in this podcast above, I am joined by my friend Mjed Refai. We bring up a lot of tops such as ,Racial composition of the prison population in the United States, Inequality in the country’s passports, Covid highlighted education inequality, Gap in countries wealth , Health and healthcare in the US , The influence of food drives in my community. A lot of very interesting topics that bring together racial inequality in the world.
transcript:
Hi, my name is Jamil Hallak and I’m here joined by my Mjed Refai. And today we have a few topics I’d like to discuss that I wrote about during my diary of injustice, systematic systems and starting off, I wanted to bring up the racial composition of the prison population in the United States. Now I wanted to ask you, imagine, what do you think, what comes to your mind when you hear that? Wow.
I just think about the amount of people that are in prison and what makes up the racial, you know, racial population part, because, you know, there may be a good amount of people in prison, but who makes up the prison is a blacks. Whites got Mexicans, Asians, you know, trying to know all these things. Cause I mean, you may see a lot of people on the street, but in prison. Yeah. I mean it could be a whole different story.
Yeah. Well you are totally correct. My brother, this a, this is a station justice system is a very, very wrong in the United States for years and years ago. And it still still to this day in the United States in 2010, there was approximately 1.6 people in jail in the United States, approximately 0.5 of the population. But when you separate it by race, you realize the criminal justice system is very, very wrong. Whites are only 64% of the population, but 31% of the, of the jail population.
What, what do you think about that?
Honestly, that’s kind of blows my mind. I mean, almost half the population, you know, just sitting there in prison.
Well, listen to this. Blacks are 14% of the United States population, but are 36% of the jail population.
I just almost wiped them out. Just put them all in prison. You know, they don’t, they don’t want to see them when.
Completely, completely right. For what we see here is if young black men in the United States has one in four chance to be in jail one in four. Wow. And that is higher than getting married or going off to college or doing anything, anything irregular white male would be able to do in the United States. So this is a very, very big problem that the United States needed to take care of and change the system that is wrong. And that is creating these situations and circumstances for black male and any other race in the United States.
The second topic that I would like to discuss is then quality and the countries passports. And now what do you think?
I mean, honestly, I see no issue. I mean, I’m passport to passport. You know what I mean? Should be no inequality within that.
Well, you would think so, but a lot of, a lot of people from foreign countries struggle every day to leave their home country and the United States, the American passport could take you 184 countries.
Wow. That’s a lot of countries. My man,.
184 now where I’m from, I’m from Syria originally. Okay. A Syrian passport is able to take your seven countries.
Wow. That’s not okay.
Now you are able to go to different places. You were able to go. If you, if you have a Syrian passport, you’re able to leave the country. If you have a visa, if you have a visa, you able to leave the country, but it’s not easy. It’s not easy at all. To be able to get a visa. Do you want to get a visa? It takes about 12 years to even apply, to get a visa. And if you were a young man in Syria, trying to get out of Syria and see the world, see the other opportunities, trying to get jobs, it’s still hard for, you still have to apply for the visa, do an application. You got to submit your job where you’ve worked, where, where you made, how much money you have and about 30 pages of documents.
Now, is that something that you would be able to do if you didn’t have an American.
Passport? Honestly, I just wouldn’t even take the time to do it. You know, it’s 30 pages, you know what I mean? It’s too much work, man.
That’s not the only issue if you’re trying to, to apply for a visa. Uh, the minimum cost of a visa is $150. Now $150. Doesn’t sound like a lot for a, for a minimum of job here in the United States, but it is hard, very, very hard and difficult for somebody living in Syria on two or $3 a day, to be able to make $150 just for an obligation to see if you’ll be able to make it or not.
I mean, honestly, that’s insane because obviously with third world countries and their economy depreciating, it’s not easy to make 150 bucks. I mean,.
And with new presidents is being very hard for, for refugees to be able to come here, make a living and be able to come out of nowhere. It is very, very difficult for many people around the world. And we just want to be thankful enough and fortunate to be able to be living here in a, in a freedom country, being able to go anywhere around the world with,.
I think anybody should be able to appreciate that. I mean, nobody should have to be worried about if they’re stuck in their own country and if they can’t leave, everybody should be able to see their own world.
The third topic that I wanted to bring up was how COVID highlighted education inequality. Now, would you, would you agree with that statement? My agenda. Oh.
Yeah. I would agree with that statement.
Now education for a long time, there has been inequality in the system of education and education varies from country to country, depending where you live and many, many things. Now let’s hear some statistics about education. Four out of a hundred students in Africa are expected to enter graduation institution and 14 out of a hundred in south and west Asia. Wow. 36 out of a hundred and Latin Americas. Now these are not very well-developed countries yet. What do you think about those numbers? Magenta?
I mean, even with not even with them being not so developed in third world countries, I think they’re trying to at least be more children, you know, uh, graduating, you know, children of the future.
That is correct. And the buy, not even wealth, even in well-developed countries, wealth, isn’t guaranteed to help you to get a better education. Now in the us, UK and Germany, they are the wealthiest countries in the world. Is that correct? Me, Jen? I believe so. They’re one of the wealthiest now, but they did very poorly on the ranking of their education. Now we have here UK play 16th, Germany, 23rd, and us holding the 24th place. Now this is a 2019 report by education.
What do you think about those numbers?
We’re getting better. Now,.
