#but the attitude is overwhelmingly as described in this article | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comrade-meow · 3 years

Link

‘Sex work’ advocates and the Nazi propaganda playbook

Last month Nordic Model Now! was asked to participate in a University of Exeter student debate on the proposition that “This house believes that sex work is real work.” As a group, we are ambivalent about taking part in such debates. On the one hand, they are seldom a conducive forum for understanding nuanced and complex issues – but on the other hand, if we don’t participate there is a risk that the audience won’t hear the feminist analysis of prostitution. No one else in the group was able to take part that night, so reluctantly I agreed.

From the comments on social media during the debate, it appears that most of the students were won over by the arguments of the two proponents of the proposition – even though it was clear to me that they both had powerful vested interests in a booming sex industry, that much of what they said was palpably false and much of their argument relied on ad hominem attacks on myself and the other speaker against the proposition.

I was awake much of that night wondering why the students at one of the top universities in the UK appeared to be so unable to see beyond the self-satisfied veneer of the two speakers for the proposition. By the morning I’d resolved to analyse the arguments for the proposition and place them in context, with the aim of providing some help to those coming to similar debates in the future. This article is the result.

The Nazi Manual of Propaganda

Yale professor and expert in the history of fascism, Timothy Snyder, talks of the 1924 Nazi manual of propaganda that advised finding simple slogans and repeating them over and over and framing opposition as disloyalty or worse. Many people, he says, have taken up these tactics in recent years, leading not only to an erosion of the understanding that politics should be about reasoned debate leading towards constructive and informed policy, but also to politics being viewed as a battleground between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’.

You would need to be blind to not recognise that these tactics have become increasingly common in the UK and US in recent years, and how they have been used to manipulate the public into support for policies that are not in their best interests and that might have catastrophic consequences. Depending on the arena, dissent is framed as hatred, ‘anti-science,’ or not ‘evidence-based,’ and this acts as a powerful silencing force that shuts down critical thinking and coerces acceptance of what is often little more than hot air.

These tactics obscure who are the real beneficiaries of the propaganda – usually people who gain power or who benefit in financial or other ways from whatever is being promoted. Bizarrely, we can observe these practices on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

These tactics were on display in the University of Exeter Debating Society debate. It was by no means the first or only such debate I have taken part in or observed, and nor was it the first time that I saw those promoting the idea that ‘sex work is real work’ consciously or unconsciously using tactics from the Nazi propaganda playbook.

You don’t have to take my word for it. You can read the transcript of the debate and I’ll illustrate my claims through an analysis of the key arguments used by the two speakers for the proposition.

Jerry Barnett

The first speaker for the proposition was Jerry Barnett, who’s the author of the book, Porn Panic. He regularly writes on sex and the ‘economics of sex,’ and runs a YouTube channel called ‘Sex and Censorship.’ In other words, the sex industry indirectly provides his daily bread and butter.

After introducing himself, he defined work as: “A voluntary exchange of time or labour for money or some other payment.” He didn’t mention that this definition deviates significantly from the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, which is based on mental or physical activity, and he didn’t explain how you can exchange time for money.

One of the key arguments against prostitution being considered normal work is that although it involves some mental and physical activity (pretending the punter’s a great guy, cleaning up afterwards, etc.) the core feature of prostitution is that he uses her body – he gropes and penetrates her. This is not about her being actively engaged in mental or physical activity but someone doing something to her.

What other work involves someone doing something to you while you lie back and endure it? The only thing that I can think of is participating in medical trials – but that’s not considered work – even though you might be paid for taking part.

So, he sneakily expanded the definition to make it easier to argue that a man penetrating your orifices is a normal form of work – although of course he didn’t mention penetration because, like most sex trade lobbyists, he buries such fundamental realities in euphemism and obfuscation.

Interestingly, he did admit that it is invariably men who are the customers (or punters as we call them) and nine or more times out of ten it is women who are being penetrated – or earning an income from ‘sex work’ as he euphemistically described it.

His arguments hinged around two key contentions: First, that ‘sex work’ is well-paid, enjoyable work that has short hours and is particularly suitable for anyone who needs flexibility. I will leave aside the questionable ethics of promoting such a skewed reality to an audience of impressionable young women and men.

Second, that opposition to ‘sex work’ is based on false statistics, the conflation of trafficking and consensual ‘sex work,’ and moralistic values from people who are anti-sex and who attack women’s rights, and refuse to “listen to sex workers who say it’s empowering.”

Most of the time, he expounded on one or other of these claims, all presented with utter conviction, while implicitly framing anyone who disagreed with him as the enemy – the enemy of women’s rights, of rational debate, of men, of more or less everything that he considers good in life.

He dismissed my arguments as “anecdotes” even though most of his were based on wishful thinking rather than hard evidence – while at the same time claiming they were “evidence-based.”

For example, I mentioned that the murder rate of women involved in prostitution is the highest of any group, including in the UK, and that where prostitution is legalised, the murder rate of women in prostitution usually remains high.

His immediate response?

“Anna is good with anecdotes but when she tries to use statistics, they don’t seem to add up at all. I think the last time I looked, the professions with the highest [murder rate] were police and fast-food delivery people who are overwhelmingly men. But yeah, the anecdotes stack up, the statistics don’t.”

I didn’t manage to respond to this until much later in the debate, when I quoted a senior police officer who, when giving evidence at a Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry in early 2016, said:

“We have had 153 murders of prostitutes since 1990, which is probably the highest group of murders in any one category, so that gives the police cause for concern.”

I didn’t have the stats for police murders at my fingertips but I looked them up later and found data that suggested there had been about 28 murders of police officers in the UK during the same period (1990-2015). So, there were more than five times as many murders of women involved in prostitution as police officers. I couldn’t find any data on fast food delivery drivers other than a few isolated press reports.

So much for his grasp on statistics. But the damage had been done.

Charlotte Rose, the other speaker for the proposition, compounded the damage by asserting more than once that there had been no murders recorded of women involved in prostitution in New Zealand, where the sex industry is fully decriminalised.

But again, this is untrue. The German women who run the Sex Industry Kills project have documented 10 murders of prostituted women in New Zealand since the sex trade was decriminalised in 2003 along with a number of attempted murders. That is a significant number given New Zealand’s small population (currently less than 5 million).

One of my key arguments was that the sex industry normalises and eroticises male dominance and one-sided sex, and feeds men’s entitlement and reduces their empathy – which are the very attitudes that underpin the current epidemic of rape, child sexual abuse, and other forms of male violence against women and children.

Jerry’s response? That there was not an epidemic of male violence against women. He based this assertion on another made-up definition centred on “a steep sustained increase” – unlike the Oxford Dictionary, which centres the definition merely on a disease being widespread.

He said that not only was there not an epidemic of male violence but that the prevalence of such violence has been on a steep decline for 50 years.

But this is not true. Research has shown that male violence against women has risen significantly in the UK since 2010 and that new forms of gender-based abuse are increasingly prevalent. Even the UN describes male violence against women as a pandemic – which is an epidemic that has spread to cover multiple countries.

I mentioned that the judge in a judicial review about Sheffield Council’s relicensing of Spearmint Rhino (a lap dancing club) had castigated the council for rejecting a large number of objections from women and community members who said that the club had made the streets less safe on the basis that these objections were nothing more than “moral values.” The judge was clear that the objections were not about morality but were issues of equality.

Jerry responded as follows:

“There was briefly the anecdote about Spearmint Rhino and that women didn’t feel safe in the area. The fact is I’ve been involved, I’ve got stripper friends who’ve been involved in these campaigns to keep the venues open and these claims are false. They come up over and over again – that the presence of a strip club in an area makes women less safe. This has been de-proved, debunked, using evidence over and over and over again. So, the idea that women don’t feel safe in the area is a different thing.

Unfortunately, if women don’t feel safe, that’s sad but then they should acquaint themselves with the facts that actually the presence of a strip club in an area does not lead to an increase in sexual violence. And yet these kinds of things are continuously claimed to make it look like this is a woman’s rights movement rather than a morality movement, which it is.”

As for his claim that the increased violence in the vicinity of lap dancing clubs and similar has been “debunked” many times, well I couldn’t find any clear evidence that supported that. Rather I found much to the contrary. The Women and Equalities Select Parliamentary Committee in its report on its inquiry into Sexual Harassment of Women and Girls in Public Places, accepted the considerable evidence that sexual entertainment venues, such as lap dancing clubs, “promote the idea that sexual objectification of women and sexual harassment commonly in those environments is lawful and acceptable.”

But that is not good enough for Jerry. He sticks to what he knows is effective, and repeats sound bites that are simply not true while dismissing solid evidence and presenting any opposition as irrational and the work of moralistic enemies.

As to a man telling women they are being irrational to fear male violence, what can I say? I am not sure anything I would like to say is publishable.

Charlotte Rose

The second speaker for the proposition was Charlotte Rose, who was wearing a t-shirt advertising Fan Baits, a new commercial sex industry advertising platform. She introduced herself as, “a former multi-award-winning escort, current radio presenter and advocate for decriminalisation of sex work.”

