Our guest on today’s episode is Darcie Green, who brings multiple identities to our conversation today. She’s the daughter of a survivor, care giver, advocate, activist and the Executive Director of Latinas Contra Cancer. Latinas Contra Cancer is an organization with a mission to create an inclusive health care system that provides services to the underserved Latino population around issues of breast and other cancers. She’s incredibly smart, so funny, and we had A LOT to talk about. This is the last episode of Season 2 of Black Cancer, and it exemplifies everything we’ve talked about on this platform AND more - more like understanding cancer through a social justice lens, examining the disproportionate philanthropic funding for organizations led by people of color and what our communities STILL do despite structural under-resourcing that determines our health.

P.S. This episode aired the day the United States surpassed 500,000 COVID-19 deaths - half a million people. Disproportionately Black and Brown people. The racial inequities of the life-saving vaccine roll out was absolutely top of our minds - which is why this conversation started A BIT before I even had my microphone set up for our recording! hahaha. You won’t want to miss a single moment of this episode. It’s truly a master class in understanding so many dynamics of cancer care - and what we can learn about the interconnectedness of what care can look like for all our people. And as always, check out the show notes for links to what we talked about.

Here’s my conversation with Darcie:

• Darcie shares about how her father's journey grounded her work in community health advocacy (47:51)
• The strengths and expertise in self and communal advocacy already held in our communities (1:12:00)
• Disproportionality in funding and support for organizations led by and that serve communities of color (1:36:53)

More on this episode:

• Good Samaritan Hospital in California: https://www.ktvu.com/news/good-sam-hospital-investigated-for-giving-vaccine-to-teachers-as-gifts
  • Washington Heights Armory in NYC: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/30/us/new-york-vaccine-disparities/index.html
• Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by Dayna Bowen Matthew — https://nyupress.org/9781479896738/just-medicine/
• Social Determinants of Health: https://www.cdc.gov/socialdeterminants/about.html
• Latinas Contra Cancer website: http://latinascontracancer.org/
• Latinas Contra Cancer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinascontracancer/
• Promatoras: https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/promotores/index.html