The treatment of Black people in America is sickening. The violence and dehumanization and removal of dignity is an awful history. Suppressing the teaching of these historical facts is collusion with this criminal and immoral behavior.
The treatment of Black people in America is sickening. The violence and dehumanization and removal of dignity is an awful history. Suppressing the teaching of these historical facts is collusion with this criminal and immoral behavior.
'Childbirth Is Deadlier for Black Families Even When They’re Rich, Study Says'
Today's Letter lucidly connects the time from President Abraham Lincoln's birth to the formation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
'They vowed “to promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law.” (Letter)
Our struggle as a people '...to advance the interest of colored citizens...' is still woefully unfinished. Here are excerpts from today's front page story in The New York Times.
'In the United States, the richest mothers and their newborns are the most likely to survive the year after childbirth — except when the family is Black, according to a groundbreaking new study of two million California births. The richest Black mothers and their babies are twice as likely to die as the richest white mothers and their babies.'
'Research has repeatedly shown that Black mothers and babies have the worst childbirth outcomes in the United States. But this study is novel because it’s the first of its size to show how the risks of childbirth vary by both race and parental income, and how Black families, regardless of their socioeconomic status, are disproportionately affected.'
“This is a landmark paper, and what it makes really stark is how we are leaving one group of people way behind,” said Atheendar Venkataramani, a University of Pennsylvania economist who studies racial health disparities and was not involved in the research.'
'This finding suggests that the American medical system has the ability to save many of the lives of babies with early health risks, but that those benefits can be out of reach for low-income families.
'The babies born to the richest Black women (the top tenth of earners) tended to have more risk factors, including being born premature or underweight, than those born to the richest white mothers — and more than those born to the poorest white mothers. It’s evidence that the harm to Black mothers and their babies, regardless of socioeconomic status, begins before childbirth.'
“As a Black infant, you’re starting off with worse health, even those born into these wealthy families,” said Sarah Miller, a health economist at the University of Michigan. She was an author of the study with Professor Rossin-Slater and Petra Persson of Stanford, Kate Kennedy-Moulton of Columbia, Laura Wherry of N.Y.U. and Gloria Aldana of the Census Bureau.'
'Black mothers and babies had worse outcomes than those who were Hispanic, Asian or white in all the health measures the researchers looked at: whether babies were born early or underweight; whether mothers had birth-related health problems like eclampsia or sepsis; and whether the babies and mothers died. There was not enough data to look at other populations, including Native Americans, but other research has shown that they face adverse outcomes nearing those of Black women and infants in childbirth.'
“It’s not race, it’s racism,” said Tiffany L. Green, an economist focused on public health and obstetrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The data are quite clear that this isn’t about biology. This is about the environments where we live, where we work, where we play, where we sleep.”
'There is clear evidence that Black patients experience racism in health care settings. In childbirth, mothers are treated differently and given different access to interventions. Black infants are more likely to survive if their doctors are Black. The experience of the tennis star Serena Williams — she had a pulmonary embolism after giving birth, yet said health care professionals did not address it at first — drew attention to how not even the most famous and wealthy Black women escape this pattern.' (NYTimes) Gifted link to the article below.
Thanks Fern, excellent post, as always. Pain management studies I have read indicate that those presenting in EDs who are least likely to have their pain addressed are older, black, and female. Racism leaves its mark on all who experience it. It settles into bodies, reducing health quality and life span.
Dr. J. Marion Sims, "Father of American Gynecology" operated on enslaved Black women with no anesthesia. He believed Black people did not feel pain. IMO, I think he CHOSE to disregard that a Black woman might feel pain because such a thought would interfere with HE wanted to do--racism and misogyny at work. Those same attitudes are still present today.
Not to take anything away from the plight and atrocities black women have suffered, but my mother, a German Holocaust survivor, had something similar with a dentist. She was in pain from an abscessed tooth. The Nazis would not let her go to her own dentist. They sent her to one of theirs, clear across Berlin, on a bus. The dentist did nor use Novocain. She was in agony for years. She slowly lost her teeth in America and ended up with dentures that never fit right. There was a board of doctors who concluded it was the trauma of having that tooth pulled and the events of what was happening to Jews, that her teeth and gums suffered.
