#african american healthcare

[imkrisyoung]

#eds zebra #ehlers danlos zebra #zebras of color #people of color #poc #poc health #ehlers danlos #ehlers danlos syndrome #black people #african diaspora #african american #african americans #african american healthcare #health #healthcare #black health #black healthcare

[africanamericanreports]

The Fight For Black Lives documentary, directed and produced by University of Chicago Professor Micere Keels, explores how racial stress and systemic racism in healthcare disadvantages the health of Black Americans, by focusing on disproportionate maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. It will screen during Black Maternal Health Week, on April 14th, at the Blue Whiskey International Film Festival, in Elk Grove Village, IL.

#The Fight For Black Lives #black maternal healthcare #black women #african american #film

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Della Raney

Della Raney was born in 1912 in Suffolk, Virginia. During World War II, Raney applied to the Army Nurse Corps, but was initially rejected due to her race. She persisted and, in 1941, became the first African-American nurse in the Army Nurse Corps. Raney was chief nurse at Tuskegee Army Air Field and later at Fort Huachuca. She retired in 1978, having attained the rank of major.

Della Raney died in 1987 at the age of 75.

Image: National Archives at College Park

#history #african-american #black history #african american history #women's history #nurses #healthcare #military

[chochote-sijali]

One of the things that hurts the most about being black in America is the fact that at the hands of doctors, black babies are more likely to die at childbirth.

Like, you look black babies in their big, infantile eyes and hear their screams and cries or they’re just lying still and quiet, and then you just choose not to save them or do the best you can to save them. You just let them die.

And that hurts, man

#black #black americans #african american #America #doctors #healthcare #healthcare in america #babies

[wildshapedruid]

thinking about the time I told a nurse practitioner I think I'm gluten intolerant because I feel fine when I don't eat it and I'm in hell when I do eat it and she gave me this lecture about self diagnosis and how a doctor didn't tell me that so I shouldn't claim it and like scoffed about it the whole time.

then I told my rheumatologist I think I'm gluten intolerant and she's like "very possible, u should tell your gastro"

then I told my gastro I think I'm gluten intolerant and he's like "ok. u should keep avoiding it then. here's a dietary guide"

#at this point i refuse to be seen by american doctors if i can help it #american doctors are like. youre lying . i will not investigate further. #but now that my entire healthcare team is either south asian or african my care has improved so much #theyre like okay lets investigate and see whats wrong then and if nothing turns up maybe its this thing we can try treating with that #like. what doctors are supposed to do..... #american healthcare so bad bro...

[makingcontact]

A History of Traditional Root Healing (ENCORE)

A History of Traditional Root Healing (ENCORE)

In some parts of the world, traditional herbal remedies are the norm.  When we  think of natural remedies we tend to think of older generations living in remote areas, in far away  countries,  with little access to modern healthcare.  We rarely think about the ancient medicinal plants that might exist in our very own cities. On today’s episode we look at plant and herb medicines through the lens…

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#African-american #healing #Healthcare #Herbalist #Holistic Health #medicine #Natural Remedies #Root Work

[africandescentday]

Guarantee equitable access to health for People of African descent.

Today, we celebrate the International Day for People of African Descent to recognize achievements and reflect on the need to combat racism and protect human rights, including the right to health. The Region of the Americas is home to approximately 210 million People of African Descent, or 20 per cent of the population. People of African Descent have made important contributions to health, and countries are increasingly marking history by putting more People of African Descent in elected office and leadership positions, and establishing ministries dedicated to cultural diversity. We celebrate these achievements. Nonetheless, they continue to experience racism and still have poorer health outcomes. A recent PAHO report shows that in 80 per cent of the countries analyzed, People of African descent experience increased poverty levels, limited access to health services, and higher rates infant mortality and maternal mortality. For instance, the maternal mortality gap is between 1.3 and 3 times higher in some countries. Also, they have limited access to adequate housing and basic sanitation—up to 2 and 5 times higher in some countries. To address these inequities, in 2017, PAHO Member States approved the first Policy on Ethnicity and Health and PAHO supported Afro-descendant youth to develop their health plan. Moreover, we are implementing actions towards the International Decade for People of African Descent and the Declaration on the Human Rights of People of African Descent. However, much more needs to be done. We cannot reach universal health unless our health systems respond to the needs of those systematically left behind. PAHO is committed to promote social participation, eliminate racism, and guarantee equitable access to health for People of African descent.

