One of my favorite shows to watch is the TV show Criminal Minds. This show follows the group of skilled criminal profilers who work for the FBI as members of the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). They use behavioral analysis and profiling to investigate criminals and find perpetrators. One of the biggest themes of criminal minds would be that it primarily focuses on the backgrounds of the victims and the criminals and not actually on the crime itself, which before this show was considered unusual. The BAU travels all around the country solving different crimes and catching different criminals. One episode that has always stood out to me was “Strange Fruit”. In this episode the team discovers skeletons of human bodies in the backyard of an African American family, Charles and Tina Johnson, the home they have lived in for 35 years. The team initially thinks the Johnson’s son, Lyle, is guilty because he ran when the police showed up to the house. The BAU brings in all three member of the family for questioning. Agent Rossi takes the father, Charles Johnson, in for questioning where he finds out the history of racism that he has had on his shoulders. Charles starts out by telling Rossi that he is “disappointed” in his sons gender, meaning that since he was an African American teenage boy he would get stopped and abused more than if he was an African American girl. Tech analyst Penelope Garcia, finds out that when he was a teenager, Charles Johnson was accused of raping a white teenage girl. When other white boys in the neighborhood had heard about this they took young Charles and they beat him and castrated him for the alleged offense. The murders that happened in 1973 were of the men who were involved in the attack of Charles, he wanted to seek revenge for what they did to him. But there were men that were involved in the abuse of Charles that had died earlier on of natural causes, but Charles still wanted revenge on them and their families. So in 2003 he targets the daughters of the men he was unable to seek revenge on. He beat all of his victims to death, mutilated them and buried the bodies in the backyard. This episode is actually very difficult to watch because of the injustice that Charles faced during his teenage years and probably his later years as well. He was abused and tortured because he is an African American man living in Virginia, and that built up rage led him to do brutal things to his victims. I feel like this episode kind of twists and turns with who is “The One” and who is “The Other”. In the beginning of the episode the other was supposed to be Lyle Johnson, because he ran from the police and was thought to be guilty of the murders. Then as Charles tells the story of his life he is thought to be the other because of the racism is experienced throughout his life.
Author: williamson.757
Yo Is This Racist- Racism in Healthcare
Racism is embedded in our social, political, and economic framework, for some people it is what “keeps America, America”. Some thrive on the fact that they are white or not a person of color, that this was and will always be THEIR country. But these differences and hierarchies tend to leave people of color in the dust, especially in healthcare. Members of racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to receive preventive health services and are more likely to receive lower quality of care. Minorities often feel that the quality of healthcare that they receive comes from misrepresentation of their culture, and not the reality of who they actually are. They feel as though health care providers take one look at them and treat them differently, assuming that they are less educated, poor or deserve less respect because of their race.
There have been racial disparities in health care for many years but more recently this imbalance has been putting many racial and ethnic minority groups at an increased risk of getting sick and dying from the coronavirus. The inequalities that have been placed on minorities groups for years such as poverty and the lack of healthcare access has been affecting the health and quality of life of these individuals. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention lists multiple reasons that minorities actually have a higher possibility of exposure and death from COVID-19.
One of the first reasons the the CDC lists is discrimination. Discrimination exists all over the world but healthcare of all places should definitely not be one. Everyone deserves a chance at fair and quality healthcare. There are a wide range of sources for discrimination like age, gender, obesity, or sexual orientation but race and ethnicity based discriminations is the most common. There was actually an experiment done at the Geneva University Hospital in 2007 that tested patients opinions on discrimination during their visit with a questionnaire, the study was conducted with 1,537 adult patients. “A total of 171 (11.1%) respondents reported at least one source of discriminations. Most (93, 54.4%) reported a single cause of discrimination. The Most frequent causes of discrimination were language, age, nationality and having a disease that is viewed negatively by others.” (Hudelson, Kolly and Perneger). The study goes to show that of the non-European participants reported discriminations as language barriers, nationality, choice of religion and skin color. This collection of data helps to show that individuals who get the impression of discrimination by their health care provider receive lower quality of care than those individuals who do not.