Thank you, Fern. These disparities make me sick and very angry. Crying doesn’t help but protesting does. I will continue to do so until my last dying breath.
Fern, thank you for another excellent post. The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that there is a problem. Hopefully this won’t be the only study, but will lead to better childbirth and postpartum management so that black mothers have an equal chance.
Mary, the following from the article will indicate that while race, even among the richest Blacks people is significant, the mortality and health of mothers and babies of all Americans indicate weakness in our medical model, which effect everyone.
'Many parts of the United States have much higher maternal mortality than California, and fewer policies to support families. California was the first state to offer paid family leave. It has one of the most generous public insurance programs for pregnant women. The state has invested in specific programs aimed at reducing maternal deaths and racial disparities in childbirth.'
'Yet even in this best-case American scenario, mothers and babies fare worse compared with another rich country the researchers examined: Sweden. At every income level, Swedish women have healthier babies. This held true for the highest-income Swedish women and those from disadvantaged populations, including low-income and immigrant mothers.
In the United States, earning more regularly translates into superior access to the fastest, most expensive health care. But even with that advantage, the richest white Californians in this study still gave birth to less healthy babies than the richest Swedish women. Their newborns were more likely to be premature or underweight. The two groups had roughly equal maternal death rates.'
“That finding really does strongly suggest that it’s something about the care model,” said Dr. Neel Shah, chief medical officer of Maven Clinic for women’s and family health and a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School. “We have the technology, but the model of prenatal care in the United States hasn’t really gotten an update in the last century.”
'Sweden, like most European countries, has universal health insurance with low out-of-pocket costs for the patient. Midwives deliver most babies in Sweden and provide most of the prenatal care, which has been linked to lower C-section rates and lower rates of preterm births and low birth weights. It has long paid leaves and subsidized child care.'
'Like California, Sweden has also started targeted efforts to reduce maternal deaths. When officials there recognized that African immigrants giving birth were dying more frequently, they began piloting a “culture doula” program, with doulas who were immigrants themselves helping pregnant women navigate the country’s health system.'
'Local maternal health programs could begin to help reduce racial disparities in the United States, too, as could a more diverse medical workforce, research suggests. Nonprofits and universities have experimented with ways to address racism and poverty, with programs like cash transfers for low-income pregnant women and initiatives to improve the environments of Black communities.'
'By the time a woman is pregnant, Professor Miller said, “it’s almost too late.”
“Health is going to depend on exposures throughout her life, health care she’s received, environmental factors,” she said. “A lot goes on prior to the pregnancy that affects the health of the mother and baby.”
Another look at this is found in a different study that looked at birth outcome differences between foreign-born Black women and USA-born Black women. Those researchers concluded "The difference in risk of adverse birth outcomes between American-born and foreign-born Black women is not due to genetics. Rather, we believe that it can be explained by differences in exposure to racism across the lifespan."
Karen, Thank you for your reply and article. There are important questions that could not be answered in the California study. From the article itself, and not the study (which probably provides a more detailed understanding in its conclusions) women's work, living quarters, healthcare models, doctors' origins, etc., are all factors in the health and mortality of mother and child of all stripes. In the article I referenced, women and infants in Sweden did better than than those in America.
What pain do we endure as a nation, inflicted on every single person in our county, not only those who are abused, the price paid in strangled social joie de vivre,, in order to play the cruel games of delusional supremacy?
Many parts of it are sickening, yet millions of white men went to war to end slavery, and millions more (men and women) elected the presidents and legislators who passed civil rights laws at all levels and marched and fought to make those rights real. And don’t forget the “ ordinary” Americans who support equality every day, through voice, and votes and friendship.
Jon, while intellectually I know you're right, emotionally I feel it's not enough. As a child of Holocaust survivors, I know it's a lot, and critical, but not enough.
What will be enough? Not for me to say. I've personally experienced antisemitism, but walking anywhere, I can ignore that detail. A black person can't.
