Pharmacy Council at The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy stands in solidarity with the Black community. We are grieved and angered by the recent deaths of Atatiana Jefferson, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Michael Ramos, and George Floyd, as well as by the systems that prevent justice from being actualized in these acts of violence and racism.
We acknowledge our responsibility to speak out against violence and injustice and work to dismantle systems of oppression. As future pharmacists, the foundation of our profession is based on seeing the human dignity of each of our patients. We lament that our own healthcare system has and does uphold systemic racism against the Black community, as evidenced by the history of medical experimentation and by the health disparities that exist within our country. We recognize that as student pharmacists, it is our responsibility to educate ourselves on how our own implicit biases can negatively impact care and how systemic racism perpetuates health inequalities and negatively impacts the physical and mental health of our patients. We underscore our need to listen to our Black peers, community members, and patients. This, as much as our knowledge of pharmaceutical agents, is essential to our future practice as pharmacists.
Pharmacy Council commits to supporting Black members of our community and ensuring that all pharmacy faculty, students, and staff feel safe and welcome on our campus. As representatives of the College of Pharmacy, we are dedicated to creating a culture of respect and equity. We welcome all feedback on how we can improve in promoting these principles at the college. We urge students to reach out to college and campus resources for support. We encourage all students to donate to organizations that promote anti-racist work and educate themselves. A non-comprehensive list is included below as a starting point.
-Your Pharmacy Council 2020-2021 Executive Team
University of Texas at Austin Resources
- CMHC:
- Crisis Line for Students: 512-471-CALL (2255)
- Appointments: (512) 471-3515
- Diversity counseling and outreach: (512) 471-3515
- Summer groups and classes: https://cmhc.utexas.edu/groups.html#schedule
- College of Pharmacy Care Counselor
- Phone: 512-232-5923; leave a message with EID and phone number.
- Email: gretchen.rees@austin.utexas.edu
- The University of Texas at Austin Student Government Combating Racism Resource Guide
Organizations
- George Floyd Memorial Fund
- Minnesota Freedom Fund
- Black Visions Collective
- Austin Justice Coalition
- North Star Health Collective
- Reclaim the Block
- Campaign Zero
- Plus many more listed above in the Combating Racism Guide
Educational Materials
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin J. DiAngelo
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum
- Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Healthcare by Augustus A. White III
- Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America by Laurie Kaye Abraham
- Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington