Of Pandemics, Policies, and Police

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Of Pandemics, Policies, and Police

June 5, 2020
Tung Nguyen, PIVOT president

Health disparities researchers have known for several decades the main underlying causes of such disparities. We call them the social determinants of health, and they include poverty, education, the environment, and healthcare access.

Racism is often thought to be one of those determinants as well, because chronic exposure to racism cause the body to change through the release of stress hormones and neurotransmitters. Acute exposure to racism can lead to death, as in the case of the recent killings of George Floyd, Breona Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. From a health disparities perspective, the George Floyd shooting was an acute exposure to racism, with the 4 police officers serving as the vectors that delivered the disease of racism and its ultimate health outcome, death.

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What Southeast Asian Refugees Owe to Black Lives

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What Southeast Asian Refugees Owe to Black Lives

June 3, 2020
Trinh Q. Truong

In Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25th, 2020, police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes while three other officers stood guard, one of them Hmong American. As horrified bystanders confronted the officers for their actions, and started filming to hold them accountable, Floyd gasped “I can’t breathe.” His dying words were the same ones Eric Garner, another victim of police brutality, uttered while choked to death by a New York police officer in 2014.

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AMERICA, WE NEED A DIFFERENT PRESIDENT

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AMERICA, WE NEED A DIFFERENT PRESIDENT

June 1, 2020
Thang Do, PIVOT board member

I am writing these lines shortly after hearing that San Jose, the largest city of this region, just announced a curfew from 8:30 pm to the following morning for an entire week, to avoid the protests that have led to the destruction of property and violence.

In the past few days, there have been protests and violence everywhere including San Jose, after a white policeman in Minneapolis killed a black man by holding him down on the street pavement and pressing his knee against the man’s neck. The policeman stayed in this position for 8 minutes, prompting the victim to shout out: “I can’t breathe.” 3 other policemen, one Asian and two whites, were nearby but took no action to rein in their colleague’s excessive use of force.

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COVID-19 Blog - 05/29/20

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COVID-19 Blog - 05/29/20

As of May 29, 2020, there are over 5.6 million people diagnosed with COVID-19 and nearly 346,000 deaths worldwide. In the US, there are over 1.7 million infections and more than 101,000 deaths. To put this in perspective, in 3 months, COVID-19 has killed more Americans than in any wars except World War I, World War II, and the Civil War. The CDC is reporting a forecast that we will have 115,000 deaths by June 20, 2020, which is approximately the number of Americans who died in World War I.

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PIVOT Questions California Governor’s Statement about First Covid-19 in Nail Salon

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PIVOT Questions California Governor’s Statement about First Covid-19 in Nail Salon

May 9, 2020

PIVOT - the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization - has great concerns with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s statement that the first known Covid-19 community spread was from a nail salon. We acknowledge the need for accurate information for public health concerns and the importance of pointing out the risks to workers and customers. However, singling out a particular type of business, one with a large number of Asian American owners and workers, may further increase the pandemic’s economic effects on minority-owned businesses, inflame the already heightened level of anti-Asian American racism, and threaten the livelihood of nail salon owners and workers.

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