She went on to say:

“I just want to discuss something that may affect your moral judgement. How do you all feel when I mention people who work in abortion clinics, abattoirs, factory farmers, nuclear power station workers? To name just a few. For me I do not like it. But just because we do not like what these people do, it doesn’t give us the right to state that their work is not legitimate.”

Since when have people campaigned against factory farming or nuclear power because they didn’t approve of the people who work in those industries? Eccentrics aside, the arguments are always around the impact of those industries on the environment, human and animal health and welfare, and other wider issues – and any personal disapproval is reserved for those who, knowing the damage caused, profit from those industries.

The inclusion of abortion clinics in this list is a sneaky attempt to associate our opposition to the commercial sex industry with extreme anti-woman protestors against abortion. This is a classic example of suggesting guilt by association. For an audience of students whose average age is likely to coincide with the peak age for abortions, this is particularly reprehensible.

Charlotte then said that “until you’ve worked as a sex worker, you’ve got no right whatsoever to dictate anything against [sex work].” This is an argument that we hear repeated over and over in true propaganda playbook style, making people lose their critical faculties and the ability to say, hang on a minute, I’m entitled to have an opinion on factory farming and nuclear power and other industries that have a wide impact, why on earth can’t I have an opinion on the sex industry?

And the truth is, of course you can have such an opinion, and indeed as a concerned citizen, you should – but they don’t want you to. Because once you really look at the sex industry, it’s hard to ignore the rampant abuses and negative impacts on us all, particularly young people.

Like Jerry, Charlotte expounded on how “consensual sex work” has nothing to do with sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. But of course, it does. There is no separate market for trafficked women – they are on the same street corners and in the same brothels and so-called massage parlours as women who may have made some kind of choice to be there. From the outside you can’t tell what led a woman to that place – nor what is holding her there.

As we have written elsewhere, most pimping meets the international definition of human trafficking and most women involved in prostitution have one or more third party (i.e. pimp) feeding off their prostitution. And the evidence of the violence inherent in prostitution is overwhelming.

Charlotte may not be a male chauvinist pig as all the evidence suggests that Jerry is, but she was equally happy to misrepresent our arguments and frame us as hateful and dangerous. She claimed several times that we want to “delegitimise” her work. (What work? Didn’t she say she was a former sex worker?)

In an attempt to convince everyone that her work really is real work, she went into a long explanation of what it entails: dealing with emails (80 a day), text messages (120/day), phone calls (50), notifications, advertising, website SEO, updating her photos, social media and special offers, booking hotels, etc.

She then asked whether that sounded like work – which of course it does. But that was missing the whole point of the debate because she didn’t mention the core aspects of prostitution – sexual intimacy with a stranger who pays you to have his every whim and fetish met with a smile.

She claimed that “delegitimising sex work” damages her credibility and means men won’t see it as legitimate work and means she “can’t get a mortgage by writing down that I’m a sex worker.” But later when she was asked why she was against legalisation of the sex trade (she favours full decriminalisation), she said:

“Legalisation is what happens in Amsterdam, but women, or sex workers […] have to pay for a licence. So, first of all, they’ve got to give a large amount of money to be able to get a licence to give them the ability to work and be in a legitimate premise.

Number one, they cost a lot of money. Number two, their details are known so there’s no anonymity. If someone wants their business not to be known to the government, then unfortunately they won’t be able to work. So, these two massive factors are why we don’t want it to be legalised.”

But hang on a minute… Isn’t she arguing for ‘sex work’ to be considered ‘real work’?

And isn’t one of the things that distinguishes ‘real’ – or legitimate – work from scams, drug dealing and other illegal activity, that when you earn money from ‘real work,’ you fill out a tax return and inform the government about where your income comes from.

So actually it sounds like she doesn’t want it to be regular ‘real work’ after all.

She made other arguments that were equally dodgy. She claimed several times that by expressing our views, we are causing actual harm to sex workers:

“One of my morals is not to cause harm to other people. I would never use my morals to cause harm to anybody. Your moralistic view is causing harm to sex workers.”

She is talking about an industry in which women involved in it have an extremely high murder rate – almost invariably by male punters and pimps – and yet she suggests that the problem is naming and describing this reality.

I explained that our position is that nothing can make prostitution safe and so we need to reduce the amount that happens. Anything that normalizes it means it will increase – it will increase men’s demand for it and more women will be sucked in and be hurt. As her position is that prostitution should be legitimised and become a normal job, you could therefore argue that her position will cause harm – like she claims about us. However, we prefer to argue on the facts and actual evidence.

Conclusion

Judging by the comments on social media, the young audience were swept along by Charlotte’s glamorous and suave act – in the face of which our attempts to focus the debate on the depressing realities of prostitution appeared about as alluring as a school assembly address by Miss Trunchbull on a bad day.

But reality is what we must deal with. Basing public policy on wishful thinking and propaganda invented by those with powerful vested interests is a recipe for disaster. You only need to consider Brexit to understand that.

The Brexit debate was dominated by sound bites and hot air underwritten by hedge fundies and other capitalists salivating at the prospect of looser and weaker regulation of business and commerce. But large sections of the British population were swept along by the propaganda and were blind to the likely dangers. It is only now, four years later, as the actual reality of Brexit is becoming impossible to ignore that opinion polls are showing the majority turning against it and realising it is almost certainly a terrible mistake.

You can’t help wondering in this context why schools and universities are not educating students about the dangers of propaganda and how to recognise and resist it. All of us, but especially young people, need to understand how to identify vested interests, easy answers and soundbites that oversimplify complex subjects, attacks on opponents and unevidenced assertions that they are motivated by hate or worse, and to see these as red flags.

Much of life is complex and messy and inequality and abuse of power is rife. There are no easy answers. Real solutions require hard work and challenging powerful vested interests – not following them like sheep.

#Anglo.txt

10 notes · View notes

dgcatanisiri · 2 years

Text

I think the reason that I do hold so much salt over TLJ is not so much the movie itself - I’ve dealt with bad movies, bad Star Wars stories, all of that. I mean, I’ve read pretty much the whole of the Legends line, and there were a few clunkers in there.

The problem, though, is all the people who react to it a) as if it’s the second coming, the UNQUESTIONABLY best movie in the franchise, and b) reduce any comment saying that it’s not as coming from ONLY a place of being the whiny racist sexist asshats who can’t stand to see Star Wars expand. And these are things that do tie themselves together - say you don’t like TLJ around any of these people, and that’s their default assumption about you.

But... I’ve been well over my issues with TLJ, all through my ‘the last jedi critical’ tag, and I’m not going to rehash them. I frankly shouldn’t have to DEFEND not liking this movie. It’s my opinion, and I honestly have better things to do than spend my time obsessing about something I don’t like.

AND. YET.

This movie seems to be at the core of ANY conversation with regards to the franchise at this point. How you respond to it makes a difference in how people treat you - and if you say that you don’t like it, people assume you’re part of the worst possible types and tune out your opinion.

And, I get it. That was the vocal minority, the people who ran Kelly Marie Tran off social media for DARING to exist as an Asian woman in a Star Wars movie. But even the TV Tropes YMMV page includes links to multiple articles that call out the issues of the movie that effectively describe it as being a tribute to WHITE feminism while putting down its characters of color (and we have John Boyega outright acknowledging this). So like... There’s REASON to dislike this movie that aren’t centered around “no women and no non-whites should be main characters!” It’s not like I’m saying things that don’t exist elsewhere on the wide web of the internet.

But still, the attitude is overwhelmingly defaulting to “if you dislike it, you’re clearly part of that worst crowd and not worth listening to.” No one is LISTENING. No one is being allowed to be heard.

And THAT bothers me. That’s why I keep coming up with these ranting posts about what I find wrong with the movie. Because I keep coming back to the fact that, if I want to feel like people are going to even offer me the courtesy of NOT assuming I’m a member of the worst elements of the fandom, I HAVE to explain myself in deep detail. And... that’s wrong.

#dg rants

2 notes · View notes

didanawisgi · 3 years

Link

In wake of George Floyd’s killing and the protests that followed, many colleges and universities have been rolling out new training requirements – often oriented towards reducing biases and encouraging people from high-status groups to ‘check their privilege.’ The explicit goal of these training programs is generally to help create a more positive and welcoming institutional environment for people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.

As I have explained elsewhere, there is a long literature on the benefits of diversity on knowledge production. However, many of the approaches to training people how to navigate and utilize diversity were implemented by corporations, non-profits and universities before their effectiveness had been tested rigorously (if at all).

Although the precursor to contemporary diversity training, sensitivity training, actually dates back to the mid 1940s, diversity training became especially important beginning in the mid-80s to early-90s. Why? Starting in the late 70s through early 80s, universities began enrolling significantly higher numbers of women, minorities, and people from middle-class and lower-income backgrounds. Soon thereafter, employers found themselves with a much more heterogenous labor pool. They had to face, often for the first time, some of the challenges that come along with the benefits of diversity — as people with increasingly divergent backgrounds and perspectives were put side by side and tasked with common goals.

Beginning in the mid-90s, however, it became increasingly clear that, due to their lack of validation, many widely-used interventions could be ineffective or harmful. An empirical literature was built up measuring the effectiveness of diversity-related training programs. The picture that has emerged is not very flattering.

