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In remarks reminiscent of the darkest days of the eugenics movement, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Friday that the fact that COVID-19 predominantly kills people who are unwell to begin with is encouraging news.

As the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 reached a record high, the CDC director was asked in an interview on ABCs Good Morning America about those encouraging headlines that were talking about this morning.

Walensky replied:

The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who are unwell to begin with, and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron.

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As a factual matter, the claim that COVID-19 in general, and the Omicron variant in particular, is only affecting the elderly and ill is false. The spread of the new variant has driven a record surge in hospitalizations of young people, and in particular children and infants. The long-term consequences for those who survive and suffer the consequences of Long COVID are still little understood.

However, the suggestion that the overwhelming number of deaths occur among the elderly and those with preexisting conditions (comorbidities) is encouraging news is shocking in its implications.

Walenskys comments were broadly condemned by doctors, scientists and advocates for the disabled as an embrace of eugenics by the Biden administration.

This is eugenicist, lawyer and disability activist Matthew Cortland, who is chronically ill, wrote on Twitter. The problem is that the people running @CDCgov, including @CDCDirector, **fundamentally believe** its encouraging if disabled and chronically ill people die. And all of their decisions are informed by, and enact, that belief.

None of this is hyperbole. Walenskys comments express the turn on the part of the White House and dominant sections of the US political establishment toward an open embrace of the view that the lives of the chronically ill, the disabled, and the elderly are fundamentally valueless.

The leading advocate of this policy is Ezekiel Emanuel, the former Obama administration official and current Biden COVID task force adviser, who is now being promoted in a full court press in the US print and broadcast media.

On Wednesday, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a set of articles by Emanuel and other former Biden health advisors arguing for making COVID-19 the new normal and calling on states to retire the reporting of COVID-19 deaths. These articles were treated as gospel in the US media, with fawning front-page write-ups in the New York Times and Washington Post.

But this campaign went into overdrive on Sunday, with Emanuel serving as the unstated surrogate for the White House on NBCs Meet the Press. Emanuels call for a new normal was simultaneously hailed by the lead editorial in the Washington Post, which called it a sensible strategy for living with covid, presented by experts.

In reality, the call by Emanuel and his co-authors is nothing more than a recapitulation of the pseudo-scientific Great Barrington Declaration, stripped of the myth that herd immunity would lead to the end of the pandemic. It is a plan for COVID-19 in perpetuity, with wave after wave, variant after variant, taking countless lives each year.

Neither Meet the Press nor the Washington Post editorial mentioned that Emanuel is a leading advocate of reducing life expectancy and slashing the provision of medical care for the elderly and chronically ill.

Emanuel, in the words of University of South Carolina philosophy professor Jennifer A. Frey, thinks of disabled and elderly people as useless and ineffectual; when we run the cost/benefit analysis they cost more than they are worth. Emanuel believes that life after 75 [is] not worth living and old people a drain on our resources, she concluded.

Emanuel has expressed his eugenicist ideas time and time again, noted journalist and disability researcher Laura Dorwart.

Emanuels basic precept is that the fundamental determinant of medical care must not be the individuals rights to decency and dignity, but rather a cost-benefit analysis driven by the costs to society of extending the lives of the ill and the elderly.

Emanuel claimsrightlythat the medical profession is averse to such cost-benefit analysis. But this is because the application of such an analysis to medicine and public health is informed by the legacy of eugenics and the German Nazi Partys murder of tens of thousands of people with chronic illnesses whom the Nazis branded unfit to live.

In the bioethics textbook From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, professors Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler note the legacy of cost-benefit analysis in the American eugenics movement.

They cite the Eugenics Catechism of the American Eugenics Society of 1926, which argues, It has been estimated that the State of New York, up to 1916, spent over $2,000,000 on the descendants of one familythe Jukesclaimed to be genetically deficient. How much would it have cost to sterilize the original Jukes pair? asked the society: Less than $150.

