Reproductive Justice

The lecture with Mia Mingus and Cara Page was an eye-opening experience. From the talk about eugenics to the media's role in placing underlying messages of intolerance for certain groups, I learned a great deal about women and the environment. I never noticed how much blame is placed upon women for environmental issues and overpopulation. We as women as givers of life so we are blamed for environmental degradation, food shortages, and water shortages. The picture of the two girls getting water from the well highlighted the media bias against minorities and the blame that they place on them for things that they are not the cause of. The girls were only getting small gourds of water but were made to look like they were over consuming the water. Like one classmate pointed out, the article forgot to mention that large companies uses millions of gallons of water to produce their goods.

Up until that lecture, I had never heard about eugenics. I was fascinated to see that the government and many groups have take steps to ensure that dominant groups procreate more than non-dominant groups. It is there way of making sure that a certain group stays in power and that other groups are marginalized. The list that we made of who should or should not be reproduced depended on several factors: race, class, ability, education, sexuality, aesthetics, and gender. The are populations that some people want to control based on the aforementioned factors. The treatment of those who are considered by society as "inferior" continues to be a reoccurring theme in this class. We have seen that women, minorities, refugees, the intersexed, and the disabled have an unfair advantage.

My Activist Practicum and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

When working on my Activist Practicum about Refugee Family Services, I was constantly reminded of the Lee family's constant struggles in this country. I think of all the women and children that I have met as a volunteer at RFS and you can sense their fear but at the same time you can see that they want to learn and be considered American. However, they also want to hold on to their culture while learning more about American culture. The many things that we as American citizens take for granted such as our ability to speak English, our ability to easily find a job, etc. are things that these people aren't able to do as soon as they land on American soil. I remember that the Lee family didn't have access to an organization such as RFS, but I wonder if the outcome would have been different for Lia if an organization like RFS was in their community.

The biggest problem that refugees face are their concerns about whether are not the will be accepted into America society. Without fluency in English , they are left to either find low wage, low skill jobs or be employed. Like Foua Lee, many immigrants feel that they are stupid or unskilled because they don't know English. They are not able to communicate their thoughts with English speakers so they feel inadequate and alone. What I am most proud of about RFS, is that it provides free ESL classes and also provided childcare services to mothers who attend the classes. Language barriers are potentially the biggest barriers that hold people back from their full potential or from communicating important messages. The language barrier between the Lee family and their American doctors left a young girl without the ability to lead a normal life.

Poverty fuels medical crisis

The healthcare crisis among the poor in the United States is startling, especially since we live in the richest country in the world. This article really shed light on the problems that many poor people face in the US regarding their health and the way they view their situations. I was extremely disheartened by Jim Neely's pessimistic view of his life. It is sad that the only way these people see themselves being freed from their health and financial problems is by death. These people do not have access to great healthcare or even to healthy food choices because of their low incomes. This article completely falls in line with a lot of what we have talked about in class. These people in Kentucky are marginalized and completely ignored by the government because they aren't considered "human capital." Those in power clearly do not see these individuals' plight as important and something that needs to be addressed immediately. The poor in our country may be helped quite often by non-profit or community organizations, but these organizations can only do so much. It is up to our government to make sure that these people receive the health care they deserve.

There are many people in the United States who do not have health insurance, and without it many are left to suffer or even die because they could not receive treatment. With the upcoming election, many people are wondering if the next administration will make insurance accessible to ALL people regardless of their socioeconomic status. I do agree that every person is entitled to excellent health care at little or no cost. I feel that with all of the money that are government wastes on frivolous things, it should take on the responsibility of making sure that its citizens are healthy and not left to suffer because they can't afford their blood pressure medicine, etc.

Sexuality vs. Politics

Hey - another little tid bit of information for everyone. Since we discussed the binary categories of sexuality and gender in class in such depth, I thought it might be interesting for some of our feminist scientists to see how these categories are clashing with the political system. As we all know, same-sex marriages are illegal in the States everywhere except Massachusetts. However in Sunday's New York Times, there's an article entitled "Through Sickness, Health, and Sex Change" which describes how a couple, one half of which is transgendered, is challenging New Jersey marriage laws. Since I'm writing my final paper on Thomas Beatie, the transgendered pregnant man from Oregon, my ear has been finely tuned to these stories. I think the firmly established two-gender system that dominant society chooses to uphold is causing a lot of confusion where legal regulation of rights for couples are concerned.
Just an example from the article: "The New Jersey reference stems from a 1976 case in which an appellate court ruled that a man needed to pay support to his ex-wife, who was born male, essentially saying that sex is determined by current status, not DNA. But a 2004 Florida case took the opposite tack: a female-to-male transsexual who married a woman and then divorced lost custody of the children, as the marriage was declared invalid since both were born the same sex."
In any case, if anyone wants to check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/fashion/27trans.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

More activities

Hey everyone - I hope you are all doing well as the semester winds down. I just wanted to inform you all of another wonderful event taking place at Charis Books, the bookstore where I did my activist practicum. Since this class has prepared us all to become more socially aware and active, it might also be of use to do go about this activism in a healthy and balanced way. Again, like Jackie in her post below, I know everyone has a lot on their minds with finals and everything, but I really do recommend a visit to the bookstore to take a look at the type of community it fosters and I think the event held there on May 1st seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. Here is a description of the event from the website:
7:30-9:00pm. Sonali Sadequee, founder of Sustainable Wellness, will facilitate a free interactive workshop for activists needing tools for regaining health and balance while experiencing "wholistic justice". As we go about the work of making the world a better place, we must be able to sustain and renew ourselves and promote wellness in each other as a community, according to Sonali's teachings. Come learn about the Sustainable Wellness philosophy, nutrition, and lifestyle practices that will make your own wellness a REAL ACTION ITEM for the long haul!
I think a lot of the types of activities we've all been involved in can take their toll on us, so this could be a really fascinating activity.

House of Integritea

Hey all-

I know I told you about it with my practicum, but I just got a call saying the open mic night at House of Integritea's last get-together is going to be tonight, unfortunately since I'm a poor time-management person, I'm working on three papers for tomorrow and won't be able to go. If anyone else is interested, just go down to the Inman Park station and make a left from Hurt onto Euclid, then a right onto Elizabeth and go past the traffic light, up the hill a bit; the HoI is on the right and its fenced, but the gate should be open. Keep in mind the performances start at 7 and end around 9, and I hope a least one person has the time to go and experience the atmosphere there, it's wonderful!

A Visit with Mrs. Carter

I thought I'd post a re-cap/reflection about the Carter Center since many people couldn't attend. We arrived at the center and met Mrs. Carter who told us about her work in the mental health field in which she works with people to improve mental health awareness and treatment globally. She told us about her recent travels to MANY countries (many of us almost had our mouths open because we couldn't believe she visited so many places in such a short period of time) in which she met people living with mental illnesses and learned about other systems throughout the world. One of the topics that came up was the use of language when discussing people with mental illnesses. It seems like there is a shifting now away from the "mentally ill" into people "experiencing" a mental illness. I thought that was interesting as it relates to our discussions about language and race, disability, and even weight (something that Marilyn Wann, a fat activists, strives to do is bring back the word "fat" into something positive as opposed to negative...she openly calls herself fat).

Mrs. Carter also told us a few stories that displayed the exact kind of negative stigma associated with having a mental illness and how we need to work on being more conscious about it and aware of what we can do to help.

For more info about the issue you can visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

http://www.nami.org/