Swope Health announces a new edition of its podcast, One on One with Swope Health, featuring Janay Reliford and Mickey Dean of the KC Reparations Coalition.
Eric Wesson, founder and publisher of The Next Page KC, a newspaper focused on the Black community, hosts the show’s conversations with Kansas Citians about issues of importance to the community’s health and wellbeing.
In this conversation, Eric invites his guests to explain the role of the KC Reparations Coalition and the Mayor’s newly formed reparations commission. The Coalition helped document the information that led to the city ordinance which authorized the commission. The commission holds the responsibility for developing recommendations to close the wealth gap in Kansas City.
Janay Reliford, chair of the Coalition, speaks to the Coalition’s focus on healthcare, housing, education, business and economics, and criminal justice. The group documented inequities that harmed Black people in each category.
Reliford notes that other groups have received reparations. “Why not Black people?” she asked.
Mickey Dean, speaking as a member of the Coalition and an advisor to the commission, brings extensive ties to the reparations movement across the nation. At the first meeting of the commission, Dean delivered an extensive presentation on the reparations movement, including a series of examples from history from 1619 to the present.
Reparations comes from the word “repair.” The goal of reparations is repair the damage of segregation and inequality. To close the wealth gap, an intervention is required.
This discussion touches on reparation initiatives in other parts of the nation, including cities like Evanston, Ill., and San Francisco, and the state of California. The conversation also addresses the impacts of mass incarceration, health injustices, educational inequalities and more, including affirmative action and myths surrounding it. The goal is to hold the city accountable for bringing reparatory justice — equality for Black people.
Oppression impacts all people. The benefit of reparations can uplift the entire community. Learn more in this conversation.
Watch the podcast:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/4HgIH77RC20
Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/swopehealth/episodes/One-on-One-with-Swope-Health-Jenay-Reliford-and-Mickey-Dean-e273l2e