The limited research suggesting diversity-related training programs as efficacious was based on things like surveys before and after the training, or testing knowledge or attitudes about various groups or policies. And to be clear, the training does help people answer survey questions in the way the training said they ‘should.’ And many people who undergo the training say they enjoyed it or found it helpful in post-training questionnaires.

However, when scientists set about to investigate whether the programs actually changed behaviors, i.e. do they reduce expressions of bias, do they reduce discrimination, do they foster greater collaboration across groups, do they help with retaining employees from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups, do they increase productivity or reduce conflicts in the workplace — for all of these behavioral metrics, the metrics that actually matter, not only is the training ineffective, it is often counterproductive.

Kalev, Alexandra w/ Frank Dobbin & Erin Kelly (2006). “Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies.” American Sociological Review 71(4): 589-617.

Naff, Katherine & J. Edward Kellough (2007). “Ensuring Employment Equity: Are Federal Diversity Programs Making a Difference?” International Journal of Public Administration 26(12): 1307-36.

Paluck, Elizabeth & Donald Green (2009). “Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice.” Annual Review of Psychology 60: 339-67.

Training is Generally Ineffective at Its Stated Goals

The stated goals of these training programs vary, from helping to increase hiring and retention of people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups, to eliminating prejudicial attitudes or behaviors to members of said groups, to reducing conflict and enhancing cooperation and belonging among all employees. Irrespective of the stated goals of the programs, they are overwhelmingly ineffective with respect to those goals. Generally speaking, they do not increase diversity in the workplace, they do not reduce harassment or discrimination, they do not lead to greater intergroup cooperation and cohesion – consequently, they do not increase productivity. More striking: many of those tasked with ensuring compliance with these training programs recognize them as ineffective (see Rynes & Rosen 1995, p. 258).

Chang, Edward et al. (2019). “The Mixed Effects of Online Diversity Training.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(16): 7778-7783.

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2016). “Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia.” Anthropology Now 10(2): 48-55.

Dobbin, Frank w/ Daniel Schrage & Alexandra Kalev (2015). “Rage against the Iron Cage: The Varied Effects of Bureaucratic Personnel Reforms on Diversity.” American Sociological Review 80(5): 1014–44.

Dobbin, Frank w/ Alexandra Kalev & Erin Kelly (2007). “Diversity Management in Corporate America.” Contexts 6(4): 21-7.

Folz, Christina (2016). “No Evidence That Training Prevents Harassment, Finds EEOC Task Force.” Society for Human Resource Management, 19 June.

Frisby, Craig & William O’Donohue (2018). Cultural Competence in Applied Psychology: An Evaluation of Current Status and Future Directions. Cham, CH: Springer.

Magley, Vicki et al. (2016). “Changing Sexual Harassment within Organizations via Training Interventions: Suggestions and Empirical Data.” The Fulfilling Workplace: The Organization’s Role in Achieving Individual and Organizational Health. New York, NY: Routledge.

Newkirk, Pamela (2019). Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business. New York, NY: Bold Type Books.

Training Often Reinforces Biases

Often, when people attempt to do fact-checks, they begin by underscoring the falsehood, and then proceed to try to debunk that falsehood. This can create what psychologists call an ‘illusory truth effect,’ where people end up remembering the falsehood, forgetting the correction – and then attributing their misinformation to the very source that had tried to correct it! A similar effect seems to hold with antibias training. By articulating various stereotypes associated with particular groups, emphasizing the salience of those stereotypes, and then calling for their suppression, they often end up reinforcing them in participants’ minds. Sometimes they even implant new stereotypes (for instance, if participants didn’t previously have particular stereotypes for Vietnamese people, or much knowledge about them overall, but were introduced to common stereotypes about this group through training intended to dispel said stereotypes).

Other times, they can fail to improve negative perceptions about the target group, yet increase negative views about others. For instance, an empirical investigation of ‘white privilege’ training found that it did nothing to make participants more sympathetic to minorities – it just increased resentment towards lower-income whites.

Encouraging people to ignore racial and cultural differences often results in diminished cooperation across racial lines. Meanwhile, multicultural training — emphasizing those differences — often ends up reinforcing race essentialism among participants. It is not clear what the best position between these poles is (such that these negative side effects can be avoided), let alone how to consistently strike that balance in training.

Cooley, Erin et al. (2019). “Complex intersections of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148(12), 2218–28.

Heilman, Madeline & Brian Welle (2006). “Disadvantaged by Diversity? The Effects of Diversity Goals on Competence Perceptions.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36(5): 1291-1319.

Kulick, Carol w/ Elissa Perry & Anne Bourhis (2000). “Ironic evaluation processes: effects of thought suppression on evaluations of older job applicants.” Journal of Organizational Behaviour 21(6): 689–711.

Macrae, Neil et al. (1994). “Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(5): 808-17.

Plaut, Victoria w/ Kecia M. Thomas and Matt J. Goren (2009). “Is Multiculturalism or Color Blindness Better for Minorities?” Psychological Science 20(4): 444-6.

Wilton, Leigh w/ Evan Apfelbaum & Jessica Good (2019). “Valuing Differences and Reinforcing Them: Multiculturalism Increases Race Essentialism.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 10(5): 681-9

Training Can Increase Biased Behavior, Minority Turnover

Many diversity-related training programs describe bias and discrimination as rampant. One unfortunate consequence of depicting these attitudes and behaviors as common is that it makes many feel more comfortable expressing biased attitudes or behaving in discriminatory ways. Insofar as it is depicted as ubiquitous, diversity-related training can actually normalize bias.

For others, the very fact that the company has diversity-related training is proof that it is a non-biased institution. This perception often reduces concerns about bias and discrimination – by oneself or others. As a consequence, people not only become more likely to act in more biased ways, but they also react with increased skepticism and hostility when colleagues claim to have been discriminated against.

Meanwhile, those who are discriminated against become more likely to rationalize mistreatment by others in the institution after undergoing diversity-related training (for the same reason, because they believe the institution must be fair in virtue of its commitment to diversity-related training; indeed, minority employees are often called upon to lead diversity reviews themselves). Consequently, they become less likely to actually report or address wrongdoing. As a result, problems persist unabated — often leading to higher turnover among the very groups the programs were ostensibly designed to render more comfortable.

Brady, Laura et al. (2015). “It’s Fair for Us: Diversity Structures Cause Women to Legitimize Discrimination.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 57: 100-10

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2019). “The Promise and Peril of Sexual Harassment Programs.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(25): 12255-12260.

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2016). “Why Diversity Programs Fail.” Harvard Business Review 94(7): 52-60.

Dover, Tessa w/ Brenda Major & Cheryl Kaiser (2014). “Diversity initiatives, status, and system-justifying beliefs: When and how diversity efforts de-legitimize discrimination claims.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 17(4): 485-93.

Duguid, Michelle & Melissa Thomas-Hunt (2015). “Condoning Stereotyping? How Awareness of Stereotyping Prevalence Impacts Expression of Stereotypes.” Journal of Applied Psychology 100(2): 343-59.

Kaiser, Cheryl et al. (2013). “Presumed Fair: Ironic Effects of Organizational Diversity Structures.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 104(3): 504-19.

Kirby, Teri w/ Cheryl Kaiser & Brenda Major (2015). “Insidious Procedures: Diversity Awards Legitimize Unfair Organizational Practices.” Social Justice Research 28: 169-186.

Leslie, Lisa (2019). “Diversity Initiative Effectiveness: A Typological Theory of Unintended Consequences.” Academy of Management Review 44(3). DOI: 10.5465/amr.2017.0087

Training Often Alienates People from High-Status Groups, Reduces Morale

Diversity-related training programs often depict people from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups as important and worthwhile, celebrating their heritage and culture, while criticizing the dominant culture as fundamentally depraved (racist, sexist, sadistic, etc.). People from minority groups are discussed in overwhelmingly positive terms, while people from majority groups are characterized as typically (and uniquely) ignorant, insensitive or outright malicious with respect to those who are different than them. Members of the majority group are told to listen to, and validate, the perspectives of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups — even as they are instructed to submit their own feelings and perspectives to intense scrutiny.

In short, there is a clear double-standard in many of these programs with respect to how members of dominant groups (typically men, whites and/or heterosexuals) are described as compared to members of minority groups (i.e. women, ethnic/ racial minorities, LGBTQ employees). The result is that many members from the dominant group walk away from the training believing that themselves, their culture, their perspectives and interests are not valued at the institution – certainly not as much as those of minority team members — reducing their morale and productivity.

The training also leads many to believe that they have to ‘walk on eggshells’ when engaging with members of minority populations. By calling attention, not just too clear examples of harm and prejudice, but just as much (or more) to things like implicit attitudes and microaggressions, participants come to view colleagues from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups as fragile and easily offended. As a result, members of the dominant group become less likely to try to build relationships or collaborate with people from minority populations.

Anand, Rohini & Mary-Frances Winters (2008). “A Retrospective View of Corporate Diversity Training from 1964 to the Present.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 7(3): 356-72.

Dover, Tessa w/ Brenda Major & Cheryl Kaiser (2016). “Members of High-Status Groups Are Threatened by Pro-Diversity Organizational Messages.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 62: 58-67.