The book continues, Similar examples abounded in the arithmetic books of German schoolchildren in the 1930s, extending to the cost of keeping institutionalized, handicapped people alive; not long afterward, tens of thousands lost their lives.

In the autumn of 1939, Adolf Hitler secretly authorized a medically administered program of mercy death code-named Operation T4, writes the US Holocaust Museum. The killings secretly continued until the wars end, resulting in the murder of an estimated 275,000 people with disabilities.

Today, hundreds of thousands of elderly and chronically ill people are dying, not in gas chambers, but gasping for air in Americas hospitals. Seventy-five percent of those who have died from COVID-19 have been above the retirement age of 65, and 93 percent have been over the age of 50. In 2020, a year in which 373,000 Americans died from COVID-19, US life expectancy at birth fell by 1.8 years, from 78.8 years to 77.0, according to federal mortality data released last month.

But this reality is not, as Walensky says, encouraging, but a horrifying source of guilt and shame, a condemnation of an utterly inhuman society driven by the needs of enriching the few at the expense of the many.

Scientists and doctors have responded to Walenskys remarks with the demand that she resign. Their anger is justified. But the fact is that Walensky was speaking not only for herself, not only for the Biden administration, but for the entire capitalist class.

For years, American think tanks and military strategists have systematically advocated reducing the life expectancy of American workers. The pandemic has created the means by which this policy could be implemented through seeming inaction and incompetence.

It is, in fact, a deliberate policy, driven by the diseased reliance of all aspects of American capitalism on the perpetual rise in the markets, fueled by the ever-greater immiseration and impoverishment of the working class. Having bled much of the working class dry, the capitalist oligarchy looks to the elderly and the disabled as a source of untapped value.

If they have their way, the cutting of outlays on Social Security and Medicare is to be accomplished not by politicians touching the third rail of American politics, but by allowing the pandemic to continue in perpetuity.

This filthy policy is accompanied by an equally filthy lie: That COVID-19 cannot be stopped. China has successfully executed a Zero COVID policy, with just 5,000 deaths in a country of 1.4 billion. If a similar policy had been carried out in the United States at the start of the pandemic, over 850,000 people would still be alive.

This homicidal new normal demanded by the capitalist oligarchy is being challenged by a growing movement of the working class to resist mass infection and mass death. Teachers in Chicago voted last week to oppose the resumption of in-person instruction, and teachers in Chicago, New York and San Francisco have launched sickouts. They will be joined this week with a wave of walkouts by students in opposition to the Biden administrations homicidal drive to keep schools open no matter the costs in human lives.

The open turn to eugenics by the ruling class expresses a fundamental reality that is dawning on millions of people: Capitalism is incompatible with the social rights of the great mass of humanity. Securing those rights requires the struggle to end this social order and replace it with socialism.

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The stench of eugenics at the White House - WSWS

'Kudlow discusses Bidens failing policies as inflation continues to soar.

Happy New Year everyone. It's great to be back after a lovely week off.

And right at the start, I want to make two points. First, I remain steadfastly optimistic about America's future. Conservative values and free enterprise capitalism will handily defeat Joe Biden's woke leftist drive. The America we love will not accept big government socialism.

And second, let's work together to: Save America. And Kill the Bill. We beat the bill back last year.

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Poll after poll shows the American public does not want a new entitlement state, nor inflationary spending, nor huge tax hikes, nor a regulatory takeover of economic sector after sector, nor an end to fossil fuels with soaring energy costs and limited supply, nor continued monetary pump priming by the Fed that fuels even more inflation.

The American way rewards success, not punish it. The American way loves the freedom to invent, innovate, discover, create, and prosper. Americans don't want to be strangled by red tape and taxes from radical left bureaucrats in the Washington D.C. swamp. The American way promotes parents and families, not government control of education and child-rearing. The American way defends police and law and order.

National Taxpayers Union EVP Brandon Arnold and Walser Wealth Management CEO Rebecca Walser discuss Sen. Joe Manchin's stance on the Build Back Better plan and what's in store for Congress in 2022.

