Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha offers inspiration and hope for our 20th anniversary — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:03Thank you. It's an honor to be here with you.
2. 0:07I wish we could be together in person, but I am still so excited
3. 0:10to be with all of you virtually.
4. 0:13Congratulations to The Women's Center
5. 0:14for celebrating your 20th anniversary! What an amazing accomplishment.
6. 0:20That's 20 years of supporting women,
7. 0:22supporting our community,
8. 0:24and supporting a brighter tomorrow
9. 0:26for all of our girls. It is through your work
10. 0:30that so many women have found hope
11. 0:32and that hope has turned into action.
12. 0:37In the craziness of our lives today,
13. 0:38I hope you take a moment to pause
14. 0:40and celebrate the multiplicative impact you have had
15. 0:45on the trajectory of so many.
16. 0:47This year, we also reflect on another major milestone for women:
17. 0:51the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment:
18. 0:55the law that gave some women—not all women—the right to vote.
19. 1:00Women back then knew that voting equals power,
20. 1:04just like we know that today.
21. 1:06We've come a long way in regards
22. 1:09to women's issues and women's equality, especially here in Michigan
23. 1:13and we should also celebrate the incredible moment that we're in
24. 1:16right now in our state with women in so many leadership positions
25. 1:20from our governor, attorney general, the U.S. senator, secretary of state
26. 1:24state chief justice, and more. More women are in our state legislature
27. 1:29in Michigan and we sent more women to congress.
28. 1:32Finally, girls all over the state can look in the mirror and see
29. 1:37themselves as leaders and also as scientists, as engineers, as
30. 1:41writers, as doctors, as whatever they want to be.
31. 1:45Representation matters.
32. 1:47We still have a lot of work to do.
33. 1:50A lot more glass ceilings to break and more doors to bust open
34. 1:54from pay parity to reproductive rights, but the future is certainly brighter
35. 1:59at least here for our Michigan girls, and a lot of that is thanks to you and your work.
36. 2:06and before we can talk about the future
37. 2:08we hope to leave for our girls and our granddaughters
38. 2:11I want to reflect on two historical Michigan
39. 2:15and Flint-connected women who played an incredibly influential role
40. 2:19in my work, like a century ago.
41. 2:22So, I recently wrote a book and it's very
42. 2:24much a memoir and it was such a reflective process for me and
43. 2:28I used it as an opportunity to pay tribute to so many giant women
44. 2:32that I have been lucky to stand on the shoulders of: from my mom
45. 2:36and my grandmothers, to countless women teachers and colleagues that i have been
46. 2:38teachers and colleagues that I have been fortunate to work with
47. 2:42Many folks that I was able to walk with
48. 2:45and so many that actually walked before my time
49. 2:49and one of those women I want to talk
50. 2:51about today and pay tribute to —who kind of paved the way for me and my
51. 2:56work—is a woman named Alice Hamilton. She graduated medical school at
52. 3:01University of Michigan in 1893. She then went on to Chicago where she
53. 3:07lived at the Hall House and she worked with Jane Adams
54. 3:11to provide patient care and wraparound services
55. 3:14to recent immigrants and poor people
56. 3:17and it was there where she was practicing as a physician that she realized
57. 3:21Hey, so many people that are coming in to see me
58. 3:23are actually sick because of something that they're exposed to on their jobs
59. 3:29She quickly became a national expert
60. 3:32in the field of Occupational Health and Occupational Medicine
61. 3:36She was the very first woman professor
62. 3:38at Harvard in 1919
63. 3:43She suffered from so much sexism and harassment at one point somebody said
64. 3:47"But who will darn the stockings
65. 3:50if women are going to be bacteriologists?"
66. 3:54She persisted.
