Equity and Justice

Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) recognizes that diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice are crucial to healthy individuals, vibrant communities, and thriving organizations. We acknowledge that our society has, deeply rooted within it, centuries of white supremacy and dominance typified by the massacre and dispossession of native peoples, economies built on enslavement, the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color and poor people, the violation of human and civil rights, and the concentration of extreme wealth into the hands of a small, mostly white, elite power structure.

Long-term, structural racial and economic oppression are major factors in the disproportionate impact of health and environmental ills on people of color and those living in poverty. They fuel public health crises and epidemics and contribute to negative health exposures and outcomes for frontline communities such as higher exposure to environmental toxins in the air and water, lower cancer survival rates, increased cardiac disease, and lower life expectancy.

Oregon PSR is fully committed to working internally as well as with frontline communities and organizations to change these historical and systemic inequalities which are dehumanizing and powerful barriers to better health and a healthier environment. Human health is at the core of Oregon PSR’s mission and is our area of expertise. Medical science and social and environmental epidemiology underline the reality that racism, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia drive concrete, quantifiable harm. These ubiquitous social issues are verifiable public health problems. Because of the strong role societal injustices play as determinants of health, they must be righted if we are to achieve durable improvements in public and environmental health.

Oregon PSR’s vision statement reads: “We seek a healthy, just, and peaceful world for present and future generations.” We work to achieve our goals — including demilitarization, nuclear disarmament, and environmental and climate health through means that benefit people and communities who experience structural injustice the most. Acknowledging our privilege as health professionals, we seek to utilize our particular skills and perspectives to value, support, and advance the voices and roles of communities systematically marginalized and disproportionately impacted by health and environmental degradation. We feel strongly that the interests and perspectives of low-income communities and communities of color should be lifted up and brought to the forefront because they are essential to achieving a just, healthy, and peaceful world. We work to establish and sustain authentic relationships with organizations, institutions, and individuals who are representative of these communities, recognizing that our involvement must be responsive to the needs and leadership of each group with which we work.

Oregon PSR’s work on diversity, equity, and inclusion includes listening, learning, incorporating a social and environmental justice lens in all of our activity, recruiting a more diverse membership, Board, and staff, and supporting community-of-color and other justice-based organizations by providing accurate information and analyses, assisting with testimony and other issue advocacy, supporting equity-oriented coalitions led by such groups, and publicizing relevant issues and events to our members. We acknowledge that our work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice is ever-evolving. Our actions will contribute to unified efforts to make our society more just.

This is a living document and we invite your feedback on it.

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Oregon PSR Land Acknowledgment Statement

Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing (adopted by Oregon PSR's Board of Directors 5/19/18)

Oregon PSR Statement on the Murder of George Floyd

One element of Oregon PSR's justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion process involves regular discussions of readings, films, exercises, and other resources addressing these issues at our staff, Board, and volunteer work group meetings. Below are some resources that we have found helpful in this ongoing exploration.

White Allies, Let’s Be Honest About Decolonization (Kyle Powys Whyte for YES! Magazine)

Oregon PSR's Deportation and Public Health Factsheet

Racial Justice Assessment Tool (Western States Center)

Racial Justice Dominoes (Western States Center)

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism (Robin DiAngelo)

Broken Treaties (Oregon Public Broadcasting)

A Guide to Gender Identity & Affirmation in the Workplace (Yale University)

How the Women’s March’s “genital based” Feminism Isolated the Transgender Community (Marie Solis)

Principles of Environmental Justice (First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit)

13th (Ava DuVernay)

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (Peggy McIntosh)

Against White Supremacy, Militarism, and False Solutions (OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon)