Medical News Today stands with the black STEM community as academics and institutions around the world down tools today in support of the #ShutDownSTEM #ShutDownAcademia #Strike4BlackLives initiative.
We need to acknowledge that science has a problem with racism.
Black people and people of color are woefully underrepresented in academic and professional institutions focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This includes healthcare.
These problems must be exposed and confronted in order to eradicate the structural racism they perpetuate.
Today, the only content we will be publishing on the MNT website and across our social channels will be articles that highlight and explore the deep racial inequities in healthcare, as well as our updates concerning the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Instead of “business as usual,” we as an editorial team will take this moment to further educate ourselves on systemic racism, both within our own organization and in healthcare and wider society.
We will draw on a bank of resources compiled by our black and allied colleagues designed to guide us through the journey of learning, unlearning, and taking action to confront racism in all its forms.
We will use this time to focus on MNT’s ongoing work to ensure we can better support and represent black people, and all people of color, in the content we create.
This is a continuation of our proactive stance against institutionalized racism in healthcare and of our wider support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
This is not just one day. This is the new way.
Robin Hough
Editor-in-Chief, Medical News Today