This poem is commentary on our dominant paradigm of epidemiological knowledge production on racial health inequities. The core animating concern here is structural racism—not just as a thing ‘out there’ to study in relation to health inequities, but also a thing ‘in here’ that shapes how we do what we do and who gets to do it—that is, epistemic and methodological norms, and matters of inclusion and representation that raise questions about procedural and distributive justice. Of particular emphasis, as indicated by the title and x/y axis, is the ‘colourblind’ racism embedded within the (mis)use of ‘race’ within racial health inequities research, and as unexamined in relation to who is producing knowledge about whom. The suggestion is that epidemiology’s dominant paradigm is structurally racist, racial-capitalist, settler-colonial and epistemically violent: with discourse of racial health inequities dominated by extractivist, reductionist, positivist work done disproportionately by White scholars making professional and economic..
