of Community Heart and Vascular, the integrated cardiovascular group at Community Health Network, which is now part of Community Physician Network.
Dr. Yeleti has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Akron, Ohio, and a medical degree from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He served his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, and served his fellowships in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at Indiana University Medical Center and the Indiana Heart Institute.
Dr. Yeleti is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, interventional cardiology and nuclear cardiology.
 

Resources:

The Inequalities Behind COVID-19 Disparities for African Americans in Indianapolis
United for ALICE: ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed
Indiana State Department of Health
Marion County Public Health Department
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
SAVI Corona Virus Data Hub
New England Journal of Medicine: Structural Racism and Supporting Black Lives — The Role of Health Professionals.
"Sunday Morning" Full Episode 7/12
Op-ed by Charles M. Blow in the New York Times on how social distancing is a privilege and why the idea that this COVID-19 is an equal-opportunity killer must itself be killed.
Article by Hilary Beard, “Ring the Alarm: COVID-19 Presents Grave Danger to Communities of Color” detailing how systemic forces are resulting in Black and Brown people being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
An article in Concentrate Magazine highlighted multiple reasons for the health disparities including higher density living areas, service jobs that don’t allow working remotely or taking paid time off and more.
Read this MLive article on the coronavirus.
Check Out These Books:
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America By Richard Rothstein