Two doctors in Boston have called for the allocation of medical resources to be done on the basis of race. Writing in the the Boston Review, they call for the implementation of standards that would show racial preference to patients. This would be in addition to federal reparations.
Dr. Bram Wispelwey, and Dr. Michelle Morse, both of whom teach at Harvard Medical School, wrote that their mission was to “comprehensively confront structural racism.” To go about this, they plan to enlist the tools of critical race theory (CRT). They slam what they call “colorblind policies,” or the concept of equality for individuals of all races and ethnicities under the law, saying that it is not achieving their desired ends with enough speed.
Federal reparations, they write, are only the beginning of addressing structural racism, which they define in a medical context as: “Ability to pay,” “inequities in uninsurance and insurance type,” “employment status,” “institutional racism,” “persistent housing inequality and racial segregation,” “redlining, blockbusting, and contract buying,” and “wealth inequality.”
For their part, and to create “antiracist institutional change,” which they say “is essential to supplement federal reparations,” they have created a pilot program that will undertake “institutional action.” The basis for this institutional action is the concept of “‘applicative justice’—’applying justice to those who don’t now receive it.'” This, they say, is “as opposed to more idealistic conceptions of justice…”