Plaut, Victoria et al. (2011). “’What About Me?’ Perceptions of Exclusion and Whites’ Reactions to Multiculturalism.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101(2): 337-53.

Rios-Morrison, Kimberly w/ Victoria Plaut & Oscar Ybarra (2010). “Predicting Whether Multiculturalism Positively or Negatively Influences White Americans’ Intergroup Attitudes: The Role of Ethnic Identification.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36(12): 1648-61.

Sanchez, Juan & Nohora Medkik (2005). “The Effects of Diversity Awareness Training on Differential Treatment.” Group & Organization Management 29(4): 517-36.

Focus On: Implicit Attitudes

Implicit attitudes are one of the most commonly relied-upon constructs in contemporary diversity-related training. However, there are severe problems with these constructs – as hammered home by meta-analysis after meta-analysis: it is not clear precisely what isbeing measured on implicit attitude tests; implicit attitudes do not effectively predict actual discriminatory behavior; most interventions to attempts to change implicit attitudes are ineffective (effects, when present, tend to be small and fleeting). Moreover, there is no evidence that changing implicit attitudes has any significant, let alone durable, impact on reducing biased or discriminatory behaviors. In short, the construct itself has numerous validity issues, and the training has no demonstrable benefit.

Blanton, Hart et al. (2009). “Strong claims and weak evidence: Reassessing the predictive validity of the IAT.” Journal of Applied Psychology 94(3): 567–582.

Carlsson, Richard & Jens Agerstrom (2016). “A Closer Look at Discrimination Outcomes in the IAT Literature.” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 57(4): 278-87.

Forscher, Patrick et al. (2019). “A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 117(3): 522–559.

Lai, Calvin et al. (2016). “Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145(8): 1001-1016.

Oswald, Frederick et al. (2013). “Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: A meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 105(2): 171–192

Focus On: Microaggressions

Contemporary diversity-related training often draws significant attention to microaggressions – small, typically inadvertent, faux pas involving people from historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups. The cumulative effects of microaggressions are held to have significant and adverse impacts on the well-being of people from low-status groups. However, although the microaggressions framework goes back to 1974, there is virtually no systematic research detailing if and how microaggressions are harmful, for whom, and under what circumstances (indeed, there is not even robust conceptual clarity in the literature as to what constitutes a microaggression). There is no systematic empirical evidence that training on microaggressions has any significant or long-term effects on behavior, nor that it correlates with any other positive institutional outcomes.

In fact, when presented with canonical microaggressions, black and Hispanic respondents overwhelmingly find them to be inoffensive – and we have ample reason to believe that sensitizing people to perceive and take greater offense at these slights actually would cause harm: the evidence is clear and abundant that increased perceptions of racism have adverse mental and physical consequences for minorities. In short, not only is there no evidence that training on microaggressions is valuable for improving the well-being of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups, there is reason to believe it could actually be counter-productive to that end.

al-Gharbi, Musa (2020). “Who Gets To Define What’s ‘Racist’?” Contexts, 15 May.

Lillienfeld, Scott (2017). “Microaggressions: Strong Claims, Inadequate Evidence.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12(1): 138-69.

Mandatory Training Causes Additional Blowback

Although diversity-related training programs are generally ineffective, and often bring negative side-effects, they tend to work better (or at least, be less harmful) when they are opt-in. Mandatory training causes people to engage with the materials and exercises in the wrong frame of mind: adversarial and resentful. Consequently, mandatory training often leads to more negative feelings and behaviors, both towards the company and minority co-workers. This effect is especially pronounced among the people who need the training most. Yet roughly 80% of diversity-related training programs in the U.S. seem to be mandatory.

If an institution is going to include diversity-related training, it should offer it as a resource for those who want to learn more. To encourage more people to volunteer for the training, its value and purpose should be linked to specific organizational and development goals. Small incentives could be offered for those who take part, rather than the current norm of sanctioning those who do not.

Bingham, Shereen & Lisa Schrer (2001). “The Unexpected Effects of a Sexual Harassment Educational Program.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 37(2): 125-53.

Devine, Patricia et al. (2002). “The Regulation of Explicit and Implicit Race Bias: The Role of Motivations to Respond without Prejudice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82(5): 835-48.

Kidder, Deborah et al. (2004). “Backlash toward Diversity Initiatives: Examining the Impact of Diversity Program Justification, Personal and Group Outcomes.” International Journal of Conflict Management 15(1): 77-102.

Kulick, Carol et al. (2007). “The Rich Get Richer: Predicting Participation in Voluntary Diversity Training.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 28(6): 753-69.

Legault, Lisa w/ Jennifer Gutsell & Michael Inzlicht (2011). “Ironic Effects of Antiprejudice Messages: How Motivational Interventions Can Reduce (but Also Increase) Prejudice.” Psychological Science 22(12): 1472-7.

Plant, Elizabeth & Patricia Devine (2001). “Responses to Other-Imposed Pro-Black Pressure: Acceptance or Backlash?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37(6): 486-501.

Robb, Lori & Dennis Doverspike (2001). “Self-Reported Proclivity to Harass as a Moderator of the Effectiveness of Sexual Harassment-Prevention Training.” Psychological Reports 88(1): 85-8.

Training Comes at the Expense of Other Priorities

We are in a period of educational austerity. Creating, implementing and ensuring compliance with diversity-related training programs is expensive. In a world where these training programs consistently advanced diversity and inclusion goals within an organization, or enhanced intergroup cooperation and overall productivity, then these costs could be justified – even during a time of belt-tightening. However, it’s a different dynamic when the training is typically ineffective or even counterproductive. Worse, it often crowds out much more substantial efforts that could be undertaken to actually enhance diversity and inclusion within institutions.

Why do many rely on diversity training despite its demonstrated ineffectiveness? The short answer is that, even if training is expensive and doesn’t work, it is relatively easy to implement – and it allows institutions to show (including, often, in court) that they are doing something to address prejudice, discrimination and inequalities… even if what they’re doing is, in fact, pointless.

This is sort of empty signaling is bad across the board. However, it is particularly egregious for universities – institutions that regularly claim to embody and inculcate such values as evidence-based reasoning, respect for facts, commitment to truth, etc. Schools are doing a bad job at modeling those values for students insofar as they force upon them (and upon the faculty who are supposed to be instructing them!) pedagogical materials that are demonstrably ineffective or even counterproductive.

Indeed, it seems antithetical to their pedagogical purpose to dump increasing sums of money into these programs, even as many departments are seeing hiring freezes or budget cuts, and contingent faculty are being laid off en masse (disproportionately people from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups).

It insults, rather than honors, the memory of George Floyd to offer empty gestures like these in his name. As Cyrus Mehri aptly put it, “When you keep choosing the options on the menu that don’t create change, you’re purposely not creating change. It’s part of the intentional discrimination.”

Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University. A version of this article was originally published by Heterodox Academy.

18 notes · View notes

gothhabiba · 4 years

Text

For decades, ‘Afro-pessimism’ had referred to the unrelentingly negative coverage of Africa in Western news media, especially in terms of its tendency toward arrested development. This discourse, loosely united by an emphasis on the hopelessness of the African continent – and exemplified by the scandalous 2000 Economist headline describing Africa as ‘The Hopeless Continent’ – provided the rationale for the imperialist economic policies of the 1970s’ and 80s’ structural adjustment programmes. Today, it bolsters neo-colonial relations between the Global North and Africa, and is often conjured up as the go-to argument to justify the entirely unnecessary and counterproductive presence of the development industry and its practitioners on the continent.

If we wish to examine a given news headline or academic article for traces of Afro-pessimism, there is a pretty clear set of criteria that can be applied. Afro-pessimist discourses impose a Eurocentric developmental model on the continent, and assess its progress in relation to a set of arbitrary criteria – i.e. Western liberal democracies as the final stage in the progress of world history, epitomised in the ideas of ‘pop-Hegelians’ Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama. Within the discourse there is a tendency to view Africa as one big, tragic mess: corruption, cronyism and ethnic conflict are thought to provide the governing logics of politics and other daily experiences. Afro-pessimist representations never actually refer to the continent as a geographical territory; when the term ‘African’ is used, it denotes only those who are (visibly) Black and live in Africa. Unsurprisingly, all non-Black inhabitants of the continent are intuitively treated as non-African.

A recent report on ‘Africa in the Media’ shows just how tenacious the logic of Afro-pessimism really is. Compiled by The Africa Narrative – a research project working out of the University of Southern California – the report suggests that representations of Africa and Africans in US media and entertainment are still ‘overwhelmingly focused on negative stories such as Boko Haram, corruption, poverty, electoral crises, migrants and terrorism’. Of course, little attention is paid to the complex histories and experiences of actual African subjects. In scripted US television, for instance, five countries – Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, the Seychelles and Congo (without reference to which Congo) – accounted for almost half of all mentions of African countries. Six out of ten references to Africa in TV dramas were about crime, terrorism and corruption, while the unspecified use of ‘Africa’ as a country received 27 per cent of all mentions. Clearly, little progress has been made in our collective understanding of Africa. Especially in the US media and entertainment industries, attitudes towards the continent continue to show a lack of engagement or interest, and a predilection for sensationalism and simplistic narratives.