Americans very much favor legal immigration through appropriate processes, but the country is appalled by the current lack of borders and nearly two million illegals who are also, by the way, receiving various forms of government welfare. Americans are not racist. They do not believe the country was founded on a bunch of white supremacists,they don't want divisive racism in their kids' classrooms, and they are sick and tired of far-left crazy people who constantly charge racism as the answer to every legitimate disagreement or even conversation. This kind of totalitarian approach that seeks to end freedom of speech is unacceptable to traditional America. The majority of this country, indeed it's backbone, is comprised of honest, blue-collar workin' folk who cherish traditional conservative values.

Their arch-enemy is leftist wokeism and that's why the middle class is in full revolt against these leftist attacks.

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Also, Americans want to see a strong nation, peace through strength, American interests first, not diplomatic appeasement. Whether it's China's Xi, or Russia's Putin or Iranian mullahs, workin' folks are sick and tired of seeing America pushed around. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a catastrophe. We could be on the verge of war with Russia and Ukraine. We mustn't give up Taiwan. And we must not allow Iran to nuclearize.

These are a few key points and what has turned out to be a populist revolt against the administration of Joe Biden. His foreign policy is in shambles. His economic policy is universally unpopular. His honesty and competence are questioned at every turn. And frankly his presidency is on the verge of collapse. Would that this were not so.

Former VA Secretary Robert Wilkie discusses Biden's response to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, U.S. energy dependence and the administration's foreign policies.

Unfortunately, I fear it is so.

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This is the America I love, just as you love it, too. But remember, policies can be changed, and problems can be solved. That optimistic thought has always been part of my personal DNA. We've been through rough patches before, but we've always come out of them greater, stronger, and more prosperous. I worked for two problem-solving presidents:Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. Nothing is ever perfect, but the country was always stronger when they left office. I don't see why the same thought won't apply now.

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This little socialist interlude we are experiencing will soon pass. America is too good, too practical, too commonsensical, and too smart to allow socialist economics and bigoted prejudicial values to last for long.Join me in my new year's optimist. And that's my Riff.

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening commentary on January 3, 2022

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Kudlow: The America we love will not accept big government socialism - Fox Business

On the back of encouraging polls including one that eliminated the Tory lead on the economy Keir Starmer started the new year with a speech linking the months of Tory corruption and incompetence to a wider argument about Britain.

Though the Labour leader is surely correct to acknowledge that his party cant just rely on Tory collapse, there is some way to go to turn the headings of security, prosperity and respect into something that can capture the public imagination.

Tucked away near the start of his speech was a small reference to the other Keir, Hardie, in the context of a point about patriotism. The Labour party is a deeply patriotic party. Keir Hardie once said that British socialism must wear a local garb. He meant that British socialism was rooted in the everyday concerns of working people.

But while Hardies socialism was quoted, we heard no more from the present Keir about his own. It is something he must address but seems reluctant to.

In an interview last month, Starmer was asked whether he was a socialist. He refused to say, asking what does that mean?, moving quickly past the question. It was a strange response.

Each Labour leader has had to define where they stood in relation to socialism. Labour was established through an alliance including trade unionists and socialists. Through clause IV of its constitution it was committed to a form of widespread common ownership. Leading figures from all parts of the party have argued about what socialism is. That contested nature is a reflection of its role in the political life of the party.

There are two broad considerations that flow from Starmers answer. One is the perennial need to engage with and answer what is, or should be, a central question; and it is worth noting that leaders from the partys centre and right have done so to further their own purposes as much as the left. Answering it, with certainty and clarity, certainly need not be a barrier to electoral success.

But, the other is that the crises of the 21st century the pandemic and climate surely cry out for a politics based on socialism.

Reaction to Starmers positioning was not limited to Labours left. The commentator John Rentoul, hardly a proselytist for the left, argued that he ought to have answered yes, of course, and then should have defined what socialism means to him.

The Labour leaders answer was particularly unusual because in 2020, he had set out his view of socialism in a Guardian article. If I see something wrong or spot an injustice, I want to put it right, he argued, adding: We can win again if we make the moral case for socialism, a moral socialism, that is relevant to peoples everyday lives and the challenges we face as we move into the 2020s and 2030s.

