Black Health Disparities Go Back To Slavery | Discovered Truth: Full Documentary

[Music] from education to employment income to home ownership african americans endure a range of inequalities but the gaps in health and wellness might be the most ominous of all these disparities for too many of us our primary health care comes in emergency rooms instead of preventive care we're in catastrophic care [Music] african-american men who at an alarming rate have been diagnosed with prostate cancer health disparities between black women and white women are well documented did you know that african americans are almost twice as likely to have diabetes i would have to say just based off of the patient population that i've experienced you know during my time here in minnesota in my professional career and even in residency we as african-americans represent one for later stages for cancers more malignant forms are hypertension uncontrolled diabetes overweight there's also some resistance to the whole health culture mental health issues are real and we have to understand that we can't pray away everything your health transfers over into other parts of your life if you're sick you can't go to work so in terms of the economy so it's kind of a ripple effect these medical inequities are complicated by daunting and convoluted approaches to health insurance i have a slight heart murmur and um and so it led to me being categorized as uninsurable i ended up having to pay 800 a month and with a 6 000 deductible three thousand for me and three thousand for my children just the weight of premium and deductible we have this this dark cloud over here the pastor is a trusted voice and so that's why i'm stepping forward that's why i'm sharing my basically sharing my story and being a pastor you see what happens to a lot of people who are are not insured young people and old people young people are really not thinking through just how important health care is and living a healthy lifestyle is health care concerns may be far from the minds of many millennials but feeling invincible can keep some young adults from considering health care options my generation and the generation after me being accountable to making sure that we are engaging we want to know the nuts and bolts behind this i'm an active member with the template hip-hop which is krs-1's organization you got to keep doing this pursuing this i'm one of the official hip-hop cultural specialists that have been directly guided and taught by krs-1 as well as ministers in eru what i do is just looking at everything through a hip-hop lens i mean in essence hip is a form of knowledge to be hip is to be updated updating relevant hop is a movement so hip hop in essence is about intelligent movement and so we're not just going to blindly follow just because the masses say hey go sign up for health care exclusion discrimination and the historic trauma that follows have created barriers to black participation in these systems over 200 years of a sort of hesitation towards government structures and institutions and corporate structures and institutions so there's a lot of we don't want to go to the doctor because we don't trust you [Music] and i think that definitely goes back towards you know of course the tuskegee experiment the healthcare system itself it has created some distrust and i definitely do understand that my parents grew up in the deep south jackson mississippi when my mother had a toothache of course they could not go in the front door they had to go to the back door they wouldn't actually feel your tooth they would actually pull them and so what it developed in her is this apprehension about going to the dentist that she lived with for many many many years even after moving to minnesota and that kind of fear i think is pretty uh pervasive within the african-american community it's a fear that emanates from historical reality this historical reality is that african americans have been neglected and mistreated by medicine health insurance as well as banking and other financial systems african americans didn't come to this country as buyers and sellers and participants in the market in a traditional way we were the property in the market that was being bought and sold medical experiments malnourishment poor hygiene sexual assault exposure to disease violence and many other maladies were visited upon the physical and mental health of enslaved africans the other thing that many people don't know is that for us on many plantations health care was attended to by veterinarians not by physicians so there's been a long deep distrust of health and the care of our people the medical and scientific community supported racist ideology with diagnoses specifically for blacks medical science even identified being black as a disorder calling it negritude the slave owners had to justify their treatment of my ancestors by convincing themselves that we were an inferior people therefore denying health care denying education denying family so they could live with themselves [Music] following slavery from reconstruction through jim crow segregation separate but equal laws perpetuated the unequal access to health care some scholars conclude that much of today's health disparities are directly attributable to the slave health deficit and all that followed but too often the focus is on the problems pain and pathos found in african american history discovering truth revealing little-known realities and surprising stories can offer inspiration and instruction even in the world of health care insurance and other forms of financial self-sufficiency you've heard before how we couldn't get pork chops so we made chitlins a delicacy well in the same vein we had african-american leaders primarily coming out of our religious community ministers like absalom jones and richard allen who at the end of the 18th century while we were still struggling with slavery and disconnects of all sorts created out of their religious fervor mutual aid society richard allen along with a number of other black methodist bodies that came together formed the african methodist episcopal church and incorporated had our first general conference in 1816. the amy church you know initially started from what we like to consider as the the first sit-in in philadelphia in 1787 led by richard allen absalom jones and some worshipers at saint george's methodist episcopal church where they were not welcome to worship freely after they completed their prayer they walked out and they started the free african society which was a benevolent society that was really focused on caring for those that really were having trouble caring for themselves the free african society's articles of incorporation written in the spring of 1787 call out a concern with health and wellness that resonates across the centuries as they stated a society should be formed without regard to religious tenets provided the persons lived an orderly and sober life in order to support one another in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children african-americans pool their funds that we might be able to bury our dead that