We'll be getting close when we all individually react to a person's character, accomplishments, and dreams more than we react to that person's color. We have come far as a nation, yes. But we have quite far yet to go as individuals. We're not close enough.
Our history of cruelty and conquest has been repeated for thousands of years on Earth. The cry of “American Exceptionalism” does not exempt us from it. Time and the efforts of like-minded groups inch the bend of the arc
I like the words in your bio Kerry, that you are "informed by it", meaning History. I'm with you. To be a bunch of human beings swimming around in the pool with our fellow man along with all we have together in this world of today... and to behave in this manner, this childish manner. To refer to our behavior as "in-humane" would imply that we are grown-ups and understand the meaning of the word. Have some sangria for me my friend.
You are so right. We have a huge population of clueless adults with absolutely no conception of the actual history of this country. They spend their lives mesmerized by advertising and living in a fantasy world of “manifest destiny”, exceptionalism, and white Christian privilege. We’ve been glossing over the “all men are created equal” equivocation for centuries now. Barely a mention of the “treaties” with Native Americans that were spit on with impunity. The ends have justified all the means is what we really teach.
It's not all we teach, but (long ago) I was certainly fed a narrative of American exceptionalism in school. And so much of what I learned (until college) was so fragmented it was hard to appreciate its impact on today. Kids are expected to deal wisely with society's challenges and run a functional democracy once out of school, so I think we could be giving them a lot more tools and training to hit the ground running. And not hobbling, exploiting, and indenturing them with student debt.
Half of the Christian "Great Commandment" is "love they neighbor as thyself", but we commonly use the word "love" as an intensified form of the word "like" and also as intimate identification, and I think the two concepts, while both legitimate, become muddled.
I recall reading news about a man who dangled his (and her) infant outside an upper story window, threatening to kill the child because his partner was leaving him. That's extreme, but malignant or clueless narcissism too often gets conflated with "love". Compassionate love is awareness and concern for another creature's sentient experience. Immersive travel can do that, for those who are open to it. "Mindfulness" practices of various sorts can also facilitate compassion. And just observing, just listening. It occurs to me that being observant, let alone being compassionate, is allied but not the same as being clever. And we have so many ways, certainly including myself, of getting in our own way. Given human limitations, how much of are problems can be traced to what we cannot see, and how much is what we simply prefer not to see? The consequences are huge.
We could learn a thing or two from other nations, as well as see people as more than their customs, by paying more attention to the day to day lives of people elsewhere in the world. Not just focus on big, and usually, bad events. I suspect Mid-twentieth Century America got a big boost from the convergent knowledge of many sorts of immigrants.
It's even more embarrassing to be a US citizen living outside the country and have newly intriduced friends remark on the malicious stupidity of white supremacists in America. I am supposed to account for their behavior, but I don't know how.
As a nine-year expat, I can tell you that most locals who are worth knowing are usually well aware of their native countries' own inglorious pasts, which generally include barbarity and stupidity. Having said that, I was in France last summer, introduced to a British woman, who expressed sympathy upon learning I was a Yank. It was the 4th of July, and I told her I was celebrating our exit from her stinking empire.
Who says you need to explain, justify or defend them? They're idiots like any other idiots. Who hasn't got a few of those around?
Whenever i'm in that position, i will simply agree with empathy if it's true. Why would i do anything else? No need to go on about it. We are not responsible for the behavior of others.
Maybe not so many idiots as fools and an idiot can be wiser than a fool. And who has never been fooled. But some fools refuse to learn, and some predators devise to keep them from doing so. Or to fool them even further. That's why good faith communication and a truly free press is so important, and truly free means free of domination by the few.
My daughter is married to a Canadian and lives in Canada. Canada has it's plutocratic problems too, and sabotaged itself for nine years under Harper. And Canada has it's share of dangerous delusional supremacists. That said, my experience is that overall the culture is noticeably more community-minded than here. My son-in-law sees American culture as more "punitive". If only Columbo was here to aid team Jack Smith, but hopefully the well experienced prosecutor is on the scent.