The CDC also accounts for Healthcare access being one of the reasons minorities are at an increased risk. Individuals who are a part of a minority group might be under protected because they do not have health insurance. “Healthcare access can also be limited for the groups by many other factors, such as lack of transportation, child care, ability to take time off of work; communication and language barriers; cultural differences between patients and providers; and historical and current discrimination in the health care systems.” (CDC). A lot of groups are actually afraid to seek health care and insurance because they do not trust our current health care systems and the government. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the African American Male still sits in the minds of some minorities which makes it very difficult for them to trust that they are actually being treated and given the same quality of care as white individuals. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis was an experimentation to try and observe the natural history of untreated syphilis in black populations. The “subject” had been uninformed because they were told they were receiving all of the necessary treatment for bad blood, in reality they received zero treatment. This experiment started 1932 and lasted until 1972, six hundred men joined the study of scientific experimentation of syphilis. There is a long history about why and how this study started that dates all the way back to 1865, basically when Social Darwinism was on the rise along with the theory of “scientific racism”. White people thought of themselves as high-caliber than African Americans and “science and medicine was all too happy to reinforce this hierarchy”. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were phony scientific concepts stating that while the brain of an African American male was underdeveloped, their genitals were actually overdeveloped. This “scientific theory” led to this study because individuals thought Black men were seen to have an inherent deviance towards white women and all African Americans were seen as having urgent “sexual appetites”. “This all matters because it was these understandings of race, sexuality and health that researchers undertook the Tuskegee study. They believed, largely due to their fundamentally flawed scientific understandings of race, that black people were extremely prone to sexually transmitted infections (like syphilis).” (McVean). During the study, instead of observing and documenting the natural progression of syphilis, the researchers interfered with the study. They would tell the subjects that they were being treated, which was a lie, and the researchers would prevent the subjects at any cost from seeking treatment that could save their life. By the time this study was shut down one hundred twenty eight patients died of syphilis, forty of their wives have been infected, and nineteen of their children have also acquired syphilis. The long wave of distrust between minorities and the government/healthcare can cause a greater exposure risk to COVID-19 because they would not trust receiving any type of treatment for the virus.
One of the last reasons the CDC states is education and income gaps in minorities. Some minorities do not get fair access to quality education which may lead to reduced high school graduates and less individuals going to college. Not graduating high school and/or not attending college can be shown to lead to lower paying jobs. These lower paying jobs also might not have the freedom of a flexible schedule which can prevent them from making health care a priority. These rigid working hours can cause a greater exposure risk to the COVID-19 virus and even if/when they are infected minorities cannot risk missing work because they already do not make enough money for support.
Racism in healthcare and the sense that minorities have been at a greater exposure risk to the coronavirus follows the concept of “The One and The Other”. Minorities are always going to feel like the other in our communities and government because of the way they have been treated for centuries. White individuals feel as though they have an “upper hand” in this country. Granted, it is not all white individuals that feel and act this way but until everyone changes their mind set, African Americans and other minorities are going to feel inferior or that they come in “last place”.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5060520/table/t1/?report=objectonly LINK SHOWING PATIENTS PERCEPTION OF DISCRIMINATION.
Works Cited
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “Health Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups”. February 12, 2021
National Library of Medicine. Patricia Hudelson, Veronique Kolly and Thomas Perneger. “Patients Perceptions of Discrimination During Hospitalization”.
Ada McVean B.Sc.. “40 Years of Human Experimentation in America: The Tuskegee Study”. McGill, Office of Science and Society. January 25, 2019.