I took part in the discussion that preceded the publication of Starmers article. There was never any question that such a statement of political values was unnecessary or a hostage to fortune. It was a function of being a senior Labour politician that you set out a wider philosophy.

His was not everyones view of socialism. But in a sense, it was his attempt to answer in advance the question put to him more recently. That moral socialism piece, so carefully thought through, makes the Labour leaders subsequent non-answer all the more perplexing. Why resile from it?

Perhaps Labours leadership is inclined to avoid anything that nods to the wider left. Yet all Labour leaders, left and right, have to resolve their approach to socialism. Ed Miliband said he was bringing it back. Tony Blairs replacement for clause IV declared the Labour party is a democratic socialist party. Neil Kinnock, well versed in the language of the labour movement, was interviewed for Marxism Today, whose analysis was seen to be of use to a Labour leader moving the party rightwards.

Some may say that any talk of socialism is a turn-off, but no one is so naive as to believe that Labour ought to fight the next election with socialism as its slogan. Jeremy Corbyns overarching platform was not vote Labour for socialism, but for the many not the few.

People will vote for left politicians of every stripe because their stances and policies connect to the direct interests and values of the voters. The challenge is to work out how to apply socialist ideas in order to advance at an electoral level.

Our times demand more, not less, socialism. Polling consistently shows high levels of support for socialism among young people to the alarm of rightwing analysts. Even among the wider population, including in the US, positive and negative views of capitalism and socialism poll closely together.

More importantly, the free market has offered no solutions to the most fundamental aspects of the present pandemic. The state has had to intervene, massively and repeatedly. Ninety-seven per cent of the funding for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine came from the public sector and charities, for example. The vaccines would have been impossible without the state.

Gordon Browns demand for global action to end the scandal of undervaccination around the world should remind us that this is an unequal planet, organised to the benefit of a relatively small number of rich countries. A socialist view looks at the contending class interests in society. In any given situation socialists will ask, who pays?

So it is with the fallout of this pandemic. No new furlough for the Omicron wave has left huge numbers of workers in the lurch. The TUC highlighted the worst Christmas wage squeeze in nearly a decade. Many key workers, having seen the economy through the phases of the pandemic, can now expect a pay cut. The Treasurys case that public sector pay settlements should not keep pace with inflation equates to a real-terms reduction.

The pandemic has seen our society gripped by questions long-raised by socialists: internationalism, collectivism, inequality, class interests, planning, public ownership and state intervention versus the free market. The same applies to the climate crisis. Labour appears reluctant, but it simply must engage with where it stands on socialism.

It is just over 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At the time, many on the right hoped that seismic event would also mean the end for a politics that looked to a future beyond capitalism. It was never likely then, and the twin global challenges of Covid-19 and climate emergency must surely lead to the opposite conclusion now.

Simon Fletcher is a former adviser to Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband. He previously served as chief of staff to the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, from 2000 to 2008

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Starmer still has to answer the big question: where does Labour stand on socialism? - The Guardian

Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden, Germany. Everett Collection

Circulating on Telegram channels lately has been a 12-second video of a Chihuahua puppy snuggling up to a tiny, chirping chick, eventually resting its head upon the chick and falling asleep. The caption reads, Love Animals, Hate Antifa. If such a politicized caption to an innocuous video proves a surprise to readers, the purveyor of the content will come as a shock: WAP1488, an unabashed neo-Nazi community with more than 1,000 subscribers.

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This is just one of a score of videos with the Love Animals, Hate Antifa label circulating in recent months, and one small part of an even larger phenomenon of national socialists using animals to promote their message. Defying the more commonly-identified brutal aesthetic, certain national socialist circles have jumped on a bandwagon elsewhere used on dating profiles and in advertising: gain appeal by featuring animals.