Somebody said it was better to light one candle than curse the darkness, though I think bearing vocal witness to pernicious lies is essential and sometimes heroic. But it's going to take a lot of candles to dispel the the shadow of the modern RNC. United we stand, divided we fall, and the power to divide is always a well practiced tool of tyrants. Solidarity is almost the opposite of conformity because very diverse, different people can agree on the bottom line that we all have human rights. Those that see none have fallen into sociopathy.
Certainly the system has not explored the continuing consequences. Yes, there is only so much children of a given age are prepared to understand, but we can prepare them better than we have.
Those in power, making those deliberate decisions to not educate the populace... like Sanctimonious... have an agenda. The rest of us need to understand the efforts and strategy so we can try to stop or at least maneuver around it effectively.
The treatment of Black people in America is sickening. The violence and dehumanization and removal of dignity is an awful history. Suppressing the teaching of these historical facts is collusion with this criminal and immoral behavior.
'Childbirth Is Deadlier for Black Families Even When They’re Rich, Study Says'
Today's Letter lucidly connects the time from President Abraham Lincoln's birth to the formation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
'They vowed “to promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law.” (Letter)
Our struggle as a people '...to advance the interest of colored citizens...' is still woefully unfinished. Here are excerpts from today's front page story in The New York Times.
'In the United States, the richest mothers and their newborns are the most likely to survive the year after childbirth — except when the family is Black, according to a groundbreaking new study of two million California births. The richest Black mothers and their babies are twice as likely to die as the richest white mothers and their babies.'
'Research has repeatedly shown that Black mothers and babies have the worst childbirth outcomes in the United States. But this study is novel because it’s the first of its size to show how the risks of childbirth vary by both race and parental income, and how Black families, regardless of their socioeconomic status, are disproportionately affected.'
“This is a landmark paper, and what it makes really stark is how we are leaving one group of people way behind,” said Atheendar Venkataramani, a University of Pennsylvania economist who studies racial health disparities and was not involved in the research.'
'This finding suggests that the American medical system has the ability to save many of the lives of babies with early health risks, but that those benefits can be out of reach for low-income families.
'The babies born to the richest Black women (the top tenth of earners) tended to have more risk factors, including being born premature or underweight, than those born to the richest white mothers — and more than those born to the poorest white mothers. It’s evidence that the harm to Black mothers and their babies, regardless of socioeconomic status, begins before childbirth.'
“As a Black infant, you’re starting off with worse health, even those born into these wealthy families,” said Sarah Miller, a health economist at the University of Michigan. She was an author of the study with Professor Rossin-Slater and Petra Persson of Stanford, Kate Kennedy-Moulton of Columbia, Laura Wherry of N.Y.U. and Gloria Aldana of the Census Bureau.'
'Black mothers and babies had worse outcomes than those who were Hispanic, Asian or white in all the health measures the researchers looked at: whether babies were born early or underweight; whether mothers had birth-related health problems like eclampsia or sepsis; and whether the babies and mothers died. There was not enough data to look at other populations, including Native Americans, but other research has shown that they face adverse outcomes nearing those of Black women and infants in childbirth.'
“It’s not race, it’s racism,” said Tiffany L. Green, an economist focused on public health and obstetrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The data are quite clear that this isn’t about biology. This is about the environments where we live, where we work, where we play, where we sleep.”