The only issue is when you are going to wealthier countries, there is still inequalities between a place and a different place between a state in a different state at college, from a different college, a school from a different school. They vary from education from where their parents were, where their parents work, where are their parents from? How much money did their parents have? What neighborhood do they live in? Now there’s a private school in London named horrible. It costs 56,000 a year to attend 56, 48 high school students attend.
College. That’s almost two brand new cars right.
There. Now I would be expecting to be getting the highest top level of education, but this is not, this is not even close to the schools like Lee Rosie, which is $135,000 a year. That’s a lot that is a lot of money, but the only issue is with very private schools that are asking a lot of tuition. It is hard for lower income families to be able to get the same education. There is very, very visible inequality in the education system that needs to be something that needs to change.
The fourth topic that I wanted to bring up was the cop and the country’s wealth. What do you feel about that one again?
Um, I wanna say that I know there was much to forget.
Now. There’s a very huge gap between the wealth that each country has. And, uh, let’s say for example, the war, the war, the whole world’s wealth, how much is it? What is the world’s world? Well, well, my brother had his $260 trillion is the whole world’s wealth. Wow. Wow. That is a very big number. But in Europe and north America, it’s 64%. Asia is 8%. Africa is 2%.
Now those countries are growing and they’re getting bigger, but they’re not all going at the same rate. This is due to the industrial revolution. That’s changed everything.
No, that’s insane. Bubba.
Changes. A lot of jobs changed a lot of things. There’s new skills, there’s new things that people can do. And the countries that are left behind the countries that are poor, that are able to go there and do the skills that other countries are doing. Technology has dramatically changed the whole world.
Honestly, all these things that you’re saying are true. Technology has brought in. A lot of people back together has ruined a lot of stuff. Just good and bad pros and cons.
Now I want her to bring up this statistics cause I thought it was very, very crazy and interesting to see. And night and 1820 gray Brynn was only three times richer and richer than the poorest poorest countries like India and China today, the cop has dramatically changed and grew to a hundred times more than, than how it was. This is, I would say this is very, very, because some countries are growing at a substantial rate than other countries like, like, like lower income countries.
And this is a very huge problem because the more we are growing, the more technology is growing. The less, the poor countries are able to perform and get back on the track and be able to accomplish what big countries has, have accomplished. All right. Now the next topic that I want to bring up was health and healthcare in the United States. Now, what do you think about that image? Do you think everybody deserves the same health and healthcare in the United States?
Of course, I think everybody deserves the same healthcare, but it’s all going to vary on how much they pay, where they live, uh, and all sorts of things.
You are completely right. My friend, this is a very huge problem. Just like how we talked about in the education system. And honestly depends on where you live, where you’re from, how much money you have, how wealthy you are. Uh, the wealthy is getting you the best, healthier, like the absolute ridiculous amount of money they can spend on a health care. They’re getting the middle-class is, is there was okay. Healthcare where they just go by whatever the low-income families are with left with the very poor to minimal healthcare. And sometimes they don’t even care to go to an urgent care or go to the hospital to get checked out and see what’s going on.
Now, the first problem that occurs in low-income families when there is very poor healthcare is diseases, diseases in low community, low income communities have spread way more than it is in high income communities and low in communities. People are, are more compact they’re together. They’re they don’t have spoofs space to move. So a spreading way faster. What do you think about them, Jen?
Honestly, all these things is just insane to me. I’d never really thought about it like that. I mean, I don’t think it’s okay that somebody that’s in a lower income area should be receiving worth worse healthcare healthcare than somebody than a more high-end high income area.
Yeah, my brother and in low-income communities, people are more willing to take very dangerous job that a lot that, that may put them in situations where it is hard for them to go and get, get, get healthcare. And they put themselves in those jobs because they can’t make money. What do you think about that?
I think that’s a very true statement. Um, uh, people are willing to do more. If there’s more money online,.
That was great. And do this. You can’t flat out afford it. And that is a very big problem that should be evaluated and seen in the healthcare. Everybody should get the same healthcare in the United States, as anybody in the world, like places in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, they all have free healthcare and everybody could get the same treatment. Why can’t we have that year in the United States? All right. The last topic I wanted to bring up was it hits very close to home because it is a very, very interesting topic. And I really enjoyed looking into it.
I, uh, work on west broad and, uh, north Wilson, there is every now and then I see a very, very long line. Uh, cars is just right behind each other for probably like half a mile. Um, I believe magenta seen it too. Cause we work at the same area. Have you, have you seen, have you had, what do you think about that line?
Honestly, I’m always so confused. Every time I pass by, I’m just like, is this like a vaccine J or about like, this is where people are getting their vaccines or what’s going on, but the more and more we looked into it where she found out what it was.
Well, my brother, this says it full drive that my community has been doing for a, since COVID started, since COVID started, a lot of families have, have been been, haven’t been able to get food on their, on their table for their families. Now food jobs have really benefited a lot of people. About 1.5 people in Ohio are facing hunger and 400,000 of them are children. Now these numbers are just insane, just insane. And there’s need, there needs to be something done about this. And I feel like food drives.
And I know at my mosque, they have also doing something about giving out food and now every time I see, I see, I see a homeless person. I give, try to give, provide that information for them and tell them yours, go check that out when you should probably see if you’re able to, to get you up and moving. Now that includes all our stories. I hope you enjoyed our podcast and thank you for listening.
