Health

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The implicit racism in Ebola tragedy

 

(CNN) — The tragedy of Ebola is not just its staggering toll. It’s also the implicit racism that the deadly virus has spawned. The anecdotes are sickening, particularly a Reuters report this week that children of African immigrants in Dallas — little ones with no connection to Thomas Duncan, the Liberian Ebola patient who died Wednesday in a local hospital — have been branded “Ebola kids” simply because of their heritage or skin color.

In both the United States and Europe, Ebola is increasing racial profiling and reviving imagery of the “Dark Continent.” The disease is persistently portrayed as West African, or African, or from countries in a part of the world that is racially black, even though nothing medically differentiates the vulnerability of any race to Ebola.

A Newsweek cover last month showed a picture of a chimpanzee with the headline: “A Back Door for Ebola: Smuggled Bushmeat Could Spark a U.S. Epidemic.” Whatever the intent, the picture was wrong.

Turns out the story was probably wrong, too, as a Washington Post investigation revealed. The new Ebola outbreak “likely had nothing to do with bushmeat consumption,” the Post reported, and there is no conclusive evidence that Ebola has been passed from animals to humans. A theory on animal-to-human transmission with some limited traction centers on dead fruit bats, not chimps.

“There is virtually no chance that ‘bushmeat’ smuggling could bring Ebola to America,” the Post concluded.
– Click through fore more –

Source: www.cnn.com

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SPLC files federal lawsuit over inadequate medical, mental health care in Alabama prisons

 

Alabama has the most overcrowded prisons in the nation and spends one of the lowest amounts, per inmate, on health care. The prison system contracts with Corizon Inc. to provide medical care and MHM Correctional Services to provide mental health care. In 2012, when the ADOC released a “Request for Proposal” for a new health care contract, applicants were scored on a 3,000 point scale. Out of a possible 3,000 points, contract price accounted for a possible 1,350 points. Qualifications and experience counted for only 100 points.

The ADOC renewed its contract with Corizon in 2012, even though Corizon (the company providing health care in Alabama prisons since 2007) failed every major audit of its health care operations in Alabama prisons under its first contract with the state.

 

Source: www.splcenter.org

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Georgia Immigrant Detainees ‘Riot’ Over Maggot-Filled Food – COLORLINES

  More than two dozen detainees at a notorious immigration detention center in Georgia staged a hunger strike and protest last week over inedible food, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) called the protest at Stewart Detention Center a “riot” that required that detainees be “segregated for disciplinary purposes,” according to the AJC. The ACLU and Georgia Detention Watch filed a complaint raising alarm about a hunger strike that detainees began on or around June 12, during which hundreds of detainees threw their food away. Detainees have complained that their food is often filled with maggots, or that the same water used to boil eggs is reused to brew coffee. Detainees who work in food preparation have also complained of a roach infestation in the facility’s kitchen. Detainees were frequently served rotten food.   Click through to read more.   Source: colorlines.com   Serving rotten food is another way to dehumanize. The U.S. needs to be better than this.

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Thirty Seven: Life Expectancy for Onkwehón:we in Toronto

 

“I was interested in what their life was like,” Shah says. So in addition to the quantitative chart, they also did a qualitative analysis interviewing 20 people close to the deceased.

 

“I went to a residential school and the things that happened there – I can’t even talk about…that’s why I drank so much. I just couldn’t be a father,” said one of the people interviewed about what a deceased said.

“I really think it’s like a broken heart syndrome. It was [the deceased’s] loneliness for his true identity, like not knowing anything about who his people are because his family and his parents and his traditions were all lost,” said another.

 

The report shows much of the causes lie in the history of colonization, marginalization, discrimination and racism. Shah adds everything from treaties to the Indian Act result in losing cultures, languages and a way of living. Many of the deceased had a lack of housing, education and stable employment. This manifests in different ways such as finding happiness elsewhere such as drugs and alcohol.

 

“I call this a delayed tsunami effect,” says Shah. He suggests the only way to solve the problem is with an upstream approach of more housing and employment opportunities. “People have to have a sense of identity and empowerment.”

 

The report also suggests an increase in partnerships with the Aboriginal community and cultural competency training.

 

He says our policies are “screwed up” because most of us non-Aboriginals don’t know anything about Aboriginal issues and as a result there is no empathy. A lot of people don’t understand how some people can’t get a job or rent an apartment and this creates an empathy gap.“

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

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