'There is clear evidence that Black patients experience racism in health care settings. In childbirth, mothers are treated differently and given different access to interventions. Black infants are more likely to survive if their doctors are Black. The experience of the tennis star Serena Williams — she had a pulmonary embolism after giving birth, yet said health care professionals did not address it at first — drew attention to how not even the most famous and wealthy Black women escape this pattern.' (NYTimes) Gifted link to the article below.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/12/upshot/child-maternal-mortality-rich-poor.html?unlocked_article_code=CIblF48D71oi2PS6gMA4oYv08fHmDJlWzKQrEY49rw8GvEFjUOrtn7i_O8KvwQ1hdu6UFDIPJPlarwmroNd1_ZZoEYGaBUP59iGNohmIZysYFxSFAdhbNhgtt5TTVms0UprTNSidmAlGKug02z56Wiwd_DITINKqsKi29oZrUdwJYKztPj6myj_E0vF4JkAYfS6Qm3jGXT5EN8FymQYgiQbGBQO_Pz-Uh1bAFANvN7QFX7PqpvPMUo9FafxyVwuK_4V_U3HFC_2r6OPpg-Gu5im5ZSJRzE-d4CpN0grgsZ--Lf6VQv35R778Kx86xxqIugBFb6hr6GpY8_PfttUVSywHo4Lwhv1h8Xf5HDbMMSCSlPl-H8uxNSqqag&smid=share-url
Thanks Fern, excellent post, as always. Pain management studies I have read indicate that those presenting in EDs who are least likely to have their pain addressed are older, black, and female. Racism leaves its mark on all who experience it. It settles into bodies, reducing health quality and life span.
I believe that. Not only is it racism it is sexism.
Dr. J. Marion Sims, "Father of American Gynecology" operated on enslaved Black women with no anesthesia. He believed Black people did not feel pain. IMO, I think he CHOSE to disregard that a Black woman might feel pain because such a thought would interfere with HE wanted to do--racism and misogyny at work. Those same attitudes are still present today.
See Michelle Browder’s sculpture of those women used by Sims as medical experiments in Montgomery, Alabama.
Why did I not know this??🤬🤬🤬
Not to take anything away from the plight and atrocities black women have suffered, but my mother, a German Holocaust survivor, had something similar with a dentist. She was in pain from an abscessed tooth. The Nazis would not let her go to her own dentist. They sent her to one of theirs, clear across Berlin, on a bus. The dentist did nor use Novocain. She was in agony for years. She slowly lost her teeth in America and ended up with dentures that never fit right. There was a board of doctors who concluded it was the trauma of having that tooth pulled and the events of what was happening to Jews, that her teeth and gums suffered.
I do not understand the hatred of man.
Check out Michelle Browder's site......the images she created speak louder than any words that could be written on the subject.
"It settles into bodies......."
Thank you, Fern. These disparities make me sick and very angry. Crying doesn’t help but protesting does. I will continue to do so until my last dying breath.
This article is another chilling read:
https://www.elle.com/life-love/a39586444/how-serena-williams-saved-her-own-life/
This story is amazing and chilling, simultaneously. .
Thank you, Ally for sharing Serena's story. She is a beautiful soul!
Thank you for that link--horrifying tale of ignoring a reasonable, informed request by the patient and, thank goodness, a happy ending.
Thank you, Ally... i'd heard or read versions of her story before. Nothing like this.
What a powerful story. Thank you so much for the link.
It all just makes me want to cry. And then it makes me want to push on, find ways to reach those who haven't so far been truly reached.
Fern, thank you for another excellent post. The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that there is a problem. Hopefully this won’t be the only study, but will lead to better childbirth and postpartum management so that black mothers have an equal chance.
Mary, the following from the article will indicate that while race, even among the richest Blacks people is significant, the mortality and health of mothers and babies of all Americans indicate weakness in our medical model, which effect everyone.
'Many parts of the United States have much higher maternal mortality than California, and fewer policies to support families. California was the first state to offer paid family leave. It has one of the most generous public insurance programs for pregnant women. The state has invested in specific programs aimed at reducing maternal deaths and racial disparities in childbirth.'
'Yet even in this best-case American scenario, mothers and babies fare worse compared with another rich country the researchers examined: Sweden. At every income level, Swedish women have healthier babies. This held true for the highest-income Swedish women and those from disadvantaged populations, including low-income and immigrant mothers.
In the United States, earning more regularly translates into superior access to the fastest, most expensive health care. But even with that advantage, the richest white Californians in this study still gave birth to less healthy babies than the richest Swedish women. Their newborns were more likely to be premature or underweight. The two groups had roughly equal maternal death rates.'
“That finding really does strongly suggest that it’s something about the care model,” said Dr. Neel Shah, chief medical officer of Maven Clinic for women’s and family health and a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School. “We have the technology, but the model of prenatal care in the United States hasn’t really gotten an update in the last century.”
