Following the National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday, Spokane NAACP President Kiantha Duncan gave a talk on racial healing and politics in the Foley Speaker room on the Washington State University Campus in Pullman.
Duncan emphasized that the discussion was a place for everyone to have a conversation about what racial healing meant and how it could differ person to person. For some people, like Duncan’s grandmother, it could mean living in a white neighborhood without fear.
“Thinking about racism being of determinant of health — I think of it like cancer,” Duncan said.
She started with a story about two friends who both have cancer, one who found a bulge and went to get tested and the other who found it during a check up. Racism, Duncan said, is like cancer and can be out in the open or hidden. Jim Crow laws, for example, would be cancer you can see, Duncan said.
The whole discussion can be viewed online on the Foley Institute YouTube channel at bit.ly/3GR4bZw.