Kevin Ochieng Okoth, “The Flatness of Blackness: Afro-Pessimism and the Erasure of Anti-Colonial Thought”

#Kevin Ochieng Okoth #quote #readings

54 notes · View notes

route22ny · 4 years

Photo

I grew up in the Bay Area at the height of AIDS panic, and all of that era’s sex paranoia remains burned into my brain, repurposed for Covid-19 and the act of commingling wet breath. A few weeks into this crisis, I found myself having a ten-foot-distant conversation with my neighbor Patty, both of us incredulous at people who still tried to talk to us in-tight face-to-face, like we weren't all suddenly barebacking reality with everyone they'd chit-chatted with that day and everyone in their lives, etc. Patty allowed that she should be able to strike people she considered a threat. I mentioned Florida's attitude toward this legal principle and firearms. I suggested she become militant. I tell that to a lot of people, but I attenuate the humor of it for the audience. I tell every teacher I know to strike.

There are more sirens now. It's hard to tell, because unlike New York, everything isn't quiet. Cars are out on the road—fewer, but enough that hearing a siren can still be vehicular idiocy and not a more sinister house call. But I still hear more of them.

I don’t know why Luke asked me to write about Coronavirus in Florida. I mostly stopped writing last year when a good friend dropped dead in front of his family. (Subscribe to my Substack—we don't update regularly!) Before that, I felt increasingly overborne by events. Things ground to a halt in 2019, but the machine began to break down long before. I ended the 2016 campaign periodically sitting under my desk, high, feeling secure because I wasn't writing anything stupid and feeling good because I was appropriately afraid of everything, but people thought I was exaggerating when I mentioned it.

I wish I could say my seriousness about the novel coronavirus stems solely from believing in science and peer review and that I would take it seriously regardless, but my spouse is immunocompromised, and my father, who lives out in the Bay Area, had Covid-19, back in March or early April. He didn't tell us kids until he was out of the woods, but for days he had fevers over 103º. My stepmom, a former emergency room nurse, couldn't get him admitted anywhere, because he wasn't having respiratory problems. He woke up the same every day: It felt like someone had parked a Volkswagen on him.

We're supposed to say he's out of the woods. I'll believe that when he dies of old age, or something more reasonable that kills men in my family, like colon cancer or car accidents. Sometimes I think about him dropping dead like my friend, only from whatever post-Covid-19 effect triggers the brain’s forgetting to tell the lungs to breathe—or from the one that leads to storms of strokes, like a brain's blood vessels recreating the burning energies depicted on a CRISS ANGEL MINDFREAK poster. Then I wonder how I would die, or my wife, or my friend in Atlanta, or my brother. I think about drowning in open air, alone in a hissing world, and being incapable of saying the overdue apologies I ran out of time for.

After a while I realized that basically all Luke wanted was to hear from a coward living in the mismanaged kleptocracy of Florida, and the thing is, I can do that! I’m frightened right now!

I considered opening with, Every day I wake up frightened, to throw a fucking jolt into a piece about facing down a pandemic in a place where they have a paradise just for the cheeseburgers. But the joke is, I'm not wastin' away here in Coronaville. Sometimes I wake up and just have to pee, on the rare days when I don't wake up from the sensation of my son elbow-dropping my head because—how rude of me—it's 6:45 already.

In this respect, I am serene: My son and I exercise outside to burn off his energy, so I'm out in the sun for hours a day. I'm tanner, I've lost weight, and my phlegm feels looser. I grew a lushly indifferent goatee. My haircut looks like something that belongs on the gatefold cover of a concept album about a form of locomotion by a band named after geography. While the term "Lebowski Phase" has been applied to my appearance and to the fact that my leg injury and medical-marijuana prescription have collided with the reality of never having to drive anywhere again, I must insist that in many respects I have come to look like Jesus Christ. I am pro life and take no pleasure in reporting this.

As I have said, I am frequently awakened by my son, whose full name is My Beautiful Five-Year-Old Son Maitland. He is a treasure who spends quarantine within earshot of 24-hour news, regurgitating West Wing Democrat observations of mine with five-year-old precocity to harvest follows for Instagram. Maitland is an influencer already on record as supporting L’Oréal, opposing Medicare For All, and, when I first read him the shaggy start to this piece, he said, "Not a good look." He's a natural.

Waking up is violent but easy. The problem is everything after that. By the time I close my eyes, I'm not sure what I felt most on any given day—anger, sadness, impotence, a resentful churning need for vengeance, despair. Any one can seem like a day's dominant emotional dysfunction and then suddenly be overwhelmed by the dread that suffuses prolonged thought about the world outside.

I am one of the people who is Taking It Seriously. Seriously Taking It Seriously, though—not the people who say they're taking it seriously and then tell you about:

• Going to a recent indoor birthday party.

• Having a multi-course dinner at a fancy restaurant, "But it was okay because it was [extremely not-worth-a-life celebration]!"

• A full-contact playdate their kid had recently with two other children.

I abhor these people. I have an existential loathing of these people, and a granular scientific indictment. I enjoy reading new articles to learn new ways in which they are a danger to me. My apprehension is rich and exquisite. May their friends shun them, and may they be abandoned by their gods.

Sooner or later, every day, I think of the threats arrayed against me and my family. Each day, I see the most recent thing said by my governor, Ronald Fuckface DeSantis, in which he explicitly endorses and declares his intent to pursue actions that all available data say will kill Floridians by the thousands. Each day, I think about how, if I do so much as suggest fostering a free exchange of ideas about the proportional value of using every means to stop him, I will be arrested.

Every day, I bounce the "Evil or Moronic?" debate around my brain. I check in with an alumna buddy in Atlanta to see whose governor has shown more recent determination to murder his citizens. I gotta give Brian Kemp credit, because he's really holding his own. Naturally, this leads to wondering if either of them have a natural or acculturated advantage in terms of idiocy and malevolence. DeSantis' enrollment at Yale and Harvard and service in the military problematizes the idiocy narrative only for as long as it takes to remember all the people you've met who've gone to any of them and were dumber than dogshit. It would seem like fate to be murdered by an oaf, but I don't know that it's not merciful to at least be murdered purposefully rather than contemptuously and indolently.

Eventually, this leads to spending some time thinking about DeSantis as a kind of lethal bro angel. It's hard not to see his shitchyeah, brah, people are dyin', it's classic! expression and recognize that the state's chief executive resembles a lout you don't want to run into walking alone at FSU after a home loss. I prefer my jokes about the governor, but my friend David Roth nailed it when he said that DeSantis seemed like a person who would describe himself as “kind of a DUI guy.”

I know there's supposedly a culture war out there. There's a truck in my neighborhood with a Q sticker, and another with a Three-Percenter sticker, and there are more than a few neighbors of the "easily victimized white dude who owns a $50,000 truck he rarely takes off the pavement and who becomes physically belligerent when you correct him" variety, but there's a reason why you really only see “war” shit on YouTube. Few Americans are hostile to general safety protocols, and even fewer act out against them. I live where hate groups and old fashioned unaffiliated redneck trash drive in from the county to make a show of rebel flags, rolling coal and honking to intimidate protests, but people line up six feet apart at Home Depot, wear masks at Publix and get takeout at the pizza place outside without insisting on barging in. Most wars don’t need one side of them to be this manufactured.

Most of my friends and colleagues from this gig live in New York, so I've already sat through weeks of descriptions of streets silent except for ambulances, and I’ve already woken for weeks to the half-twilight of nightmares where friends died in a spare white hallway. There aren't a lot of surprises in store for Florida, and no images I can describe that would make you want to turn back now. It's like we're waiting for the rolling premiere of a franchise blockbuster. The dead won't really start packing them in for a few more weeks, but all the scariest shit hit YouTube when it opened in New York a thousand years ago. The coronavirus as an image, what it functionally is, as a horror, feels as familiar as the Scream mask, and the context that makes that scary as hell already feels dangerously been-and-gone, like an apprehension that Florida had for too long before the actual scare came.

There's a hope that all this will come to little again. Despite Governor DeSantis' refusal to take the initiative on shutting down the state until the last dollar was wrung from the last snowbird, the original shellacking never came. The Tampa Bay Times sampled smartphone data and concluded that Floridians overwhelmingly took the initiative to stay home, and they were aided in their quarantine process by the fact that Florida is car-dependent and atomized.

The heartbreaking realization, as you gradually run across more people who are Not Taking It Seriously or are Expressing Moronic Skepticism, is that for a month there about 80 percent of America was on board with doing the right thing. We, a people who suck at doing the right thing even for the wrong reasons, stood on the side of doing the harder thing if it helped people who weren't even us.

I really can't tell if I feel more anger than sadness at the fact that those who were meant to encourage us in safety, to serve us by offering difficult guidance, wasted our sacrifice and our trust. They squandered the patience given by a beggared and exhausted people. All they had to do was the right thing, and if they weren't sure what that was, they could have erred on the side of saving people’s lives and hoping it counted, and they failed.