Statement by Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Director, message International Day for People of African Descent 2023.

#access to healthcare #31 august #international day for people of african descent #african descent #PAHO #Pan American Health Organization #Statements #Youtube

[cyarsk52-20]

On this day in 1972, Reporters exposed the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment — a secret study to examine the effects of untreated syphilis in Black men.

American medicine has been built upon the abuse of black people with no oversight.

#Black history #martin luther king jr #african american history #black community #civil rights #juneteenth #black history 365 #black history matters #black history is american history #black history facts #black history month #medicine #disease #health #hospital #doctors #healthcare

[quotesfrommyreading]

A 2012 government effort to reduce unnecessary antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes included an exemption for residents with schizophrenia. Since then, the diagnoses have grown by 70 percent. Experts say some facilities are using the schizophrenia loophole to continue sedating dementia patients instead of providing the more costly, staff-intensive care that regulators are trying to promote.

The impact of this has been more severe on Black residents, a new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society has found. Since the new rules went into place, Black Americans with dementia have been 1.7 times as likely as their white nursing home neighbors to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, said Shekinah A. Fashaw-Walters, a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota and the study’s lead author.

Black nursing home residents are already more likely to live in facilities that rank lower in numerous quality measures, she said, and now face higher health risks of being misdiagnosed as schizophrenic to justify antipsychotic prescriptions. For residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, antipsychotic drugs increase the risk of infections and falls, and double the risk of death, studies have shown.

“I wanted to look at that increase in schizophrenia by race to see if this policy had a differential effect,” she said.

The findings align with past research on schizophrenia diagnoses. Among all age groups, clinicians are already more likely to misdiagnose a patient as schizophrenic — and more likely to prescribe antipsychotics — if they are Black, said Stephen Strakowski, vice dean of research at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

“When clinicians talk to a Black or white patient who look otherwise similar symptom-wise, they overemphasize psychotic symptoms, delusions and hallucinations, relative to other symptoms in Black patients compared to how they do with white patients,” he said.

“So it wouldn’t be a terrible surprise that if you now incentivize the diagnosis, the difference will be magnified.”

  —  A Racial Disparity in Schizophrenia Diagnoses in Nursing Homes

#robert gebeloff #current events #caretaking #nursing #medicine #elder care #elder neglect #racism #healthcare #pharmacology #dementia #alzheimer's disease #usa #african americans

[giowalls]

#abortedbabyparts #abortion #minorities #genocide #murder #universityofpittsburgh #pittsburgh #targetingminorities

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Live Action (@liveactionorg)

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#40 days for life #african americans #against abortion #attacks on the family #babies #baby #blacks #Blood #brutality #children #choices #facts #familia #family #fetuses #hurting the nucleus #in the name of healthcare #infanticide #innocent being #innocent victims #kids #killing #life #live #living #love #murder #no choice #no to abortion #not medicine

[ammg-old2]

At age 45, the life expectancy of black men is more than three years less than that of non-Hispanic Caucasian men. According to a study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, part of the historical black-white mortality difference can be attributed to a 40-year experiment by the U.S. Public Health Service that shook African-Americans’ confidence in the nation’s health system.

From 1932 to 1972, the Public Health Service tracked about 600 hundred low-income African-American men in Tuskegee, Ala., about 400 of whom had syphilis. The stated purpose was to better understand the natural course of the disease. To do so, the men were lied to about the study and provided sham treatments. Many needlessly passed the disease on to family members, suffered and died.

As one scholar put it, the Tuskegee study “revealed more about the pathology of racism than it did about the pathology of syphilis.” In fact, the natural course of syphilis was already largely understood.

The study was publicized in 1972 and immediately halted. To this day, it is frequently cited as a driver of documented distrust in the health system by African-Americans. That distrust has helped compromise many public health efforts — including those to slow the spread of H.I.V., contain tuberculosis outbreaks and broaden provision of preventive care.