WAP1488 serves as one of the most unadulterated manifestations of this attempt to wed animal rights and national socialism. The name of the organization alone signals its ideological disposition the numbers being a reference to the 14 Words, a slogan of the white power movement, and to the Nazi salute Heil Hitler (H being the eighth letter in the Roman alphabet).

There was widespread support for animal welfare in Nazi Germany among the countrys leadership, the groups pinned post reads. Adolf Hitler and his top officials took a variety of measures to ensure animals were protected. What follows is a list of the various conservationist and anti-hunting efforts by the likes of Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring, men more widely known for their role in orchestrating World War II and the Holocaust.

The post goes so far as to observe that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels described Hitler as a vegetarian whose hatred of the Jewish and Christian religions in large part stemmed from the ethical distinction these faiths drew between the value of humans and the value of other animals, a statement followed by an observation that Hitler planned to ban slaughterhouses in the German Reich following the conclusion of World War II. This last comment is perhaps most jarring to mainstream audiences, given the morbid irony of Hitlers use of slaughterhouses in the form of concentration and extermination camps that killed millions of Jewish people, individuals with disabilities, sexual minorities, Romani, intellectuals and political opponents.

Beyond these written arguments articulating Nazi care for animals are scores of photographs and videos of Nazis with animals. Not only is there an array of images of Nazi soldiers playing or relaxing with German Shepherds and cats, but also dozens of images of Hitler posing with dogs, rabbits and fawns. At times, the images do not feature humans at all, and yet they still publicize this line of reason, typically through tea-cup-sized animals perched among Nazi uniform.

This is not just a strategy of WAP1488, though. It is a tactic used by many supporters of national socialism. Telegram channels such as the NSDAP International (almost 10,000 subscribers), the NSDAP (more than 5,000 subscribers) and the nSDAP International (almost 2,500 subscribers) now all fairly prominently feature animal-centric images and rhetoric.

Meanwhile, on Reddit, several subreddits discussing national socialism post both official Nazi propaganda of animals and unofficial Nazi-animal content. Perhaps exemplary of this is one private subredding called r/awwschwitz, which describes itself as a subreddit for pictures of adorable or cute things that one would not normally associated with positive emotions, and which an observer characterized as a dispenser of all your cutesy Hitler needs.

More than just cute photos and references to Hitlers alleged vegetarianism, a common refrain among neo-Nazis across various platforms is one claiming that the current German animal welfare legislation is the descendant of Nazi policy. In fact, contemporary national socialists depict Nazis as being trailblazers of animal rights and preservation of the natural world. The obscuring of these facts are then denounced as attempts by biased media to unjustly vilify Nazism and all its devotees.

Universal cuteness of fuzzy baby animals aside, it appears that there exists a propagandistic through-line between the arguments of Nazis then and certain national socialists now. Current national socialists rely heavily upon the plethora of staged animal-Nazi propaganda produced and initially disseminated in and by the Third Reich itself. Scholars such as Norbert Bromberg and Verna Small, Arnold Arluke and Boria Sax and Jan Mohnhaupt have described high-ranking Nazis as demonstrating a public interest in animal welfare due to some mixture of personal affection for animals and political messaging.

To the latter point, it is clear that many of these images were staged rather than natural displays of affection, as signaled by the unnatural poses and contexts of the photographs soldiers patrolling war-zones bending over to play with cats, Hitler staring off into the distance flanked by a dog standing on hind-legs in the same pose, and kittens curled up in Nazi helmets that dangle from fences. All of these images may simply exist because the regime felt that an articulated interest in animal welfare for the purposes of presenting a compassionate and trustworthy side to the public, but also to normalize their social Darwinist ideas and vilify racial, ethnic and religious others that they strove to paint as cruel toward animals.

In the Third Reich, the other, and Jewish people in particular, were characterized as brutal toward animals. This was most frequently discussed in relation to alleged cruelty in the kosher butchering process, which Nazi propagandists noted as being evidence of Jews other status and depicted as ritualistic and sadistic. Meanwhile, Nazi attacks on intellectuals particularly Jewish ones also made use of animal welfare issues, claiming that Jewish scientists engaged in the practice of vivisection (operating on live animals for experimental purposes), tormenting their test subjects and fulfilling Jewish bloodlust.