'Sweden, like most European countries, has universal health insurance with low out-of-pocket costs for the patient. Midwives deliver most babies in Sweden and provide most of the prenatal care, which has been linked to lower C-section rates and lower rates of preterm births and low birth weights. It has long paid leaves and subsidized child care.'
'Like California, Sweden has also started targeted efforts to reduce maternal deaths. When officials there recognized that African immigrants giving birth were dying more frequently, they began piloting a “culture doula” program, with doulas who were immigrants themselves helping pregnant women navigate the country’s health system.'
'Local maternal health programs could begin to help reduce racial disparities in the United States, too, as could a more diverse medical workforce, research suggests. Nonprofits and universities have experimented with ways to address racism and poverty, with programs like cash transfers for low-income pregnant women and initiatives to improve the environments of Black communities.'
'By the time a woman is pregnant, Professor Miller said, “it’s almost too late.”
“Health is going to depend on exposures throughout her life, health care she’s received, environmental factors,” she said. “A lot goes on prior to the pregnancy that affects the health of the mother and baby.”
Fern, thank you for posting this study.
Another look at this is found in a different study that looked at birth outcome differences between foreign-born Black women and USA-born Black women. Those researchers concluded "The difference in risk of adverse birth outcomes between American-born and foreign-born Black women is not due to genetics. Rather, we believe that it can be explained by differences in exposure to racism across the lifespan."
See https://pretermbirthca.ucsf.edu/news/us-born-black-women-california-have-worse-birth-outcomes-black-immigrant-women
Karen, Thank you for your reply and article. There are important questions that could not be answered in the California study. From the article itself, and not the study (which probably provides a more detailed understanding in its conclusions) women's work, living quarters, healthcare models, doctors' origins, etc., are all factors in the health and mortality of mother and child of all stripes. In the article I referenced, women and infants in Sweden did better than than those in America.
Sweden has such a different approach to life and people and families.
I heard this on the television when I turned it on this morning. I was not surprised.
What pain do we endure as a nation, inflicted on every single person in our county, not only those who are abused, the price paid in strangled social joie de vivre,, in order to play the cruel games of delusional supremacy?
Bottom line: our history is sickening!
Many parts of it are sickening, yet millions of white men went to war to end slavery, and millions more (men and women) elected the presidents and legislators who passed civil rights laws at all levels and marched and fought to make those rights real. And don’t forget the “ ordinary” Americans who support equality every day, through voice, and votes and friendship.
Well said Jon. There is, on balance, much more good than bad; the good, however, is taken for granted and the bad sells.
Jon, while intellectually I know you're right, emotionally I feel it's not enough. As a child of Holocaust survivors, I know it's a lot, and critical, but not enough.
What will be enough? Not for me to say. I've personally experienced antisemitism, but walking anywhere, I can ignore that detail. A black person can't.
We'll be getting close when we all individually react to a person's character, accomplishments, and dreams more than we react to that person's color. We have come far as a nation, yes. But we have quite far yet to go as individuals. We're not close enough.
Evidence why the racists are trying to suppress the teaching of our sickening history.
no question
Our history of cruelty and conquest has been repeated for thousands of years on Earth. The cry of “American Exceptionalism” does not exempt us from it. Time and the efforts of like-minded groups inch the bend of the arc
Participation,, even more than collusion.
I like the words in your bio Kerry, that you are "informed by it", meaning History. I'm with you. To be a bunch of human beings swimming around in the pool with our fellow man along with all we have together in this world of today... and to behave in this manner, this childish manner. To refer to our behavior as "in-humane" would imply that we are grown-ups and understand the meaning of the word. Have some sangria for me my friend.
You are so right. We have a huge population of clueless adults with absolutely no conception of the actual history of this country. They spend their lives mesmerized by advertising and living in a fantasy world of “manifest destiny”, exceptionalism, and white Christian privilege. We’ve been glossing over the “all men are created equal” equivocation for centuries now. Barely a mention of the “treaties” with Native Americans that were spit on with impunity. The ends have justified all the means is what we really teach.