Week 12- Stripped Identity After 9/11
On September 11, 2001 militaristic individuals who were associated with the Islamic extremist group al Queda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and a third airplane was flown into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. There was a fourth place also heading toward Washington D.C but brave civilians on the plane helped take over and crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania. Three thousand people were killed during the September 11th terrorist attack on the United States which caused the U.S to launch major action to combat terrorism. The United States also changed the way they looked at Muslim culture forever.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid tells a story of a young man from Pakistan, Changez, as he becomes a successful businessman in New York City. Just from the first page Hamid shows how subjective a person can be based on their skin color, facial features, and clothing. The forms of racism that Changez experiences shape his impressions of the United States. Changez’s friends treat him with respect but they are aware that he was thought of as an “outsider” of the United States. Racism is the ultimate theme throughout this story and it is very interesting. The narrator (Changez) is a Muslim man who is going to be “naturally” seen as a fundamentalist (a person who strictly believes in religion) but he is not especially religious. Changez is not a practicing Muslim but eveyone sees him as a Muslim because of his ethnicity and place of birth. He feels as though, through his Princeton education, there is a hidden patriotic duty in the United States that everyone must abide by. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Changez experienced an outpouring of loyalty to the United States. Before the attacks he thought of himself as just a New Yorker, he thought that was just a culture in itself. But after the attack he views the city joining with the rest of America in forming a single culture that makes its distinct characteristic aggression and hatred towards non-Americans. During this time Changez is “forced” into changing his perspective of America as he starts to experience racism and discrimination, he feels shattered in his once- embracing country. Changez experiences an identity crisis following the events of 9/11. He is He is divided as a man, trying to choose between his Pakistani roots or his American lifestyle. For a brief moment he chooses the American lifestyle he had been accustomed to but soon realizes it comes with the hardship of being seen as a terrorist and a threat to American society. Changez is able to tell a story about what many Muslims were feeling at the time, and still is today. Muslims, Arabs, South Asians or anyone with Brown skin/ Muslim Faith did not really know who they were after 9/11. The culture was erased, they were expected to give up ties to their heritage and instead of being embraced they were thought of as a foreigner who could not be trusted. Muslisms lost their cultural tie to America and instead of feeling free to experience the differences, they were forced to assimilate with other Americans. “September eleventh was not the beginning of islamophobia and racism, but the event intensified hate towards our various communities. Muslim girls had to remove their hijabs, Sikh men had to cut their hair, mother-tongues were forgotten, customs were not practiced, and the desire to become blonde-haired, blue-eyed, or all-American became an actual aspiration.” (Talwar, 9/11 Identity Crisis).
Muslims have and probably always will feel as though they are targeted and resented because of their culture. Society has taught people to fear Muslims, the media has shown that you are supposed to freeze in their presence, especially in an airport, a crowded public setting or when they are wearing a hijab. Ever since the actions of individuals on September 11th, 2001, the whole religion has been feared by most and has had their identity stripped from them. Toward the end of the novel there is a quote from Changez that I feel really sticks out, “It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins” (page 183).
Works Cited
Gabrielle Bellot, “Why Every American Should Read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Radical Difference in the Age of Trump.” October 5, 2016.
Rebecca A. Clay. “Muslims in America, Post 9/11.” September 2011.
“9/11 Identity Crisis.” September 12, 2015.
Diary of Systemic Injustice– Women’s Injustice
Women’s Injustice
“Experience has shown that when women have the freedom to make their own economic and social choices, the chains of poverty can be broken; families are strengthened; income is used for more productive purposes; the spread of sexually transmitted disease slows; and socially constructive values are more likely to be handed down to the young.” – Madeleine Albright, quoted in Women Empowered, by Phil Borges. Everyday, all around the world women are faced with discrimination and inequality. Women experience violence, abuse and unequal treatment at home, in the workplace and in the communities they live in. March 8th has been known as “International Women’s Day” for about one hundred years. It is a day to celebrate the accomplishments of women and to raise awareness on the inequality that still exists today. Women should feel like they have the right to have an equal role in government policies, structures and decisions that affect their lives and their community.It has been shown that women face injustice in the workplace, at home, in school and in everyday public settings. Women face injustices such as being withheld from receiving an education, forced into marriages, being victims of physical and/or sexual violence, and gender pay.
