Black Lives Matter.
At the Annex Teen Clinic, we believe that sexual and reproductive health cannot exist without racial and social justice. A commitment to anti-racism in our work is central to just and ethical sexual healthcare and education.
Racism is endemic in Minnesota and it is a public health crisis. We are committed to ongoing questioning, learning, and exploration of how the Annex both colludes in and resists reproducing systems of racial oppression. Additionally, we are committed to ongoing listening, learning, and change to best partner with our students and patients of color. We seek to center the voices, knowledge, and leadership of our community. This includes staff, young people, parents, caregivers, and community leaders that are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. Also, we seek to continuously approach our work with an intersectional lens. We recognize the impacts of societal, institutional and individual acts of racism, discrimination, and prejudice on healthcare outcomes. And work to counter the harms of race-based medicine.
We commit to:
- Center and honor the lived experiences of our patients and students of color.
- Take seriously the impact of historical and present-day racism in sexual education and healthcare on our clients, their families and communities.
- Recognize that sexual health disparities reflect systemic and institutional oppressions experienced by communities of color.
- Acknowledge, where applicable, the racist history behind medical advances in our field and commit to continuing to learn what we don’t know.
- Examine internal policies and procedures to build more equitable systems
- Commit organizational time and resources for staff education and reflection about anti-racism and dismantling white supremacy.