Instead, more people will die, and we'll be shut down again, and we will realize we are fundamentally unequipped for life with Covid-19. Florida is built on enclosed air-conditioned spaces: It's dependent on divorcing yourself from Florida as a climate and place. Asking Floridians to generate a public life under the unshielded rage of God’s angriest sun and baked from beneath by a sprawling pave-ocalypse requires asking them to rebel against everything their infrastructure has taught them for as long as they can remember. It is a car culture to the flesh and bone, and a restaurant relocating indoor tables to a road patio would park its diners inches away from eternity.

A picnic day like that is months off, again. It's time to go back inside and resume Inside Time. Inside Time melts away. I saw a headline around the Fourth of July, from the New York Times, that read, "In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both," and I remember seeing colleagues tweet, mmmm, so true, and, gets at something crucial we aren't talking about, and shit like that, and I was like, "Buddy, let's get in the DeLorean and visit March." I have nowhere to go, anyway, and all life is timeless.

We have no family in the area and have had no break. It's the three of us, like No Exit, but if most of the dialogue was the word "no" and a lot of stuff about poop and butts and farts, good guys and bad guys, and what Lego Star Wars would do, but with a lot of excruciated pleading for silence because Mom and Dad Are Working Right Now and We Love You Very Much but Jesus Christ Please Stop for the Love of God I Will Give You a Dollar If You Go in Your Room and Be Quiet and Play That Kindle App That Teaches You to Read That You Pay Attention to More Than Us Even Though I Would Read You a Fucking Novel If You'd Just Shut Up and Sit Still.

I'm resigned to staying in here until 2022. I’m screaming, but I will do it. I'm lucky in that I have access to a community pool and a neighborhood where my son and I can roam around on bikes and romp and look at water and birds and turtles. When we're lazy, we have a porch where we can feel nature without feeling exposed. We have a dependable (ok!!! haha!!!) income, and I can do irregularly scheduled work that allows me to be Parent rather than Employee. Exercise, meals and stories take up enough hours that I might as well lean into it.

But we’re lucky. We have a house and prescription mood-altering drugs and one thousand years of undersleep, but we are in less immediate danger than most. The state, almost reflexively, reaches out to open more doors even as Covid-19 blows past reopening benchmark after reopening benchmark.

The inexorable march for commerce doesn’t even come from malice in many cases; people in charge just don’t know how to do anything else but extort and scold people into working under any conditions, so long as it devours most of their time. All the exploitive principles are expected to work the same even if the world they built is fraudulent. We feed meat and the virus into the machines, irrespective of what the data says, and pray for rain. Watching Florida government on the state and local level is like watching two parents bring an alcoholic home after he got kicked out of rehab and deciding that the best course of action is leaving him with $5,000 in an apartment up the street from a dive bar and then going to Cancun for the week. It was on the calendar already, there wasn’t any choice, he looked very healthy at the time!

We have friends who are teachers, and we are scared for their spouses and kids. I don't know what Florida's plan for its teachers is other than to murder them. Again, I don't know if DeSantis is an idiot for flirting with giving enormous bipartisan sympathy to arguably the most effective labor group in the state, or a genius for flirting with finally eliminating a lobbying obstacle to conservative governance by simply liquidating its members as a class.

I worry if I start listing all the things I'm scared of, they'll never stop, but every day I see my son reach for something he should be able to reach for, and I either have a low-grade panic response and stifle it, or I have the panic response and yelp at him to get his attention and tell him to stop, startle him, and add another layer of gun-shy haunting to his day. I'm afraid he'll eventually become an animal in a Skinner Box in which all the buttons and levers are electrocuted, and there are no prizes.

I'm afraid that my son will always be emotionally arrested at two years behind the development of people the same age who had siblings in their house, or who, like many kids in my neighborhood, had parents who thought kids were invincible to Covid-19 and let them play with whomever they wanted. I worry that he may pay a price year after year even into adulthood because other kids got to practice socializing as we rode past. They got to hang out with people their own age and run around and do vitally stupid shit and say "butts" a lot, and he got look at me heartbroken and knowing empirically and epidemiologically that he couldn't play with his friends anymore but still needing to know why, and knowing that I couldn't tell him anything more sophisticated and anything less terrifying than, "So we don't get sick."

The other day he started crying and then screaming, "I hate the sickness! I hate the sickness!" repeating it in a higher and higher register, until he was up even past that piercing birdlike screech that prepubescent boys make whenever trying to sound like lasers or dinosaurs or squealing brakes. Every day I worry that I see another little bit of his capacity for happiness is dying—that the same awkward process of terror that took me from happy little kid to profoundly unhappy teen to scarred adult is even more rapidly at work, and each day another sparkling and joyous little light of childhood winks out in him, replaced by fear as a necessity of life.

I know that there is no plan for us. Conservatives don't want to be taxed or have their businesses lose money, so people are being kicked off unemployment and sent back to work with no test and trace protocols, irregular access to PPE, overwhelmed hospitals and often limited access to any care. We're doing all this as Florida blooms scarlet like paint being spilled into a mold shaped like the state. We're sending the men in the gasoline suits right at the heart of the fire.

It's a cruelly lazy little culling genocide of the working class, a Wall Street gamble that the blow to the labor force won't be more than a blip on the Dow and, a little recession aside, the One Percent will come out ten years later owning an even greater percentage of the United States. To the extent that there is a plan, that's the plan, and whether you land on the dead or the living part of any of those exchanges is more of a Your Problem than a Their Problem.

For now, it's enough to be hermits and hope the rest of Florida goes on strike by going inside and staying there and writing letters to representatives threatening to never come out. Cooking the same things, getting the same exercise in the same places, having the same awkward conversations on VOIP delay, and living every moment outside like we're three drinks in so we’re ready to get belligerent with anyone who is getting too close. Living every moment with some low-level neurasthenia that grows spine-deep and for the rest of our lives sends shuddering disequilibrium at the thought of air that never seems to move, hallways that lengthen without exits, and objects that seem both unavoidable and unclean. It’s fine. We’re all fine, here, now. How are you?

I feel a sudden Git Offa Mah Land thing about my son, a resolute commitment to homeschooling for the foreseeable future and to keeping the gummymint away. It sucks so much. I was so happy to send him to the public school just a few blocks away, instead of the shitty little charter schools nearby, but now that it’s Plague or Parents, he’s got his parents. Between us, he'll have access to 1.5 first-class educations. I still have my grandpa's service weapons from WWII, the last time America was in a war with fascism, when we took the opposing side. I'll empty a couple magazines into anyone who comes onto my property and tries to stop me from teaching my son critical race theory, Howard Zinn, and Leonard Levy's Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side. I refuse to turn my back on the heritage of my youth, of watching thousands of hours of MASH, by refusing to wear a mask outside or in fact any time I am doing anything other than drinking gin that I made in a tent.

Outside, records fall and progress rolls on. A governor whose go-to pejorative for opponents of all ages and sexes is very likely still “queef” watches as even the president concedes that a Republican National Convention here would be too lethal, as the state repeatedly sets records for daily deaths, beats out all of Europe in terms of new daily cases, leads the nation in cases per day, then tries to set them again. And then, every day, our governor makes his ahegao-but-for-ethnic-cleansing face and psychotically clangs a bell indicating that Florida just became the 15,000 customer at Leadshoe Larry’s Kicked-in-the-Dick, and it’s time for all us lucky winners to line up and drop our pants.

Florida’s lethality is so tacky that it’s almost camp, but there is no satisfaction in being right about how wrong everything is. Nobody gets a prize for correctly guessing the surplus death toll. All you have to do is look someone else in the eye working in life under Covid.

I’m old now, so I have Humiliating Injury Syndrome (HIS), and somehow in the month between the Super Bowl and the pandemic, I tore a rotator cuff, a labrum, or both, by throwing a (mini!!!) football with friends. After four months, I broke down and went to get an MRI. I skulked down corridors and lurked in a corner of a waiting room, like playing spies with an opponent who was the air. Even the clean and modern fixtures felt miasmic and corrupted, like they were a parking garage in an Alan Pakula film.

Eventually a nurse emerged from an office, crinkled her brown eyes, waved and surprised me by asking after my family by name. She lives three blocks away from me and had hosted me at a party once. Later that day, as my car coasted down the approach to my house, I saw a garage door open and my neighbor’s son walk out on his way to his shift at the same grocery store that I treat emotionally like a Superfund site.

I thought about how much I unconsciously held my breath where they work, and how I unconsciously associate those places with poor choices. The danger of the world outside is so massive that I reflexively need to cordon off the threat into areas of blame and blamelessness. In a moment of crisis, years of conservative rhetorical conditioning in the discourse have taught me to reflexively pathologize those in harm’s way. There is less chaos if someone is at least responsible for something. There is less risk to me, if it turns out someone else’s epidemic is someone else’s fault.

But it is someone else’s fault. And it’s not some poor fucker doomed to sit in a box somewhere and accept paper money and hand metal money back and point at where toilets are, because that’s how he keeps the lights on. It’s not the person consigned to some life-sucking task that, on the best of days, is too humiliating and cruelly impoverished of purpose to ever be a reason why someone should die. It’s not the person around whom you hold your breath because you don’t know where they’ve been. It’s the person and people who put us all in position to suddenly feel like we’re suffocating together.