According to work by the economists Marcella Alsan and Marianne Wanamaker, black men are less likely than white men to seek health care and more likely to die at younger ages. Their analysis suggests that one-third of the black-white gap in male life expectancy in the immediate aftermath of the study could be attributed to the legacy of distrust connected to the Tuskegee study.

Their study relies on interpreting observational data, not a randomized trial, so there is room for skepticism about the specific findings and interpretation. Nevertheless, the findings are consistent with lots of other work that reveals African-Americans’ distrust of the health system, their receipt of less care, and their worse health outcomes.

The Tuskegee study is far from the only unjust treatment of nonwhite groups in health care. Thousands of nonwhite women have been sterilized without consent. For instance, between the 1930s and 1970s, one-third of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age were sterilized, many under coercion.

Likewise, in the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Native American women were sterilized without consent, and a California eugenics law forced or coerced thousands of sterilizations of women (and men) of Mexican descent in the 20th century. (Thirty-two other states have had such laws, which were applied disproportionately to people of color.)

For decades, sickle cell disease, which mostly affects African-Americans, received less attention than other diseases, raising questions about the role of race in how medical research priorities are established.

#history #medical history #racism #medicine #healthcare #feminism #misogyny #forced sterilization #tuskegee syphilis study #usa #african americans

[yourdailyqueer]

Jazell Barbie Royale

Gender: Transgender woman

Sexuality: N/A

DOB: 8 August 1987  

Ethnicity: African American

Occupation: Healthcare worker, model, entertainer

Note: Became the second American, and the first woman of African descent to win the Miss International Queen

#Jazell Barbie Royale #qpoc #lgbt poc #trans femme #lgbtq #transgender #trans woman #1987 #black #poc #african american #nurse #model #entertainer #first #beauty queen #popular #popular post

[africanamericanreports]

Democratic nominee for governor Stacey Abrams released a statement after news that Brian Kemp’s agenda might shut down Atlanta Medical Center.

#stacey abrams #atlanta #georgia #atlanta medical center #brian kemp #african american #healthcare

[soberscientistlife]

Mary Jeannette Wilson (2 January 1937 – 25 May 2020) was born in West Baltimore, Maryland. She had two siblings, one older and one younger. Her parents were Willie Wilson and Mary Henry. She graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.

Wilson began working at the then Baltimore Zoo in 1961. She was hired by Arthur R. Watson, who was head of the zoo from 1948 until 1980. From the beginning of her career she worked with mammals, specializing in gorillas, cats and elephants. She retired in 1999.

In July 2019 Wilson started to show signs of Alzheimer's disease. On April 1, 2020 she moved to Genesis Healthcare Patapsco Valley Center in Randallstown, Maryland. On May 4, 2020 she was diagnosed with COVID-19, and was admitted to Northwest Hospital on May 8. She died on May 25 after being unresponsive for 14 days. She was survived by her daughter, Sharron Wilson Jackson, who was the first African-American female senior zookeeper at the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, in Omaha, Nebraska, and by a grandson, Felipe Herrara.

SOURCE: African Archives

[variousqueerthings]

happy pride reccing some anti-assimilationist, anti-capitalist, and abolitionist books and texts

BOOKS

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? edited by Matilda Bernstein Sycamore (2012)

"Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into "straight-acting dudes hangin' out," what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?"

Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come by Leslie Feinberg (1992)

This pamphlet is an attempt to trace the historic rise of an oppression that, as yet, has no commonly agreed name. We are talking here about people who defy the ‘man’-made boundaries of gender.

Transgender Warriors: Making history from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinberg (1996)

[Leslie Feinberg's] book celebrated the resistance to transphobia and a vision of trans liberation articulated from the perspective of class struggle. It understood that no liberation from transphobia or any of the divisive and violent oppressions in class society is possible without the transformation of capitalism into socialism.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell (1977)

Stories told of these times make the faggots and their friends weep. The second revolutions made many of the people less poor and a small group of men without color very rich. With craftiness and wit the faggots and their friends are able to live in this time, some in comfort and some in defiance.

Also this interview

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein, and S. Bear Bergman (2010)

Today's transgenders and other sex/gender radicals are writing a drastically new world into being.

Made In India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National Projects by Suparna Bhaskaran (2004)

Made In India explores the making of "queer" and "heterosexual" consciousness and identities in light of economic privatization, global condom enterprises, sexuality-focused NGOs, the Bollywood-ization of beauty contests, and trans/national activism.