we might be able to take care of the widows that we might be able to provide some health care for the youth we can find mutual aid societies providing protection providing funds for food for education libraries homes that were founded for orphans of color who had nowhere to go who couldn't be part of orphanages that served white people all of these sorts of things as at the same time they were fighting against slavery the very beginning i mean the the black church was was everything to the african-american i mean uh it was a place where we we did our theology of course our politics it was a conservatory of music it was everything for the african-american family and an african-american child the gospel of jesus christ is about wholeness for people if you look at jesus in the gospels as the story is told he's always concerned about the wellness of people people who were blind he wanted to have sight people who were deaf he wanted them to be able to hear people who were crippled he wanted them to be able to walk straight and people who were even having issues with emotions he wanted them to be whole right and so the church should operate the same way the scriptures say that it is the desire of god that we prosper in our health in the same way that our soul would prosper the holistic kind of philosophy that undergirds the black church comes out of our kind of collective struggle and so we have to address and have had to address these kinds of issues collectively for some time well it's an important model because at the time um there was no insurance for black folks these uh historic uh works of these heroes evolved from mutual aid societies to as we move further down the line african-american insurance companies the atlanta lifes the golden state mutuals the supreme life insurances the north carolina mutuals a multi-million dollar enterprise operated solely by and for negroes inside the home office this morning switchboard operators clerks stenographers bookkeepers and secretaries prepare for a routine day's work with their usual composed dignity these came as responses of a community that was left out that decided it needed to take care of itself charles spaulding makes his way through the busy third floor office to the early struggle of youth the three white collars and the day he closed his struggling grocery store to become general manager of durham's first negro insurance company the north carolina mutual and provident association what they did was so much a part of what our people did our people have always felt that they needed to lead the way in resolving those problems [Music] you look back on history and you look back on our ancestors and our current elders and their ability to take ownership of the health of our community you know was so powerful cooperatives offered another avenue of economic self-reliance we think about slavery as an economic institution you can see why it would be very easy and seem like common sense to many african americans to form economic cooperatives that actually go against the grain of that hyper individualistic exploitative capitalism because they and their families and their friends had been debased by that kind of capitalism and you see figures from du bois to ella baker to ida b wells and others calling for african americans to not turn their backs on trying to build wealth but to do it in a different way a way that would not be so exploitative in oklahoma this section of tulsa that had lots of african-american-owned businesses and people like to call it the black wall street of the midwest well wall street has this connotation of hyper capitalism making money getting a good return on your investment but obviously the people who put together what we call black wall street in hindsight were working together the whole time it's not that they were trying to leverage futures or something like this they were bringing people together creating credit unions grocery stores small businesses that they knew people in their in their neighborhood would frequent and they also knew were under siege and unfortunately in this case that came true with a white race riot that just completely destroyed that part of town [Music] many people have started to talk again about the history of the southern tenant farmers union which brought sharecroppers together to pool their resources and try to get better ways of selling their crops and getting fair prices as well as fair rent on the lands that they worked so these spaces we usually think of as places where people are just hiding and scared and waiting for the civil rights movement decades from now to happen but actually if we look at this history very closely we can see people across the country banding together and trying to make a better life by using these cooperative entities to leverage the power of the group [Music] the strong history of african american labor unions offers yet another example of effectively engaging in economic systems people know what a union is in terms of laborers negotiating with management however the brotherhood of sleeping car porters which is one of the most important labor organizations founded by african americans also had a ladies auxiliary and those two organizations the brotherhood of sleeping carporters and their ladies auxiliary created cooperative economic institutions including grocery stores and credit unions to help members and their communities become economically stronger we don't want to romanticize the kind of self-reliance efforts that occurred during the jim crow or slavery past people making pretty bold statements about how jim crow helped keep black people together i think that's a very dangerous path to go down however i think it is important for us to re-learn or learn for the first time a lot of the stories of african-american community cooperative economic development while african americans have had to create self-sufficient systems for health care since the first decades of nationhood the broader american journey towards affordable health care is a long and difficult one that goes back to the progressive era remarkable thing about health insurance and the the clarity that we've had in these united states about how important healthcare is we hearken all the way back to theodore roosevelt in 1909 roosevelt organized the first white house conference on the health of dependent children but with the progressive era fading and with the start of world war one federal efforts on health care falter his cousin later franklin delano roosevelt pressed for universal healthcare he ended up coming away with social security fdr had to remove health care coverage to assure passage of the social security bill in 1935. he tried for health care reform again in the late 30s but the decline of the new deal and the outbreak of world war ii ended these efforts harry truman pressed for universal health care was unable to achieve it subsequently we had efforts by lyndon johnson and nixon william jefferson clinton and hillary all to achieve health care none were able to achieve it 98 years of struggle in this country towards universal health care was unable to achieve