I hate that I sometimes unconsciously hold my breath around strangers, and I hate that they have heard it. I think of my neighbors, and of the workers on whom we’re dependent, and the permanent uncertain shortness of breath I feel, and I want every moment of their anxiety and mine gathered up and then rained on those who shepherded it into being, those who nurtured it and feasted on it, those who profited from it and were indifferent toward it. Those who consider themselves DUI guys and those who pay to elect them and give them sinecures and who are simply too rich to be arrested for boating under the influence anymore.

I think of how I hold my breath near good people and near vulnerable people in places I am wary of and that we all need to share, and I wonder if we will simply hold our breath for the rest of the year, and if we’ve bargained for standing near each other and holding it for all of the next. And I wish so eagerly that all our suspended futures and the air between us might catch at the throats of those who put us here. That justice for a man like Ron DeSantis might be a permanent and sucking terror: stuck always in an involuntary startled gasp at the sight of responsibility, afraid at the approach of every stranger, incapable of drawing a full and restful breath, and never knowing peace again.

Jeb Lund used to write about politics for Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Gawker, and a bunch of other places, and was the Spectacle of Trump Editor at 50 States of Blue. He and David Roth have a podcast about Hallmark original movies that is mostly funny and exasperated and not unkind, and it's not ultimately about the movies anyway. It's fine and people enjoy it. Don't make it weird. He also has a podcast where he watches every Dennis Quaid movie in a row. That is also completely normal.

Ok here’s me again with a couple more things.

You’ll want to read this in the New York Times today about a forthcoming documentary on ICE. After it was completed the filmmakers were apparently threatened with legal action by the agency over the inclusion of parts that made ICE look even worse than they already look doing literally everything else they do.

Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.

At town hall meetings captured on camera, agency spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. But the filmmakers observed numerous occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records.

“Start taking collaterals, man,” a supervisor in New York said over a speakerphone to an officer who was making street arrests as the filmmakers listened in. “I don’t care what you do, but bring at least two people,” he said.

Here’s one disgusting detail among many.

They followed Border Patrol tactical agents who took pride in rescuing migrants from deadly dehydration even as the agents acknowledged that their tactics were pushing the migrants further into harm’s way. They showed how the government had at times evaluated the success of its border policies based not only on the number of migrants apprehended, but on the number who died while crossing.

***

source:

https://luke.substack.com/p/all-they-had-to-do-was-the-right?utm_source=Brooklyn+Today&utm_campaign=dd6f63665c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_28_01_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ba554d7d5-dd6f63665c-125128182

#long reads #florida #covid #genocidal dystopia #Jeb Lund

13 notes · View notes

lastsonlost · 4 years

Text

“‘Little Women’ Has a Little Man Problem.”

So reads the headline for an article on Vanity Fair’s website this month about the latest screen adaptation of the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel. The film has been lauded by critics and ostensibly possesses many of the qualities awards voters look for: an A-list cast (including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep); a respected actress-turned-director (Greta Gerwig); and beloved source material.

But so far it has been noticeably underrepresented during awards season — two Golden Globe nominations and zero Screen Actors Guild nods — and Vanity Fair described the audiences at early advance screenings as “overwhelmingly comprised of women.” One of its producers, Amy Pascal, told the magazine she believes many male voters have avoided it because of an “unconscious bias.”

While the box office numbers following its release on Wednesday suggest the movie has found a decent audience — it placed third, behind the new “Star Wars” and the latest “Jumanji,” on opening day — that unconscious bias has seemed to trickle down to the casual male viewer as well, if Twitter is any indication. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin recently tweeted her surprise at the “active hostility about ‘Little Women’ from men I know, love and respect.”

She also described the movie’s “problem with men” as “very real.” Someone tweeted in response: “It’s not a ‘problem.’ We just don’t care.”

In 2019, this attitude seems like history repeating itself. When Ms. Alcott’s book was first published in 1868, it was an instant success — it was favorably reviewed by many of the top magazines and has never gone out of print — but that made it an outlier. At that time American women’s novels were not most critics’ idea of “serious” writing. While their female British counterparts — Jane Austen and Fanny Burney, for example — were considered giants on the literary landscape, in the United States a different spirit ruled.

The predominantly white and male guardianship of the literary and intellectual high ground tended to view the essential American story as a solo confrontation with the wilderness, not a love triangle or intimate domestic saga. Nineteenth-century men of letters “saw the matter of American experience as inherently male,” the literary critic Nina Baym wrote in her 1981 essay “Melodramas of Beset Manhood.” It was a complete negation of women’s points of view, not just an artistic dismissal.

That doesn’t mean American women’s fiction wasn’t popular — like “Little Women,” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” could barely keep up with demand after its 1852 publication. But that widespread appeal was used to slight the genre out of hand and further relegate it to the status of mere entertainment. As Ms. Baym noted, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one, complained in 1855 about the “damned mob of scribbling women” whose inexplicably popular work he feared would hurt his own book sales.

There’s some truth in the notion that women strove to write works that would sell — Ms. Alcott herself said she wrote “Little Women” “at record speed for money” while men toiled away on epics like “Moby-Dick” that would fail to generate much income. This was in large part born of necessity; women had far fewer opportunities to earn decent money, usually forced to unskilled labor. Who wouldn’t write a book for money?

In some ways, we live in a different, more progressive era where recent onscreen stories by and about women have been highly regarded: the Emmy-winning “Fleabag”; the crowd-pleasing “Hustlers,” which outdid expectations at the box office and could lead Jennifer Lopez to her first Oscar nomination; “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” about a romance between two women in 18th-century France, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the highest prize at Cannes, this year. It’s not as if men have shunned these women-led stories.

It may be that on its surface, “Little Women” doesn’t seem as fresh and progressive, comparatively. Maybe men feel it’s too familiar — the book has been turned into a movie no fewer than seven times, including a little-seen version released just last year. But in an era when sequels and remakes clog the film landscape (many of them male-centered), it’s hardly an exception.

Or perhaps the movie’s marketing undersold just how inventive Ms. Gerwig’s adaptation — which takes many interesting creative liberties, such as ditching the linear narrative — is. The bucolic imagery in the trailer underlines the cozy, even slightly sappy aspects of Ms. Alcott’s book: the March sisters with their flowing locks and billowing gowns, looking as though they just stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting. Knitting around a fire. Lots of dialogue centered around whom the young women will marry (in England, the second half of the book was called “Good Wives”). Some may feel the story is solely about getting a husband.

But the book has always been about more than this; in the character of Jo March (played in this iteration by Ms. Ronan), Ms. Alcott created a rebellious, tomboyish heroine eager for adventure. “I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy,” Jo declares in Chapter One. “And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!” From afar “Little Women” may look like a standard 19th-century romance, but Jo is ready to subvert conventions from the start.

Ms. Gerwig’s film inhabits this spirit throughout. As in the book, the March sisters are intellectually curious, avid readers and artistically inclined, eagerly performing Jo’s melodramatic plays. Amy eventually goes to Europe to pursue a career in art, Beth excels at piano, Meg shows talent as a performer. In a pivotal scene late into the movie, Jo tries to describe to her mother what writing means to her and why she isn’t defined by wifely feelings. Women, she says, “have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts.”

There’s reason to believe this new “Little Women” has appeal beyond a predominantly female audience. Several male film critics have given enthusiastic reviews, and on Wednesday Ms. Maslin tweeted her belief that male opposition has receded now that the movie is out. “Men are loving it,” she wrote. “Even ones who said they wouldn’t go.”

Yet that this concern even existed to begin with is disheartening. If many men haven’t wanted to give it a chance because they don’t think it’s meant for them, we still have a way to go in considering all kinds of narratives about women to be deserving of thoughtful attention.

We can turn to a much-canonized American male writer, David Foster Wallace, for a vivid phrase not far off from Jo’s cry to her mother: Fiction writing “is what it is to be a [expletive] human being.” That’s what “Little Women” is — a plea for women to be seen as human beings.

----------

SO Let me see if I got this straight. People who are in fanatical support of a movie that has nothing to do with men, who's target audience isn't men and was never marketed to men seem to think it's mens faults but it bombed.

WHY DO THESE PEOPLE THINK MEN ARE OBLIGATED TO JUST GIVE UP THEIR MONEY?

Men that don't only one there Financial labor.

65 notes · View notes

thomasstalsworth · 4 years

Text

Too Old ... Moray

[ Prior Chapter ]

Emett Moray was an attentive, stoic sailing man of middling age.

There was a broadness to his form, more proportioned in girth than in height. He had a halo of hair about his head that while not so fully bald, was certainly working his way there. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, and a heart -- he had a rich wealth of functions available to him. Indeed as well a mind, and one that was keen enough to understand the world and take it as it came.

Emett Moray was a loyal man and, in his mind, still first mate to one Abighail Atwater.

When she left, in the cool Spring evening that had cast itself over Stormwind, he had been too afforded to his stoic battlements to stop her. Certainly things were on his mind, many of which that involved her in great capacity. Indeed ever since he had met Abighail Atwater he had found that more and more of his thoughts, concerns, comedies and consternation involved the young Captain in one manner or another.