That's Revolting: Queer Strategies For Resisting Assimilation edited by Matilda Bernstein Sycamore (2008)

As the growing gay mainstream prioritises the attainment of straight privilege over all else, it drains queer identity of any meaning, relevance or cultural value.

How To Blow Up A Pipeline by Andreas Malm (2021)

Malm argues that sabotage is a logical form of climate activism, and criticizes both pacifism within the climate movement and "climate fatalism" outside it.

On Connection by Kae Tempest (2020)

On Connection is medicine for these wounded times.

Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Y. Davies (2003)

If you know anything about Angela Davis—anti-racist activist, Marxist-feminist scholar—you know that her answer to the question posed in the title is "Yes." This is a short primer on the prison abolition movement

Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell

This profound, urgent, beautiful, and necessary book is an invitation to imagine and organize for a less violent and more liberatory world.

Black Marxism by Cedric Johnson (1983)

Influenced by many African American and Black economists and radical thinkers of the 19th century, Robinson creates a historical-critical analysis of Marxism and the Eurocentric tradition from which it evolved. The book does not build from nor reiterate Marxist thought, but rather introduces racial analysis to the Marxist tradition.

The Transgender Issue: An Argument For Justice by Shon Faye (2021)

[Shon Faye] provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.

Burn The Binary: selected writings on the politics of being trans, genderqueer, and non-binary by Riki Wilchins (2017)

This single volume offers a selection of Riki’s most penetrating and insightful pieces, as well as the best of two decades of Riki’s online columns for The Advocate never before collected, from "Where Have All the Butches Gone," to "Attack of the 6-Foot Intersex People"

ARTICLES

Assuming The Perspective Of The Ancestor by Claire Schwartz (2022)

Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on building constructive, future-oriented politics, at scale.

The Gender Binary Is A Tool For White Supremacy by Kravitz Marshall (2020)

A brief history of gender expansiveness - and how colonialism slaughtered it

Meet Chris Smalls, the man who organized Amazon workers in New York By Anna Betts, Greg Jaffe, and Rachel Lerman (2022)

The fired worker and former rapper did what nobody else has done in the U.S.

The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake by David Brooks (2020)

The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together.

Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being by Donna Lu (2020)

Extinction Isn’t the Worst That Can Happen by Kai Heron (2021)

"This brings us to the third problem with eschatological framings of the climate crisis: they overlook the fact that for many, the end of the world has already happened. In October last year, Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani woman, mother and leader, wrote a desperate letter to the western world reminding us that for Indigenous peoples, “the fires are raging still”."

MISC

Manifesto: An Aromantic Manifesto by yingchen and yingtong

free to read

their tumblr (with further resources)

Essay: I Dream Of Canteens by Rebecca May Johnson (2019)

There is a space for everyone. A space, a glass of water, and a plug socket.* Chairs and tables and cleaned toilets. So many chairs so that no one is without one.

Acceptance Speech (video and text): The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters speech by Ursula Le Guin

Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.

And here's a video to cleanse the soul: bell hooks: Transgression

bell hooks & Gloria Steinem at Eugene Lang College

#happy pride #leslie feinberg #ursula le guin #bell hooks #kate bornstein #queer literature #trans literature #marxist literature #black literature #political lit #andreas malm #rebecca may johnson #kai heron #kae tempest #matilda bernstein sycamore #angela davies #shon faye #riki wilchins #larry mitchell #s bear bergman #Suparna Bhaskaran #derecka purnell #cedric johnson #Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò #chris smalls #yingchen #yingtong #if anyone has anything from outside america or the uk (there are a few but not a lot here) + more on disability activism + #more on intersex activism #i haven't read *fixing sex* yet so dunno if it fits this exact list

[kemetic-dreams]

Roots under Beale: The Significance of Beale Street to Memphis Hoodoo History

In the late 1800s, Robert Church, the first African-American millionaire in the South took great interest in Beale Street. After purchasing land on Beale, Church built Church Park and Auditorium exclusively for black Memphians. He also created a recreational center and an upscale hotel. Beale Street was very important to African American life in Memphis as Church wanted to create a safe haven for black Memphians where African American food, music and entertainment could be celebrated.