Curiously, the Nazis also produced a plethora of propaganda that painted these others, their enemies, as animals in their own right, the only animals for which the Nazis did not show any care. The Nazis waged a relentless propaganda campaign dehumanizing their opponents, particularly Jewish people. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as rats, snakes, spiders and other unpopular animals.

It is significant to note the animals most often chosen: those with multiple appendages, such as spiders and octopuses, to reflect the narrative of Jewish control over society; or dangerous, poisonous or diseased animals. The snake, for instance, harkens back to parallels of the creation story and Satan in the form of a snake, whilst rats carry diseases and spiders fatal venom.

National socialists today rely upon the exact same framing of these issues, though with an expanded pool of racial, ethnic and religious communities to vilify and with one additional purpose. Juxtaposed with other national socialist content, be it animal-Nazi propaganda or otherwise, are images of the other as subhuman or as animals, as well as animal cruelty perpetrated by non-white peoples.

In the latter case, the most commonly used scenarios are Jewish kosher slaughter practices and Kapparot (used by some communities in the lead up to Yom Kippur to cleanse the person of sin through the transference of sins to a chicken, which is then ritually killed in the street); halal slaughter practices by Muslim communities; the killing and consumption of dog meat in China and South Korea (taken as metonyms for all Asian cultures); detusking elephants and other killings of large animals; and vivisections by pharmaceutical companies.

The examples have been carefully selected, attempting to characterize non-white people as inherently violent, as Kapparot and the Yulin dog meat festival are annual, while the vivisections, religious slaughtering and big game hunting are relatively common practices. National socialists use these moments of violence against animals to make audiences wonder: Would these others attempt to mainstream such practices if given the opportunity?

Beyond this, though, is an implication of supremacism, with white people displaying the more advanced emotions of empathy and compassion absent in the uncivilized communities that commit animal cruelty. The videos and images are incredibly violent blood spurting, animals squealing and resisting their victimization, and carcasses in disrepair. Aside from being graphic in their own right (as any slaughter video, kosher, halal or otherwise, is want to be), the cruelty in these videos may be said to also encourage audiences to extrapolate if this is how these communities treat innocent animals, how might they treat white people?

Finally, in addition to the obvious attempts to paint the Nazis as less brutal than these other groups through their contrasting approaches to animal welfare, the use of animal content is meant to chip away at mainstream anti-Nazi sentiment. These images clearly seek to generate an implicit connection between viewer and subject, resulting in the humanizing of individuals involved in a regime considered so brutal that it is widely denounced as unequivocally inhumane.

As social media commenters in these sections even those professing not to be radicalized but mere observers of said content have noted, seeing and hearing about Nazis care for animals has the effect of chipping away at the whole evil characterization of the Nazis as depicted in mainstream history. According to the logic of neo-Nazi propagandists, if Nazis were not always cruel and instead cared for innocent animals, then the stories about Nazism and by extension national socialism are exaggerated; if stories of their cruelty are exaggerated in this regard, then perhaps they are dramatized in other areas as well, such as in relation to the Holocaust. Meanwhile, if Nazis were caring for animals, i.e., the innocent, then it would stand to reason that they vilified communities that were not innocent and instead the bloodthirsty others living in Germany. Thus, neo-Nazis use animal welfare concerns to pull at a thread of the metaphorical tapestry of Nazi evil, a thread that they want to tug to the point where it entirely unravels.

It warrants reiterating that absent from this modern national socialists analysis is any acknowledgment of the unprecedented violence and cruelty of the Nazi regime. No matter how many kittens SS officers held or dogs that Adolf Hitler posed beside, the reality is that the most brutal butchers of life were the German National Socialists themselves. All of the torturous behaviors Nazis projected onto the other experimenting on and brutally slaughtering living beings were acts that Nazis committed against other humans.

