Impact of racism on families, neighborhoods to be focus of ‘Beyond the Knife’

Structural racism and how it affects both private lives and public spaces is the topic to be explored in UB’s 2024 Beyond the Knife lecture and panel discussion.

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in the M&T Auditorium at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.

Deadric T. Williams, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will give the lecture, titled “Structural Racism and Persistent Inequality.”

The event is free and open to the public, in person or on Zoom. Register online or by emailing Mike Lamb.

Those who prefer Zoom will receive a link prior to the talk on Feb. 22.

After Williams’ talk, there will be a panel discussion with local experts. A reception will follow.

Williams focuses his research on race and racism, Black families, poverty and economic hardship, stress and health, and quantitative methods. He studies how family relationships are affected by the chronic stress of structural racism. He has investigated, for example, how law enforcement exposure and incarceration of Black men affect the mental and physical health of the entire family.

In 2022, Williams was selected as one of five researchers in the nation to be a William T. Grant Scholar; with this funding, he is investigating the structural mechanisms, rather than individual characteristics, that sustain poverty among Black, Latino and white families.

He is also collecting data from African American couples for a study designed to understand how external factors and exposure to repeated or chronic stress “gets under the skin” to influence the health of individuals.

This is the fourth annual talk in the “Beyond the Knife” endowed lectureship, which the Department of Surgery established following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 to engage the Jacobs School in difficult conversations surrounding racism and health care in the U.S.

“Our Beyond the Knife lectures and conversations have always aimed to bring members of our community into the Jacobs School to engage in the dialogue necessary to continue sustained action toward a more diverse and equitable world,” says Steven D. Schwaitzberg, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery. “Dr. Williams’ work studying how persistent structural racism affects the daily lives and the health of families is extraordinarily pertinent to all of us.”

Panelists are:

• Rita Hubbard-Robinson, CEO of NeuWater Associates LLC.
• LaVonne Ansari, CEO and director, Community Health Center of Buffalo Inc.
• Chandra Redfern, CEO, Buffalo Federation of Neighborhood Centers.
• Ron Stewart, professor and chair, Department of Sociology, SUNY Buffalo State University.

Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, and Schwaitzberg will make opening remarks.