Zach welcomes Dr. Oni Blackstock, the assistant commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control for the NYC Health Department, to the podcast to discuss a wide variety of topics, ranging from her unique career journey to dismantling white supremacist constructs, and she graciously offers a couple points of recommendation regarding how to get started when it comes to advocating for yourself to get the health-related help that you may need at work.

Connect with Dr. Blackstock on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram!

Visit Living-Corporate.com.




TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, man, you know what we do. It's 2020. You know, fresh vision. You know, we're out here making moves, having conversations with movers and shakers, influencers, educators, public servants... what else? Who else? Executives, recruiters, entertainers. You know what I'm saying? Anybody who's willing to have an authentic conversation centering and amplifying underrepresented voices at work, and today, you know, I'm really excited about this particular interview. And I say that every time, but, like, I mean it every single time, even though I say it, like, over and over, but I really do mean it. And so I'm really excited. This particular episode we have Dr. Oni Blackstock. Dr. Blackstock, how are you doing? What's going on? 




Oni: I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.




Zach: Thank you so much for joining us. Now, look, what I would like to do--'cause see, what I sometimes do, in the past I would give this, like, kind of, like, generic--I don't want to say generic, but I would, like, read off an intro, almost like a late-night show, and then I'd go in and I'd ask people to introduce themselves again. It seems kind of redundant, so what I want to do this time is just give you space and, for those of us who don't know you, just give you some space to talk a little bit about yourself.




Oni: Okay, great. So again, I'm Oni Blackstock. I'm a primary care physician and HIV specialist. I also spent about the past 10 years conducting HIV research, but I now lead the Bureau of HIV at the New York City Health Department, meaning I oversee our city's response to ending the HIV epidemic. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. Parents, my dad is an immigrant from Jamaica, and my mom is Brooklyn-born and bred. And I have a twin sister, Dr. Uche Blackstock, and, you know, we're very much inspired by our parents to really meld medicine and public health with activism and advocacy, and so I get to do that in my current role leading the Bureau of HIV here in New York City.




Zach: Okay. So first of all, incredible background, incredible legacy, and shout-out to the Blackstocks, the family, and shout-out to your sister of course as well. So I know, you know, the background being Jamaican--now, you know we do air horns. Now, let me ask you this. I've asked past Jamaican guests, but it is offensive or culturally appropriative that we also use air horns on our podcast?




Oni: No, not at all. It's great. It's about the diaspora. 




Zach: Okay, cool, 'cause I gotta let 'em fly for you. Let me just drop 'em right here. [air horns sfx] Okay, 'cause I'm just very excited and thankful that you're here. Now, let's talk a little bit more about your background, right? So you talk about your focus being HIV and that particular illness. What was it about that work that drew you in particularly?




Oni: Yeah. So I was in medical school when I feel like I quote-unquote first discovered HIV, and that was actually when I was doing global health work. So I had traveled to Ghana and West Africa, as well as South Africa, to do HIV-related research, and when I came back I did a rotation as a medical student back in New York City and saw that we had black people, Latino people, dealing with many of the same sort of medical-related issues, and even just sort of socio-structural issues, as I did when I was in Ghana and South Africa, and became very interested in our domestic HIV epidemic, and so I ended up doing my residency, which is the training that you do after medical school, in the Bronx at Montefiore Medical Center, where again I was seeing young black and brown people dying of, like, advanced AIDS, which was something I was really surprised and I think maybe people didn't realize was stlil happening in New York City. And I think what I in particular--what draws me to HIV is that it's really--it's not just an interesting bio-medical condition, but it's also, like, a social condition, and it's really an epidemic of not behavior, but an epidemic of inequality. So it's a confluence of lots of isms and lots of phobias, and you put all of those together and you sort of get HIV and you see the communities that are most impacted.




Zach: And, you know, it's really interesting, this conversation particularly, because you're in a position where you're providing awareness and research and thought leadership and care for underrepresented, underserved populations--and often times stigmatized and just oppressed populations--while also being an intersectional member of a variety of underrepresented and oppressed populations and identity groups. Can you talk about, like, what that experience, that compounded experience, is like for you? Like, being in this space, being who you are?




Oni: Right. Yeah, so I think what has driven me to do this work is because I'm from many of the different communities that are impacted by HIV. So I think sometimes for people who do this work it's maybe about careerism or they find it intellectually interesting, but for me it's really about helping my people and my community. So yeah, I mean, I think having the different identities, being a cisgender black woman, being someone who's queer and being at the intersection at these different marginalized identities gives me a different appreciation and understanding of what the factors are that folks are dealing with out in the community, and also the position. You know, even when we're designing, for instance, social marketing campaigns, like, I can say--you know, I'm able to give my input and--you know, we had a campaign, for instance, that was focused on pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It's a once-a-day pill that people who are HIV-negative can take to stay HIV-negative. We did one for a focus on cisgender and transgender women, women of all different backgrounds, but what I did notice that I think most other people didn't notice is that all of the women were very, like, fem-presenting, and so, you know, I was like, "In the future when we do this work, we might want to have folks who may be non-conforming in their appearance." You know, just have different folks who may identify as women but have a different gender expression. And so I think, like, just sort of that awareness of understanding the different needs that may be out there of having these different perspectives is something that I think I can bring to this role and I think is, you know, really important, because the reality is that in many cities we don't have people who are leading this type of work who are reflective of the communities that are most impacted.




Zach: You know, that's just a really good point. It's interesting because, you know, even as we talk about, like, representation and diversity in our marketing and, like, presentation, it's interesting how colorism and patriarchy still, like, sneak in to those spaces too, right? So, like, if you have--like, if you're presenting as a woman, often times it is going to be someone who is, like, traditionally fem or lighter-skinned or with hair that is a certain texture. Like, there's still, like, this template, right? That individuals are going to--that we either consciously or subconsciously seek to, like, place people in. Even when you see, like, people in positions of authority or any type of subject matter expertise in the space, you end up--I don't know. Again, they fit certain templates to me, and that leads me to another question though. Kind of starting at the top. So your lived experience brings a certain level of empathy along with your actual academic expertise. May I ask, are there ever moments or times where you believe that sometimes your lived experience or the passion that comes with that lived experience is almost counted against you because you lack a certain level of [laughs] intellectual objectivity that maybe white individuals or just folks who are not necessarily identifying these particular identity groups, that they can relate to?




Oni: Well, I think--right, so that idea of, like, objectivity... I mean, it's, like, a construct. It's, like, a white supremacist construct, because we all come with our own perspectives and backgrounds. So it's sort of, like, a fallacy, I think, but yeah, I think that might happen. I think I am also fortunate, or maybe some might say unfortunate, but, you know, I did get my college degree at Harvard undergrad. I was a computer science major and I was pre-med. I went to Harvard Medical School. I got my Master's in Health Sciences from Yale's School of Medicine. So I have, like, sort of these bonafides that are sort of respected more by white culture, the dominant culture, which I feel like gives me quote-unquote credibility among some of these folks, if that makes any sense. So I feel like that somehow, like, helps to open doors in a different way, and then obviously having--you know, and sometimes just even having an MD, people make assumptions, and sometimes you can use those to your benefit, which is helpful. But, you know, at the same time, it does feel--it's kind of cringe-worthy and kind of not the best feeling to be benefitting from these same systems which also act to, like, oppress us as well, so... [?]




Zach: Well, it's complex and nuanced. I'm just curious about that, because as I continue to get into just this work, any time you talk about, like,