Advertisers and people on dating apps use animals in their content to grab attention, appear relatable and induce those positive thoughts that incline the viewer to further consider them. While for different goals, the same is true for national socialists today. Thus, a puppy falling asleep with a chick speaks less to national socialist interests in the cute and more with their hope that, in time, they can draw viewers near and make them dream of a national socialist world.

*[Fair Observer is amedia partnerof theCentre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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How Puppies and Kittens Feature in National Socialist Propaganda - Fair Observer

On June 25, 2021, White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), a national organization of medical students, published its statement of vision and values. The dominant medical practice in the United States has been built on the dehumanization and exploitation of Black people, the document read, and WC4BL exists to rid the medical system of this allegedly pervasive racism. Doing so requires not only dismantling anti-Black racism, white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy, but also dismantling fatphobia, embracing Black queer feminist praxis, and unlearning toxic medical knowledge.

Terminology aside, WC4BL is no fringe organization. It boasts more than 70 chapters at medical schools across the country, including at such top institutions as the University of North Carolina, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin. In 2020, when physicians around the country participated in George Floyd protests, their rallies took the organizations name. Now the group hopes to keep the movement going by injecting the concepts of identity politics into the practice of medicine.

WC4BL seeks to transform the U.S. medical system. White supremacy, according to the statement, permeates every dominant American institution, including healthcare. Part of the reason is the current credentialing system for medical doctors. Physicians have utilized violence to oust women and femme healers primarily through the professionalization of the medical field, the statement reads. The power and prestige given to medical doctors in the U.S. today is not a direct result of scientific advancement or service to the larger community, but the intentional and often violent consolidation of power.

It can be easy to forget that the organization focuses on medical schools; evidently, equity in medicine also requires remaking society. Black queer feminists, it explains, have expanded socialism to further movements that critically approach class, gender, race, and sexuality. WC4BL is abolitionist, calling for the end of both prisons and police. Because prisons are associated with negative health outcomes, being dedicated to health requires us to abolish (not reform) prison and surveillance systems. The organization condemns fatphobia and cisheteropatriarchy, and proposes to destigmatize and decriminalize drug use, decriminalize sex work, offer universal access to abortion, end the use of BMI, and remove gatekeepers from gender-affirming healthcare.

WC4BL has every reason to play a strong hand. For more than a year, medical schools around the country have followed its lead. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recent guide to anti-racism planning highlights WC4BL by name, suggesting that universities develop a scorecard similar to the White Coats for Black Lives Racial Justice Report Card. Thats a significant endorsement. The AAMC cosponsors the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools.

WC4BLs other source of influence has come through direct pressure on medical schools. In June 2020, chapters of WC4BL around the country succeeded in effectuating change at medical schools. At UC Davis, WC4BL presented recommendations and its Racial Justice Report Card to the School of Medicine. The administration found them largely feasible and responded by creating the Administrative Action Plan to Address Racial Justice. The plan institutionalized, among other things, a clear system to ensure that perpetrators of racial microaggressions are required to complete corrective action. Meantime, the school of medicine at the University of Utah received demands from its chapter of WC4BL on June 12, 2020. By December 9, the School of Medicines Executive Committee had approved a long version of those demands, declaring that Racism is a Public Health Crisis and updating student evaluations to solicit feedback on the cultural humility of faculty.

At Columbia University, WC4BL played a part in inspiring the medical schools anti-racism initiative. One top recommendation in Columbias plan involves creating faculty development run by individuals grounded in critical race theory. At Michigan Medicine, the WC4BL chapter sent a letter demanding a curriculum redesign that employs an intersectional framework that incorporates critical race theory. Michigan Medicine adopted that demand almost verbatim, adding only that the new curriculum should draw from the work of Ibram X. Kendi.

These medical schools are being forthright about their new priorities. White Coats for Black Lives has already had much success in its mission to transform medical education. The next stop will be the medical field itself.

John Sailer is a research associate at the National Association of Scholars.

Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images

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'White Coats for Black Lives' and the Transformation of Medical Schools - City Journal