It's not all we teach, but (long ago) I was certainly fed a narrative of American exceptionalism in school. And so much of what I learned (until college) was so fragmented it was hard to appreciate its impact on today. Kids are expected to deal wisely with society's challenges and run a functional democracy once out of school, so I think we could be giving them a lot more tools and training to hit the ground running. And not hobbling, exploiting, and indenturing them with student debt.
Half of the Christian "Great Commandment" is "love they neighbor as thyself", but we commonly use the word "love" as an intensified form of the word "like" and also as intimate identification, and I think the two concepts, while both legitimate, become muddled.
I recall reading news about a man who dangled his (and her) infant outside an upper story window, threatening to kill the child because his partner was leaving him. That's extreme, but malignant or clueless narcissism too often gets conflated with "love". Compassionate love is awareness and concern for another creature's sentient experience. Immersive travel can do that, for those who are open to it. "Mindfulness" practices of various sorts can also facilitate compassion. And just observing, just listening. It occurs to me that being observant, let alone being compassionate, is allied but not the same as being clever. And we have so many ways, certainly including myself, of getting in our own way. Given human limitations, how much of are problems can be traced to what we cannot see, and how much is what we simply prefer not to see? The consequences are huge.
We could learn a thing or two from other nations, as well as see people as more than their customs, by paying more attention to the day to day lives of people elsewhere in the world. Not just focus on big, and usually, bad events. I suspect Mid-twentieth Century America got a big boost from the convergent knowledge of many sorts of immigrants.
It's even more embarrassing to be a US citizen living outside the country and have newly intriduced friends remark on the malicious stupidity of white supremacists in America. I am supposed to account for their behavior, but I don't know how.
As a nine-year expat, I can tell you that most locals who are worth knowing are usually well aware of their native countries' own inglorious pasts, which generally include barbarity and stupidity. Having said that, I was in France last summer, introduced to a British woman, who expressed sympathy upon learning I was a Yank. It was the 4th of July, and I told her I was celebrating our exit from her stinking empire.
All of the nations of which I have any familiarity have had serious problems bullying, certainly including our own. And not just in the distant past.
I am aware that the US has a widespread reputation in Europe for excess and lawlessness. Also elements of admiration. We have a problem with violence.
Who says you need to explain, justify or defend them? They're idiots like any other idiots. Who hasn't got a few of those around?
Whenever i'm in that position, i will simply agree with empathy if it's true. Why would i do anything else? No need to go on about it. We are not responsible for the behavior of others.
Maybe not so many idiots as fools and an idiot can be wiser than a fool. And who has never been fooled. But some fools refuse to learn, and some predators devise to keep them from doing so. Or to fool them even further. That's why good faith communication and a truly free press is so important, and truly free means free of domination by the few.
My daughter is married to a Canadian and lives in Canada. Canada has it's plutocratic problems too, and sabotaged itself for nine years under Harper. And Canada has it's share of dangerous delusional supremacists. That said, my experience is that overall the culture is noticeably more community-minded than here. My son-in-law sees American culture as more "punitive". If only Columbo was here to aid team Jack Smith, but hopefully the well experienced prosecutor is on the scent.
Somebody said it was better to light one candle than curse the darkness, though I think bearing vocal witness to pernicious lies is essential and sometimes heroic. But it's going to take a lot of candles to dispel the the shadow of the modern RNC. United we stand, divided we fall, and the power to divide is always a well practiced tool of tyrants. Solidarity is almost the opposite of conformity because very diverse, different people can agree on the bottom line that we all have human rights. Those that see none have fallen into sociopathy.
Thank you. I copied to my fb page using just your first name.
Certainly the system has not explored the continuing consequences. Yes, there is only so much children of a given age are prepared to understand, but we can prepare them better than we have.
Heather works hard to reveal it to all of us, in simple and straight forward terms.
Anyone who is an "other"! And this country should be ashamed - not only not educating but covering up information showing this.
Those in power, making those deliberate decisions to not educate the populace... like Sanctimonious... have an agenda. The rest of us need to understand the efforts and strategy so we can try to stop or at least maneuver around it effectively.