(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Dear Editor,

I appreciated reading the February 15th article “AG Healey awards $1.5 million in grants to promote racial equity in treatment of opioid use disorder” which includes the City of Somerville as a recipient. Two components struck me: 1) the restorative nature of the funding source and 2) the limited scope of cultural humility in practice.

It is promising to witness an act of monetary redistribution where settlement funds retrieved from an egregiously noncompliant pharmacy are transformed into dollars for treating BIPOC individuals with substance use disorder. Although this does not negate the original, or continued harm of corrupt distribution practices, it does provide a blueprint for enforcing reparations. Doing so acknowledges harmful practices at the institutional level which disproportionately impact marginalized communities of color.

I argue that we must keep this momentum up – that is thinking about harm at a systems and institutional level – when practicing culturally humility. Many of the current grantees are using the awarded money to hire bi-lingual peer recovery coaches and to train staff with culturally responsive curricula. This of course is highly necessary and points to how severely underfunded these agencies are to begin with; however, it does little to stretch beyond clinician-to-client care to address the systemic issues that lead to substance use disorders in the first place.

Cultural humility emphasizes mutual learning, fixing power imbalances, and self-reflection. Again, this is necessary to implement within health care agencies, but it is not enough to stop there. For example, a culturally responsive interpersonal practice may get more BIPOC clients in the door and increase retention rates, but it will not decrease the number of people needing treatment services. To truly enforce cultural humility, there must be a focus on addressing health disparities at personal, social, economic, and political levels to make changes in opioid use.

Taken together, I call on government officials to enhance reparative practices that acknowledge and address harm as the Attorney General’s Office has done while also expanding cultural humility practices beyond the interpersonal level. A culture doesn’t lie within one person alone and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Thank you,

Melissa Burnett
Master of Social Work Candidate
Boston University