Wednesday, November 18th at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT
Join the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, Dissent magazine, The New Press, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Left Voice, and the University of Pennsylvania Press for the next installment in an ongoing series of virtual discussions based on the book We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style. This month’s discussion will focus on Dorothy Roberts’ chapter on Universal Healthcare and Racial Justice.
Amidst an unprecedented pandemic and in the face of a racist police state, we must chart a new course. In We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style, leading thinkers and activists come together to examine the democratic socialist history of the United States and how we might achieve a world where every human being is guaranteed a life of safety, health, dignity, and even joy, free from the commodification of basic necessities. The chapters of this timely and urgent volume tackle climate change, foreign policy, socialist governance, reparations, and more.
Our event on November 18 will be framed by the chapter’s discussion of healthcare and racial justice. What is the case for universal healthcare? How do we fight for it and ensure that racial justice is part of that fight?
Dorothy Roberts is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and the Law School, where she is the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. She is also Founding Director of the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society. Among her many publications are Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty and Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century.
Susan Rogers, president-elect of Physicians for a National Health Program, recently retired from Stroger Hospital of Cook County but continues as a volunteer attending hospitalist and internist there. Prior to retiring, she was co-director of medical student programs for the Department of Medicine and received numerous teaching awards from medical students and residents. She is an Assistant Professor of medicine at Rush University, where she continues to be an active member of the Committee of Admissions.
Tre Kwon is a revolutionary socialist, RN, student midwife, member of Left Voice and member of the DSA Health Workers' Collective. At the peak of the pandemic in NYC, she cut her maternity leave short to join her coworkers in the ICU. Once there, she co-organized a workers' committee to organize actions to defend patients and workers' lives, joining a wave of opposition by rank-and-file nurses across the city. They not only fought for more PPE and testing, but also raised the call for a complete overhaul of capitalist health care: for a nationalized system under worker control.
Natasha Lewis is co-editor of Dissent magazine.
This event could go as late as 9:30pm Eastern.
