Chicago Mayor declares racism a public health crisis

Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced the city is labeling racism a public health crisis, alongside the Chicago Department of Health.

"At almost every single point in our city's history, racism has taken a devastating toll on the health and wellbeing of our residents of color—especially those who are Black," Lightfoot stated.

The central reasoning for this declaration comes from a “9.2-year life expectancy gap between Black and non-Black Chicagoans” that emerged in the past decade, per NBC News Chicago.

Chicago’s Department of Public Health is using $9.6 million meant for COVID-19 relief for this project. Their main mission is to review the current “anti-racist” policies in place, reflect on “the impacts of racism,” deploy “strategies to operationalize racial equity” and “empowering transformative community relationships.”

This comes as a Chicago Democratic alderman publicly accused Chicago’s Lightfoot of hypocrisy, begging for help from Joe Biden for aid in stopping gun violence, despite previously being too proud to ask former President Trump for exactly that.

CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady had this to say when explaining why COVID-19 relief funds can be used for identity politics projects.

"COVID-19 brought to the surface these inequities in our city and our society, but they’ve always been there, and they’ve always been a focus of the work we do at CDPH. This data brief highlights these inequities and is a charge for us to redouble our efforts to address these inequities."

Six “Healthy Chicago Equity Zones” are being established. In these areas a community organization is in charge of creating "stakeholder coalitions to develop targeted strategies to improve community and individual wellness."

1. North/Central: Swedish Covenant Hospital
2. Northwest: Northwest Side Housing Center
3. West: Rush University Medical Center (on behalf of West Side United)
4. Southwest: Southwest Organizing Project
5. Near South: Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation
6. Far South: Phalanx Family Services

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has experience on the topic of race. In the past few weeks Chicago’s Mayor decided to take interviews from non-white reporters only, in an episode that the Daily Caller filed a lawsuit over, afterward.