A community of healers, conjurers and rootworkers began to develop on Beale. Memphians knew that you could visit the right store or juke joint and find someone with the ‘gift’ to provide magical and spiritual help. Beale Street musicians like W.C. Handy began to speak of the hoodoo culture through the lyrics of their songs. Blues singer Lillie Mae Glover known as ‘Ma Rainey II’ became popular on Beale Street as not only a performer but also a conjurer. She would perform rituals and various spiritual workings for other performers on Beale, as well as random customers who knew to seek her out. One of her special abilities was the ability to make mojo hands for blues musicians. While many hands were traditionally made using roots, lodestone and a red flannel bag, Lillie Mae made hers using common ingredients like sugar, flour and a heap of coal.

It became evident that hoodoo was being practiced in downtown Memphis much to the dislike of the white community. Hoodoo and any African based religious practices were compared to savage paganism that threatened the wives and children of the white community of Memphis. Local police were put on alert regarding the threat of hoodoo and ‘voodooism’ as it was commonly referred to.

The Memphis Press-Scimitar reported:

‘The Voodoo business still thrives on Beale Street. Police, looking for a witch

doctor yesterday confiscated a half a sack full of “Stay Away Powder,”

“Easy Life Powder” and “Spanish Luck Drops” being sold to negroes at

25 cents a set. The “Stay Away” powder, supposed to jinx a love rival,

proved to be nothing stronger than flour. “Easy Life” powder appeared to

be a fine grade of ground clay. “Spanish Luck Drops” were more potent.

They were a cheap but stout perfume. All in all, police figured the 25-cent

collection cost the producers not more than a couple of cents.’

Raids on rootworkers and conjurers were quite common in the city. There is record of a number of arrests where hoodoo devotees were arrested and artifacts such as mojo bags and amulets were confiscated and in some cases destroyed in the presence of practitioners. Hoodoo was not only feared but represented empowerment for the black community, something that the times simply would not allow.

The development of a hoodoo community on Beale Street gained the notoriety of the title ‘The Black Magic District’ as many Memphians knew that one could obtain a cleansing, a black cat bone or guidance from the ancestors by visiting the right individual on Beale. In the 1940s gold miners would visit Beale Street looking for conjurers to help them spiritually locate treasure along the Mississippi River. The rising number of Memphians using Beale Street’s healers as a form of healthcare caused some Memphis physicians to become critical and voice offense against the community’s rootworkers. However as writer Keith Wailoo in has noted “Those who invoked spirits to relieve one’s rheumatism or to subdue one’s enemies would not be driven easily from the Bluff city.” Hoodoo was here to stay.

In 1876, Jewish immigrant Abraham Schwab opened one of Memphis’s most iconic businesses on Beale Street. A. Schwab began as a dry goods store offering everything from cloth overalls to blues records. Years later the store began to carry a number of hoodoo related curios. In fact at one point the store was literally bringing in shipments of over one hundred and twenty tons of hoodoo related candles. The hoodoo community in Memphis would purchase oils, candles, incense and roots from the oldest store on Beale. One of my earliest exposures to hoodoo curios came when as a child I was taken into Schwab by my parents. I remember the scent of incense and the colorful collection of candles and curios. It was a wonderland to the senses.

During the writing of A Secret History of Memphis Hoodoo: Rootworkers, Conjurers and Spirituals, I was given the opportunity to visit the store’s archives and see some of the remnants of hoodoo curios and artifacts. A number of old curios from Memphis based companies like ‘LaClyde Lucky Products’ and ‘Lucky Heart Cosmetics’ were preserved in pristine condition saved for their historical preservation. Boxes of dried rattlesnake root, John the Conqueror and assorted herbs could still be found. A member of the Schwab family shared stories of hoodoo practitioners throughout the years and the many testimonies and stories of customers from the conjure community.

These are but a few of the numerous stories about rootworkers and conjurers on Beale Street that were instrumental in the history of hoodoo in Memphis. The history of hoodoo in Memphis is a story of cultural survival that needs to be told.

#memphis #beale street #rootworker #african #kemetic dreams #africans #brownskin #afrakan #afrakans #brown skin #african culture #afrakan spirituality