it so the work of president obama to bring forward health care is a source of pride for us i'm not the first president to take up this cause but i am determined to be the last at the end of the day no matter what side of the aisle improving health care was important to everyone it was just how you get there and we're going to sign this bill more challenges remained after the affordable care act became law from supreme court decisions to the development of the online marketplaces the process continued to be contentious and controversial what we're going to do today is create your account okay on the mnsure site and complete an application and submit it but now it's more about people and less about politics it's about making sure everyone can access these marketplaces to get the best healthcare insurance for themselves and their families i am tamika toady menshore navigator coordinator for stairstep foundation i was sent a letter to reapply insurance by computer major's concern was he didn't have access to computer or internet at home i said come on in major we'll sit down and we'll take care of this so in this section we'll add the other people that are in your household he had a couple questions along the way so i was able to answer those questions we have had some glitches and the nice thing about the tool is there's so much support if there's a case where online's not available we can still do a paper application so it's really a nice support community there's always backup that is the process all done all right thank you very much you're welcome when we're able to see this positive change and see individuals getting their household covered and it's also nice to see when there's people that might have been paying these huge premiums and deductibles and had these pre-existing issues seeing them having affordable coverage it's it's really nice because you get used to forking out that close to thousand dollars a month and uh but when the numbers came up and you it was it was a revelation and it was uh it was a blessing uh it was a life-changing i have kids in college and so uh three in fact and so those monies can be used elsewhere so i'm really am i'm grateful it's not enough for me to benefit and i think that the church is an incredible venue or avenue through which the story should be told that we have a responsibility to empower people our people and people in general we have been setting up mass community enrollment events in churches we answer any questions that individuals might have and then we actually do enrollment right there on site so we're enrolling people right there at those events we hosted one mnsure navigation session after our sunday worship where we had several navigators come out and assist folks with getting signed up and it was an awesome time and it was good just to be able to be involved in helping people get the health care that they need without that trusted voice we found that in our community people won't step forward people won't get engaged they won't sign up our events are open to the public they're held and churches around the community but they're open to the surrounding neighborhoods so we're reaching everyone i remember sitting with a white male coming into a little baptist church him just kind of looking around at all the children running you know and just being amazed and welcomed and helped i understand the fear that can come along when you don't have coverage for your family and i understand the bills that can pile up because you're still doing those things that you have to do to protect your family we had two that were off to college and we had three that remained at home and we had to make some real decisions because both parents being outside of the house at the exact same time with child care for three children becomes a little challenging and my wife could not we had to have surgery for her i mean i mean major surgery about eight weeks ago and in the process of having major surgery about eight weeks ago when we first signed up for mnsure as a man as a husband as a father it was a very proud moment to say you know honey children we have this insurance and dad was able to get this done the pride that he can have in signing his family up especially for the men in the community to be able to kind of have that as an example be like yeah you know what that's great if it worked for him it'll work for me we are in 40 years now of hip-hop culture really when it kind of got started it was all just about the self-expression self-reliance but at the same time now that we're at 40 years we see a lot of the pioneers of the culture who are aging who are looking at different health issues cool dj herk who is one of the pioneers of the culture uh back in 2011 he actually ended up having kidney stones of course no health insurance this is something now that the masses of the hip-hop community are beginning to start to look at but they're not going to just sign up blindly so there has to be an awareness campaign there has to be some outreach there has to be community engagement [Music] the invincibles think they're young and they're going to live forever and it's just good to inform them of the importance of health insurance and coverage and you want to have it and not need it versus needed and not have it it's important to take care of yourself and have access to all of those health resources and do the preventative steps versus the catastrophic care there's a writer who said we're all just temporarily able-bodied and so if we think about health care in that way and we think about preventative care getting into that system and thinking about yourself as actually doing a social good by being part of a health care system is another way of thinking about it we can be the model for the nation about how to get health care for everybody and how to get the community healthy the reality is we're in this together it this is a a life-changing thing and has been a life-changing thing for a lot of people and i think ultimately we'll change our the world in which we live i think the biggest thing is having the know of who started this process and why it began and why we have to arrive to this place we understand how important healthcare is if we understand that history of of the mutual aid societies and the african-american health insurance companies that we might move from a place of disadvantage to a place of inclusion and respect i know that absalom jones and richard allen thrilled to think that president barack obama thought enough about the importance of universal health care that he staked his entire political capital on achieving it glory to god 2010 he was able to stroke the pen [Music] discovered truth a health care journey is a minnesota partnership co-production of mnsure on the web at mnsure.org the stair step foundation and twin cities public television [Music]

Channel: Twin Cities PBS

Views: 46,591

Keywords: black history, american history, black health disparities, racist medicine, barriers to healthcare, black barriers to healthcare

Id: bz00gbEGfho

Length: 26min 9sec (1569 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021