Zine: Acupuncture as Activism by Maya Zitrin

Follow the link below to open a PDF of the zine "Acupuncture as Activism: A look at the movement & the Black Panther Party's fight to bring health to the BIPOC community". For her Public Health coursework, Maya Zitrin created this zine about discrimination & racism in healthcare and how the Black Panther Party and other activists fought for public health initiatives in the 1960's and 1970's. It provides a historical roadmap of healthcare injustices towards communities of color and specifically Black people in the U.S.-- and also an inspiring glimpse into grassroots healthcare projects from the Young Lords, the Black Panthers, and other activist organizations.

*In November 2021, a new version of this Zine was released! Visit this blog post to read it.*

"Too often black history is limited to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama, and a linear idea of progress in which things always get better. But it’s so much more complicated than that. In planning for the future around questions like how communities can mobilize to meet their needs, we need to be sensitive to learn from what was done in the past.”

-Dr. Fullilove, EdD Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center

About the Author

Maya Zitrin is a candidate for a Master’s in Oriental Medicine at AIMC, Berkeley. She is an RN and truly understands integrative medicine. She is working on a research project studying ambiguous racism, it’s affect Ego-depletion leading cardiovascular disease in Black people, and how acupuncture and qi gong provide effective treatment modalities.

References

1. Bassett, Mary T. "Beyond Berets: The Black Panthers as Health Activists." American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, Oct. 2016. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5024403/

2. Morabia, Alfredo. "Unveiling the Black Panther Party Legacy to Public Health." American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association. Oct. 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303405

3. Nelson, Alondra. "Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination." Amazon, University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

4. Fauci, Cara. "Racism and Health Care in America: Legal Responses to Racial Disparities in the Allocation of Kidneys." Boston College Third World Law Journal, 2001. https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=twlj

5. "The Black Panther Party Stands for Health." Columbia University, 23 Feb 2016. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/black-panther-party-stands-health

6. Shakur, Mutulu. "The Use of Acupuncture by Revolutionaries: An Interview with Brother Tyehimba." http://mutulushakur.com/site/1992/10/interview-on-acupuncture/

7. Villarosa, Linda. "Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery-- and are still believed by doctors today" New York Times, Aug 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/racial-differences-doctors.html