Filed under: Race & Ethnicity
I have found that a great way to bring home all the discussion about race and racial inequality is to highlight Hurricane Katrina. I show two parts of When the Levees Broke (Trouble the Water needs to be captioned before it can be effectively used in the classroom). It brings together residential segregation, housing, prejudice, health… Oh, about everything. I then match this with data about the event and what has happened since. Reason why I’m tell you all this is that there is a new report is now out about the state of health in Lousiana and New Orleans. See here.
There is almost constant coverage on the public option (a great summary of the public option can be found here — have the clip running in the background while looking at the flow chart beneath).
We know that poverty and health coverage are correlated. We also know that race (above and beyond poverty) and health coverage are correlated. We know that quality of care has a racial component. We know that things like residential segregation cause health disparity by race (i.e. food deserts, amount of green space, environmental racism). African Americans have the highest rates of infant mortality and a low rate of preventative care.
I am not a medical sociologist. I have some passing familiarity with the literature — enough to know that health care is a raced system where Whites consistently receive better, more quality care. Are more likely to be given preventative treatment and less severe treatment (i.e. white women are less likely to get mastectomies and white males are less likely to have their testicles removed when other treatment is appropriate than their black counterparts). Some stats…
Has ANYONE discussed the implications of the public option to creating change in a system that (re)creates quite negative (even deadly) racial disparities? With the constant discussion, I have been surprised not to hear this anywhere from anyone. Have I missed it? Is this just a further case of America being afraid to discuss race?
I was watching Glen Beck this afternoon (I know, but I was curious). And he was talking to a guest that charged that Obama is the “anointed” carrying out plans to change the system (the appropriate response is a supposed to be something like this). I find myself hoping that this is true (not necessarily as the anointed one, but someone who is trying to change this system). It’s broke. Not just perpetuating racial inequality in some of the most horrific ways, but in the basic values we are stressing. I remember watching some clip (can’t find it) of a town hall where a woman asks her representative about her situation (husband can’t work, needs care 24/7, and she can’t get health care). The response was “we need to be neighbors to each other and help each other out.. but this health care system is not that approach” (not a direct quote, but you get the idea). I think my jaw about hit the floor. Isn’t the government, in a real way, made of our neighbors (We the people and all of that… WE the people)? Isn’t that the POINT of the public option? That we help each other because it’s the right thing to do… because we are neighbors. And if that means my taxes are higher (or if this is balanced because of not having the increase in our premiums due to emergency care for these others who can’t get preventative care) then fine by me.
But, then again, I am a zombie killer socialist from outer space.
I’d love to see an analysis that frankly discusses the public option and racial disparities in health care and insurance.
I was surfing around looking for a good text and/or reader on intersectionalities (race, class, gender, sexuality…) and found this website for the Race and Pedagogy Project.
From their own description:
This site presents diverse scholarship and opinions regarding race and pedagogy. The site is an academic resource intended to provide teachers, students, researchers and the interested public with on-site articles and theoretical analyses, policy documents, current legislative updates, and an annotated bibliography of research and teaching materials.
They review articles, have teaching resources (such as talking about Hurricane Katrina, Beloved, lesson plans, and film reviews). It appears that they stopped doing this in 2006, but still it looks like a very useful site.
Filed under: Race & Ethnicity
If you don’t normally read RaceWire: The Colorlines Blog, check out this post.
One of my oldest and dearest friends (Mijum!!!) is in school to become a pharamacist. I emailed her and asked her about what she has covered in terms of social structure, race/ethnicity and health. She sent me a video about this board game: The Last Straw. It stresses economic inequality, but brings in gender, race, and sexual orientation. I’ve put the youtube summaries below. Anyone played this in class?
Filed under: Race & Ethnicity
I’m prepping a lecture on residential segregation and came across this interactive map of Philadelphia.
If you click on a neighborhood (green –best, blue — still desirable, yellow — declining, and red — hazardous) you can read how the neighborhood was evaluated. It’s addicting.
For example:
Detrimental Influences: Heavy obsolescence of property — concentration of Negros and Italians.
Or, a special note on a green area: Section is very desirable, but danger of Jewish encroachment is imminent.
Another area is “Threatened by Negro enchroachment.”
Filed under: Race & Ethnicity
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has this video (8 min, 24 secs) about the victory of Obama and MLK, Jr. The message? It’s a great time for America, but that “the road ahead will be long.” The politics of hope and how hope was redefined from a wish to a possibility with Obama.
See the link for the video and transcript.
On the site there are links to the full interviews with the people in the video.From this interview, with Harold Dean Trulear, assoc. prof of applied theology at Howard, we have:
Q: Is there a danger for all communities, for all different racial groups, that people do think something is over now? We’ve ended a chapter and so the work is all done?
A: I think that’s right, and what I tell people is not so much that when we get a black president things will be different, but when I don’t have to teach my sons as a part of their driving lesson how to be pulled over by the police, when I don’t have to warn them about the dangers of driving while black, then I think we’ll be somewhere. But the presidency is—it’s in a big place, it’s in a high place, it’s in a somewhat distant place. There are still places in this country where the nuts and bolts are still fundamentally racist, where the warp and roof of the lifestyle is still exclusivist and supremacist, and those parts of this country, quite frankly, in some cases seem totally untouched by this movement, or they see it as dangerous: oh, my gosh, what is this country coming to, and what’s going to happen to us now, we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. There’s enough of that in this country on the eve of this historic occasion for me to still give pause.
Though, I still love ya Belle, Jenn, Dave P., Anomie, Jessie, Kristina B….
Thanks to some emails she sent me, I think my first class went pretty darn well. I mean, I put my own stamp on her suggestions, but she helped me quite a bit with how to frame the first day and how to approach my race and ethnicity in the classroom. And, if students drop, I have doubts it’s because of what I said today… but instead, the result of the 12 page syllabus they have to thumb through (Hey, I don’t go half way).
Filed under: Race & Ethnicity
Fascinating discussion of how anti-immigrant groups have close ties to white supremacists.
I’m not the best at keeping up with podcasts. It’s hard for me because I was trained at early childhood to block out noise… (youngest of 6 or 8 depending on how you count). I have to try to pay attention and often have to rewind to catch what I’ve missed.
Anyway, if you haven’t found Radiolab, you should listen to it now. Start with their great program on race.
Note of Caution: If you are going to suggest an episode to a professor, like I did with this one, make sure to listen to the whole thing first. I had listened only to the social capital section when I sent it to my major. Later, revisitng, I heard someone pretending to have an orgasm and a discussion of making your own dildos. Result? Awkward email to my major about how the middle section is a bit dicey. I missed the warning about explicit language on my iPod. But, if you don’t mind some fake orgasms, that episode is also great.
