Nic Jon Ramos, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Austin and USC PhD ’18, will give a talk on his new book, Health as Property: Racial Capitalism and Sexual Liberalism in Los Angeles. Organized by the ASE RAce GEnder and Sexuality Research Cluster.

Health as Property shows how responses to racism can be predatory, harmful, and dangerous to poor people of color. Nic John Ramos examines a Black-led academic medical center known as King-Drew that was built in response to the 1965 Watts Uprising. Forged by the political willingness of white voters to experiment with anti-poverty programs in poor neighborhoods of color, the health system's multiple missions represented the freedom dreams of civil rights, Black Power, welfare rights, and consumer rights activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Health as Property demonstrates how healthcare policy in America is both labor and real estate policy, and as such preserves health as the property of a select few.