Social Justice

[cadfael]

Last night at my Toastmasters Club one of the speakers promised to give us seven numbers that we would be able to remember, not only until today, but for a lifetime.

The numbers were:

18,800
4
13
½
2
1.3 billion
1

Their explanation follows:

$18,800 is the poverty level. Anyone earning less that that in the United States, with a family of four is living in poverty, and each of the family members must survive on $13 per day.

One half of the world's population earns less than $2 per day. 1.3 billion people on this planet must survive on about $1 per day.

Where do we begin?

Comments

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Pick an area and start plugging away right now. Mine is health care, accessible healthcare for everyone, starting with the many, many families and individuals in the United States who cannot afford to get their most basic, preventative health care needs met and who therefore experience low quality of life, general misery and an early death. For those who are teachers: make sure your students know how bad it is, how very, very bad it is for the poor people who live in your town.

Today was the first day of my 'Social and Ecological Aspects of Health and Disease' class. Assignment #1: Skip the bus and instead, walk the strip of downtown area from Douglass campus to College Avenue Campus. That area is a very poor minority neighborhood. Look at the sidewalks, the buildings and the cars. Study the people that you see: how many young men in their 20s and 30s do you see using walkers and crutches? How many terribly, terribly thin people do you see? How many very young, Hispanic mothers with little children pushing carts with groceries? How healthy do the people look?

Read the signs on the windows of the one available pharmacy. What kinds of diseases do the people in that neighborhood have (diabetes, asthma and hypertension---all diseases that can be controlled with good quality care)? Stick your head in and observe its dusty windows and dirty floors. Then walk past it and enter the lone grocery store. Go to the produce section: what kinds of fresh produce are available for them to buy? Does it look fresh? Is there a wide variety? Do the same thing by the meat counter. Can you smell it? Does the meat look fresh?

Next, go into the FQHC Federally Qualified Health Center) across the street. Look at all the people waiting to see a doctor. They have either have no health insurance at all or they are on Medicaid. What does the facility look like? Who is sitting in the facility? How many people are there? You will see policemen in uniform there. Are there policemen in your doctor's office?

Continue walking along the street until you get downtown. What kinds of businesses do you see? What is available to the people of the neighborhood? look over the dollar stores, the liquor stores, and the tiny bodegas.

Don't judge yet---just look.

Next week, we will begin discussing what they saw, and connect it to racial disparities in health, and why it so hard for poor and minority individuals to stay healthy in the United States.