67. 3:55Something I admire the most about her is that
68. 3:59in the 1920s is when General Motors wanted to put lead in gasoline
69. 4:04They said that there was no other option
70. 4:06besides putting lead in gasoline to fix the sound that cars made
71. 4:10engine knocking—when fuel and air mixed
72. 4:13And there were alternatives and even a
73. 4:15century ago she knew—and the world knew —that lead was a poison
74. 4:19She went after that industry with all her might
75. 4:24often the only woman in the room
76. 4:27and she suffered quite a bit from her work and her perseverance
77. 4:34and as she continued to fight for
78. 4:37for the most vulnerable, especially children
79. 4:40who were going to suffer from this public health disaster
80. 4:43So, she's definitely one of one of my heroes because of her we know so much
81. 4:48about lead poisoning, but we also know
82. 4:52how hard it is for women to speak up and to fight
83. 4:55against really powerful forces which are often men
84. 4:58Another one of my women heroes that I want to talk about who
85. 5:03who also paved the way for me is a woman named Genora Dollinger Johnson
86. 5:09She had a big role to play in Flint's history
87. 5:13So, you guys obviously know about Flint now with with our water crisis and
88. 5:17I think for so many people when you think of Flint you think of like, brown water
89. 5:21but Flint didn't always equate to disaster
90. 5:24before the water crisis decades ago
91. 5:26Flint was really famous for being the birthplace of cars
92. 5:30the birthplace of General Motors but even more than that Flint was the
93. 5:34birthplace of the American Dream, the birthplace of the middle class
94. 5:38and that happened because of some really brave autoworkers who did
95. 5:41something totally illegal and totally radical where they went
96. 5:45on strike and they kind of shut down all the car factories
97. 5:50and they went on strike for 44 days and finally
98. 5:53they were recognized, their union was recognized, the UAW that was born
99. 5:58and what happened afterwards really heralded
100. 6:02the beginning of of the middle class, the beginning of living wages, and
101. 6:06benefits, and pensions, and all these things that we take for granted
102. 6:09So, we hear a lot about the strikers but really critical to those
103. 6:13strikers was a woman named Genora Dollinger Johnson who
104. 6:17was a spouse of one of the strikers. But, she wasn't just a spouse
105. 6:21She was a critical, critical organizer, strategist. She helped devise
106. 6:26a lot of the action that happened. So she is one of my heroes
107. 6:32She went on and for the rest of her life fought for
108. 6:35human rights issues, labor rights, civil rights issues
109. 6:38She went on to lead the ACLU of Michigan
110. 6:42back in the mid 1900s
111. 6:45So, definitely, absolutely one of my heroes
112. 6:47A brave young woman who saw that we could make the world a better place.
113. 6:54So, Alice and Genora
114. 6:55are a couple of my heroes. There's so much more to learn about
115. 6:58them but I wanted to kind of share their stories
116. 7:01They were both brave. They went up against powerful people
117. 7:04especially men and despite all the obstacles
118. 7:08they never lost hope. Their work wasn't selflessly about themselves, it was about
119. 7:14others, and especially the most vulnerable among us
120. 7:16It was about small children being poisoned and it was about workers
121. 7:21who were demanding living wages.
122. 7:23They channeled their hope for a better tomorrow
123. 7:26into action, and because of their vision
124. 7:29and persistence, they made the world a better place
125. 7:32I've often thought about Alice in Genora during my work in Flint
126. 7:37I had moments when I was scared, where people told me I was wrong
127. 7:41I had moments where I was being dismissed and discredited
128. 7:44moments where I felt tiny and defeated
129. 7:47where I even began to second-guess myself
130. 7:50and it was during those moments that I
131. 7:52thought about Alice, and Genora, and the generations of women
132. 7:56that have been silenced and belittled and undervalued.
133. 8:00And I also thought about my girls
134. 8:02Not only my two daughters but also of
135. 8:05all the Flint kids that I am privileged to care for
136. 8:08They kept me grounded and inspired me to persist
137. 8:12As a pediatrician, my job is very much to make sure kids are healthy today but
138. 8:15more importantly it is my job to make sure that they have the
139. 8:19brightest future possible
140. 8:20In some ways, I'm in the business of
141. 8:23dreams and making the dreams of our kids come true
142. 8:27However,
143. 8:28my kids in Flint—similar to kids in so many places—wake up to nightmares
144. 8:33wake up to situations that poison their potential
145. 8:37In Flint it was poisoned water but elsewhere it's poverty and poor schools
146. 8:42unemployment, racism, patriarchy, violence... the list goes on
147. 8:47Systemic conditions
148. 8:49that rob our children, especially our girls, of their dreams
149. 8:53And my story in Flint is a story of what happens when
150. 8:58the very people responsible for keeping us safe and healthy care
151. 9:02more about money and power than they do about us or our children
152. 9:07I also want to share with you that my story is also a playbook of resistance and hope
153. 9:12and that is a story that we all need right now
154. 9:15So, when I first heard about the possibility
155. 9:18of lead in our water in Flint there was
156. 9:21no going back for me. I knew that lead was bad.
