Author: TheConversation

Slaves and a racist medical theory: Health disparities have existed since the nation’s beginning

Slaves and a racist medical theory: Health disparities have existed since the nation’s beginning

Posted by | Aug 14, 2020 |

By Eric Kyere, Assistant professor, social work, Indiana University Some critics of Black Lives Matter say the movement itself is racist. Their frequent counterargument: All lives matter. Lost in that view, however, is a historical perspective. Look back to the late 18th century, to the very beginnings of the U.S., and you will see Black lives in this country did not seem to matter at all. Foremost among the unrelenting cruelties heaped upon enslaved people was the lack of health care for them. Infants and children fared especially poorly. After childbirth, mothers were forced to return to the fields...

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Challenges to the 10th Amendment and the guarantee of a state’s sovereign right to police its citizens

Challenges to the 10th Amendment and the guarantee of a state’s sovereign right to police its citizens

Posted by | Aug 13, 2020 |

By Frank V. Zerunyan, Professor of the Practice of Governance, University of Southern California The vast majority of anti-racism protests over the past two months in Portland, Oregon have reportedly been peaceful, and any damage was due to a small minority of rioters who fought police and federal agents around federal property. I recently visited the city and saw the destruction around the federal courthouse – walls defaced with graffiti, fences vandalized, and the remains of garbage fires that had been set. President Donald Trump sent in federal agents, falsely claiming that Portland was no longer able to maintain...

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Welcome to 1932: A summer of social protests and divisive presidential politics

Welcome to 1932: A summer of social protests and divisive presidential politics

Posted by | Aug 13, 2020 |

By James N. Gregory, Professor of History, University of Washington An election looms. An unpopular president wrestles with historic unemployment rates. Demonstrations erupt in hundreds of locations. The president deploys Army units to suppress peaceful protests in the nation’s capital. And most of all he worries about an affable Democratic candidate who is running against him without saying much about a platform or plans. Welcome to 1932. I am a historian and director of the Mapping American Social Movements Project, which explores the history of social movements and their interaction with American electoral politics. The parallels between the summer...

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Stigmatizing Trauma: Black teens face mental health crisis and are less likely to get treatment

Stigmatizing Trauma: Black teens face mental health crisis and are less likely to get treatment

Posted by | Aug 11, 2020 |

By Rebecca Klisz-Hulbert, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University Black youth in the U.S. experience more illness, poverty, and discrimination than their white counterparts. These issues put them at higher risk for depression and other mental health problems. Yet Black youth are less likely to seek treatment. About 9% of them reported an episode of major depression in the past year, but less than half of those – about 40% – received treatment. By comparison, about 46% of white youth who reported an episode were treated for depressive symptoms. Instead, some turn to suicide,...

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COVID-19 Testing: What the disparity means between the true number of infected and confirmed cases

COVID-19 Testing: What the disparity means between the true number of infected and confirmed cases

Posted by | Aug 11, 2020 |

By Melissa Hawkins, Professor of Public Health, Director of Public Health Scholars Program, American University Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions recently published a study which estimated that the true number of people infected by COVID-19 could be six to 24 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. Melissa Hawkins, professor of public health at American University, explains what this large undercount means and why insufficient data is hampering the U.S.‘s ability to control the pandemic. What are some reasons for the large disparity between the true number of infected cases and...

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An Eviction Disaster: The coronavirus housing crisis is about to get worse as courts side with landlords

An Eviction Disaster: The coronavirus housing crisis is about to get worse as courts side with landlords

Posted by | Aug 8, 2020 |

By Katy Ramsey Mason, Assistant Professor of Law & Director, Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic, University of Memphis The United States is on the verge of a potentially devastating eviction crisis right in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Federal, state and local eviction moratoriums had put most of the pending cases on hold. But as the moratoriums expire and eviction hearings resume, millions of people are at risk of losing their homes. That is because the court process is heavily skewed towards the needs of landlords and offers few protections for tenants – a problem that has been going on...

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