Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D) called on public health workers to get in "good trouble" during the American Public Health Association's Policy Action Institute
"Let us get in some good, creative, prophetic, imaginative trouble right now," Jones said, echoing the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a prominent civil rights leader.
Jones is no stranger to trouble. In August 2023, he was temporarily expelled from the Tennessee state legislature following a protest over gun violence in the state capitol, shortly after a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville. A few months later, Jones filed a lawsuit against Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) and House administrative officials.
Given what Jones described as the current assault on immigrants, LGBTQ+ persons, and the poor, he called on public health workers to be advocates and activists. He urged them to show up at town halls and at ribbon cuttings, at church, and any places their lawmakers might be and make their voices heard.
"What is happening is very extreme," he told MedPage Today in a phone call. "This is precisely the time for public health to get back to its roots, which was community organizing."
He also rejected the advice of former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) who advised public health workers to "stay in your lane" when it comes to funding and budgeting issues while engaging with lawmakers.
"You're not here to be budgeteers ... That's just not what you do," he said. "Tell them the stories of what happens [when funding is or isn't directed to a certain issue], and let [legislators] figure out how they can find the money."
Jones countered, "I think it's time for people to show up, to get out of their lane, to recognize that public health is an intersectional field," and includes gun violence, systemic racism and poverty, and environmental justice.
Jones also encouraged public health workers to build relationships with "non-traditional" allies. For his part, as chair of the Agriculture Committee, Jones, who grew up in an urban community, began connecting with farmers in rural districts.
"Now's the time to show up in unfamiliar places," he told his colleagues. "When I walk into some of these farms in Maury County, and they got Fox News on, I say ... 'How can we organize together?'"
With support from the farmers, Jones helped defeat a bill that would have given immunity to pesticide companies even if their products made people sick.
Jones said it was important to find "common ground," which appeared to be a theme of the conference, but only to a point.
"This is not the time to be the 'I-told-you-so' folks," he noted, "to say that we have all the answers and that we are these academic elitists who are going to save the whole nation, but this is the time to go to the places that are hurting the most ... to come in humility but also in solidarity, to say that the forces who are attacking our queer kids in schools right now are the same forces who say that [they] don't want to expand Medicaid."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/publichealth/116125
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.