Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced the city is labeling racism a public health crisis, alongside the Chicago Department of Health.
“At almost every single point in our city’s history, racism has taken a devastating toll on the health and wellbeing of our residents of color—especially those who are Black,” Lightfoot stated.
The central reasoning for this declaration comes from a “9.2-year life expectancy gap between Black and non-Black Chicagoans” that emerged in the past decade, per NBC News Chicago.
Chicago’s Department of Public Health is using $9.6 million meant for COVID-19 relief for this project. Their main mission is to review the current “anti-racist” policies in place, reflect on “the impacts of racism,” deploy “strategies to operationalize racial equity” and “empowering transformative community relationships.”
This comes as a Chicago Democratic alderman publicly accused Chicago’s Lightfoot of hypocrisy, begging for help from Joe Biden for aid in stopping gun violence, despite previously being too proud to ask former President Trump for exactly that.
CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady had this to say when explaining why COVID-19 relief funds can be used for identity politics projects. Read more…