157. 9:23I respected the science
158. 9:25that has got us to understanding even
159. 9:29what Alice Hamilton told us a century ago: that it was a poison
160. 9:32to now recognizing that there is no safe level
161. 9:35I knew that
162. 9:36if there was lead in the water that was threatening the tomorrows of all of our children
163. 9:40All of their dreams. So, I did something
164. 9:42that doctors aren't really supposed to do. I walked out of my clinic with my
165. 9:45white coat on and I stood up at a press conference
166. 9:47with the science, the research that our children
167. 9:51were being poisoned by our untreated, corrosive water
168. 9:55and I was scared. I thought people could hear my heart pounding on the microphone
169. 9:59and just like everyone else in the Flint story—moms and pastors and journalists
170. 10:03and scientists—I was attacked, dismissed, discredited. The state said I was wrong,
171. 10:09unfortunate, and even hysterical
172. 10:11It took a while, but
173. 10:13finally, our persistence, our science, our teamwork
174. 10:16spoke truth to power and helped expose that preventable public health crisis
175. 10:23So, Flint is so much a story of signs denied. But, it was our science that spoke truth
176. 10:27to power and today we are leaning on incredible science
177. 10:31the science of brain development and trauma and resilience in our recovery
178. 10:35and sometimes I say I'm writing actual prescriptions for Hope
179. 10:39Our prescriptions for hope are not just words, they're real, tangible things
180. 10:43They are actions. We have built so many programs
181. 10:49based on the evidence of what helps families and children
182. 10:52Home visiting programs
183. 10:53high quality child care, head start preschool, medicaid expansion
184. 10:57parenting support, trauma-informed care, school health services
185. 11:00We're also working on the bigger
186. 11:02things that families need like living wage jobs,
187. 11:06poverty mitigation,
188. 11:08economic development,
189. 11:09participatory democracy,
190. 11:11restorative and environmental justice
191. 11:13and self-determination. That gets to my favorite part of the story:
192. 11:18How we can all, once again, learn from Flint
193. 11:22So, you think of Flint as a story of a crime committed with
194. 11:26absolute indifference against some of the most vulnerable
195. 11:29people in our country but what I want to share with you is
196. 11:33that it's also a story of how everyday people
197. 11:35majority women—moms and pastors and activists and journalists and students
198. 11:40and scientists and doctors— bravely resisted and said we've had enough
199. 11:47and took action. It's about refusing to
200. 11:50accept the status quo. It's about our responsibility to stay vigilant
201. 11:55It's about taking action for what is right
202. 11:58even when it's hard. Even when it's scary. Even when it may
203. 12:01seem impossible. It's about turning a crisis
204. 12:06into resistance, into hope.
205. 12:09And it's about turning that hope
206. 12:11into action
207. 12:13That is what I learned from
208. 12:14Alice Hamilton
209. 12:15and Genora Dollinger Johnson that's what
210. 12:17they taught me and it's also what my kids in Flint
211. 12:20inspire me to do every day
212. 12:23So as we reflect on our past
213. 12:25celebrate how far we have come, let us always stay grounded in our kids
214. 12:30especially our girls as we continue to work together
215. 12:34everywhere to build a better tomorrow. A place where eyes stay open
216. 12:38where people stand up for what is right, where the strong and powerful voices of
217. 12:43women are heard and respected
218. 12:46where we care for each other
219. 12:48and where democracy and equality and
220. 12:50opportunity are once again encouraged and advanced
221. 12:55Our kids, our girls, are counting on you
222. 13:00And remember, The Women's Center has been
223. 13:03doing this work for 20 years now
224. 13:06The seemingly impossible work
225. 13:07of turning hope into action
226. 13:11Congratulations
227. 13:13and thank you.