“Globally, an estimated 130 million girls are not in school, and many other girls who are in school struggle to stay there and finish their education” (Plan International, Because I am a Girl). In a lot of developing countries girls are not sent to school at the same rate or time as boys are. Back in 1999. The Taliban actually banned girls from receiving any type of education. Receiving an education has actually been linked to women having more self confidence, capabilities, and improving their life. An educated woman tends to have more knowledge of nutrition, healthcare, they tend to marry later and raise happier, healthier children if they choose to become mothers. Education helps a female to have free expression and gain control of their own lives. Education helps women to realize their potential in the world and are able to contribute to society socially and economically.
Child marriage violates human rights, prohibits growing education and can actually put their health at risk. Every year, almost twelve million girls are forced into marriage. This can hinder a young girl’s development because of early pregnancy or social isolation, it places young females into adult roles that they are not prepared for. I read a story that was told by Misha Valencia about a woman who was forced into a marriage at the age of nineteen. Fraidy Reiss grew up ultra-orthodox Jewish and when she was just nineteen years old she was involuntarily married to a twenty-two year old man that she never met. Reiss had explained that in her community, young women do not have the opportunity to decide when they want to and if they want to get married, the process of the arranged marriage generally begins around eleventh or twelfth grade. To her community, not getting married was very disgraceful, since women were treated terribly so Reiss was rightfully afraid. Her husband became violent after just a week of marriage. He controlled every detail of her life, she was not allowed to have money, have a driver’s license, or go to school. Divorce is obviously legal everywhere in the United States but in their religious culture it was only permitted for the man to “grant” a divorce. Reiss finally got enough courage to leave her abusive husband and file for divorce in the New Jersey courts but even trying to leave she was exposed to threats, stalking and harassment. “Leaving an abuser often triggers a serious escalation of violence by abusers who are determined to possess and control their partner” (Joan Meier, Professor of Law and Director of the National Family Violence Law Center). After leaving her husband, Reiss graduated from Rutgers as the valedictorian with a journalism degree. As of 2019, she is the founder and executive director of “Unchained At Last”, which is an organization that directs its efforts to end forced and child marriage. “This is happening in all communities and many girls are forced into a marriage before they have full rights of adulthood. It is a horrific form of human rights abuse” (Fraidy Reiss).
The gender wage gap is the average difference between the compensation for men and women who receive working wages. This wage gap has consistently proven that women earn less than men, and the gap is even larger for women of color. An evaluation from the Census Bureau shows that women of all races earned just eighty-two cents for every one dollar that is earned by men of all races. This is calculated by taking the ratio of median yearly earnings for women who are working full time to those of males, which translates to an eighteen cent gap. But talking about the gap in terms of just cents diminishes the real impact this has on women. A woman who works year round full time will make $10,194 less than a male who also works full time, year round. If this wage gap remains the same for forty years, the same women would then make $407,760 less than that male.
Women’s equality to men is a form of systemic injustice because it violates basic forms of human rights in some aspects. When you force someone into a marriage you are basically stripping them of their identity and what they could have made for themselves in a way. Taking away their right to an education is “clipping their wings” essentially by not letting them grow into confident, strong, smart women. For this particular diary of systemic injustice I believe this follows along with Simone de Beauvoir’s, The One and The Other theory. Women are always looked at as “inferior” to men, we are always viewed as “The Other” and men have always been seen at “The One”. Below I have attached a video from Fraidy Reiss that explains why forced/child marriage is wrong and the statistics her foundation has founded along with a graph of the average earnings gap between women and men over the course of forty years.
Works Cited
Cristina Costantini. “7 Injustices Faced by Women Around the World”, March 5, 2013.
Jane Arscott. “The Conversation: Time’s Up for Gender Injustice: What Every Woman Wants in 2018”. January 10, 2018.
“Plan International: 3 Social Injustices that Girls Face Around the World”, 2021.
Misha Valencia. “Trapped: The American Women and Girls Forced into Marriage”, December 4, 2020
Robin Bleiweis. Center for American Progress: Quick Facts About the Gender Wage Gap”, March 24, 2020.