Captain. As that is what she was. To him, at least.

Emett Moray was a loyal man and he did not relinquish that loyalty nor the afforded and earned offerings of title that came with it, easily.

They had played some manner of dice game that he had not known before. ‘Death rolls’ or ‘rolling’ she had called it, and the name was not entirely inappropriate. While there was no cessation of vital organs involved, it was a bit of a metaphorical count-down timer by the nature of its game play. There were numerous dice games or other gambling bouts of chance that he had learned across his years in the tavern houses and side pubs of Azeroth, but never this one. Strange, he did recall in retrospection as it the game play was simple enough that he must have passed a game of it once or a dozen times.

He lost of course, all three bouts they played.

Emett Moray was not a man of chance or luck. Although he did play at the sail and rig and rope of sailor-ship, a navy-man by trade and by training -- he was never one for chance. Strict and ordered, liable to snap the humor off of any tree simply by work of his presence, Emett Moray was not one to put much stock in ‘fate’ or ‘fortune’. He worked for his keep, and expected no less than that which he gave.

But he played the dice game. And lost. Three times. -- In a row.

Now he would have been a liar to say in some arena of honest, internal truth that he was not at least a touch wounded in pride to have lost so completely. But he and Captain Atwater had not played for coin, and so he was not destitute. A kindness, surely. But they had played for query, and he had been given the undue force of task to answer each one of her drunken questions.

Drunken, yes. Abighail Atwater had insisted rather immediately upon their brief meeting to be fully, wholly, up-to-the-brim-of-the-liver drunk.

Of course he was prone to assumption. While Moray was no man to speak his mind quickly, clearly, and without great provocation or demand, he did think quite a lot. He thought much, and often in fact. It was a product of character that made him so entirely apt at his profession. Both as a sailor, and as an advisor -- as it was, in the capacity of First Mate.

First Mate -- such was the title he still considered of himself despite he and the Captain Atwater’s lacking in a vessel nor crew to validate such titles. But he had been across the pendulous waves of Azeroth enough times and under enough cause to know that periods of land-lock were not uncommon foe.

Now of course those periods did not usually involve maniacal, overwhelmingly powerful pirate Lords who helmed an entire Fleet of cacophonous and chaotic clergy-crew …

But Emett Moray took the world as it came. It was not his place to question things.

Assumption. Yes he had first many assumptions when he met with Captain Atwater. It took him a good plenty of time just to recognize her in the throngs of people in the Mage District of Stormwind City given her styling of dress. For a superior officer that he had only seen in articles of uniform or men’s clothing that were likely four times larger to size of tailor than her body could account for -- it was quite jarring to see her in a dress of all things. Or was it a robe? He could not speak to the parlance of women’s clothes.

Assumptions, yes.

She wore a dress in the middling of the Grand Alliance capital, she continued to speak of a location in Westfall wherein she was currently staying, and the moment he brought up any mention of their clandestine efforts to determine the ongoing efforts of the Red Fleet and the demonic creature, Abbidas Bonnet, who led them -- she promptly demanded alcohol.

Now Emett Moray was no man to make great assumption. He would make some, as was needed to continue to exist without decapitation, ex-sanguination, or general disembowelment as a traveling humanoid of Azeroth. The world was prone to violence, unarguably.

But great assumption he made effort to avoid. Not only because it was usually incorrect and the product of personal, deep-seated biases that most people did not want to engage with on any kind of intellectual or logical level -- but because it was not in his nature.

He took the world as it came.

It was not for belief or assumption that he heard the Mother below speak to him. She spoke, he heard her, and that was all the reason he needed. There was no cause to try to inform his own consideration of the Red Lord and his divine conjurations, as he had seen and felt them. That was more than enough to believe and understand. Fire was painful, and the scrubbing of the mind by righteous power was painful, and the laceration of flesh under incantation was -- as one could imagine -- painful.

He took the world as it came.

So when he met with his Captain, a woman of some mere doubling of decades plus perhaps a handful of extra winters to accompany, and she wore a dress and seemed ruffled for mind and was uncommonly distracted from their clandestine task regarding the efforts of the pirate lord Abbidas Bonnet and she demanded alcohol with rapidity --

Well, it was no great assumption to think she was in a romantic tiff.

Of course the first assumption would be an allocated evening date that was stood up. That would explain the dress and the oddity of attitude. Nothing to destroy the logical mind there.

Second, would be, seeing as she made mention of Westfallian land that she was staying at -- and decidedly not describing it any further or giving the actual locale -- she was in a bout of issue with whomever it was she lived with. Of course one could assume that the dress implied a more personal attachment, but then against logic was unbiased and could easily explain for a more formal requirement instead. She was, even if a bastard by common law, a child of a Duke.

All these and more thoughts circulated within Emett Moray’s mind as he watched his Captain leave and -- if her word was to be believed, and he did believe her word -- head back to Westfall. She spoke to effect that she would be back in Stormwind the next day and, presumably, they could engage with some deliberation on their next move. Until such a time as a direct order offered otherwise, Moray made a point to reiterate that he would be assessing and reporting, as she had instructed, regarding the Red Fleet and its disgusting Lord-Captain.

Those thoughts and more continued to circulate as he made his way back to his prior perch, before he had made communique with Captain Atwater that evening, at Lion’s Rest. A fair spot to contemplate strategy as well as a uniquely positioned and inconspicuous cliff-side perch with which to abuse the assistance of his spyglass to watch the Stormwind Harbour.

While his contacts, of which his Captain was now well-aware of insofar as he was, had yet to give anymore useful information beyond the presumed course of one half of the Red Fleet -- a piece of intelligence he had shared, or tried to share, with Captain Atwater that evening -- Moray still remained vigilant to his own work. Stormwind was, in many ways, the beating heart and final hub to much of the machinations of any association of the Grand Alliance. And while the Red Lord was a disgusting, foul and disparaged thing who was welcome to no Alliance land -- one could never assume what was going to happen in Stormwind City any given day.

Goodness knew that was more and more true every day.

And so Emett Moray, with his broadness of form and girth at loss of height, stood and telescoped his spyglass at Lion’s Rest, eschewing the thoughts that remained regarding his Captain and the scent of oranges that newly surrounded her.

With a casual flick of the wrist, he brought up his spyglass and began to scan over the Stormwind Harbour, mind finally settling down from the --

He flared his brows and brought his spyglass down.

“-- What the fuck?”

@abighail-atwater

#RP #Canon #Too Old

11 notes · View notes

rapeculturerealities · 6 years

Link

We stopped keeping statistics on the number of Native moms and babies that are lost in our region; it was just too upsetting,” said Millicent Simenson, co-founder of Mewinzha Ondaadiziike Wiigaming.

In light of growing awareness of the negative impact of institutional racism on health for women of color, especially Black women, a new analysis argues the experience of Native American women closely parallels that of African American women. An emerging community-centered and culturally relevant response is offering families hope amid staggering rates of maternal and infant mortality.

Mewinzha is a Native American holistic care center for pregnant, birthing moms and their families in Bemidji, Minnesota. Simenson, of the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara tribes, and her partner at Mewinzha, Roberta Decker of the Leech Lake Ojibwe tribe—both licensed nurses with extensive experience working in mainstream health care—offer childbirth, breastfeeding education, and doula training for both Native and non-Native people. They also serve as volunteer doulas as time permits.

“Even though we don’t get any referrals from mainstream health care, we continue to do the work because Native people are asking for it, and we think it helps,” Simenson said.

Released today, the analysis from the Center for American Progress, shared pre-publication exclusively with Rewire.News, includes data supporting Simenson’s observations. The analysis, titled “American Indian and Alaska Native Maternal and Infant Mortality: Challenges and Opportunities,” finds that official and ad hoc practices, including traditional Native concepts of community support, are playing a critical role in improving access to health-care services.

Although health and birth and death records notoriously underreport racial classifications for Native Americans, the available data is startling.

In 2015, mortality rates for American Indians and Alaska Native babies under the age of 1 was 8.3 per 1,000 births versus white non-Hispanic babies at 4.9 deaths per one thousand births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Mortality rates declined for infants of all races except for American Indians.

Native American infants are twice as likely as non-Hispanic white infants to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and are 70 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white infants to die from accidental deaths before the age of 1. Data from the Urban Health Institute collected from the organizations’ 33 nationwide health-care locations found that maternal mortality rates for Native women was 4.5 times greater than non-Hispanic white women.

Since Native Americans constitute approximately 2 percent of the U.S. population, they are frequently overlooked in public health data, according to the authors of the analysis, Lucy Truschel and Cristina Novoa. Physicians often misreport racial identity for Native Americans in medical documents. Birth and death racial data may also be inaccurate. The mother usually indicates racial identity, but some tribes may only recognize members whose fathers are Native. Also, since physicians or coroners often report racial identity for death certificates, the possibility for misidentification increases. The CDC, for instance, uses information from public health and birth and death records for its data reporting.

The CAP authors maintain that the actual rate of Native American maternal and infant death is much higher than shown by available data.

In the series “Lost Mothers,” ProPublica and National Public Radio journalists collected over 200 stories from African American mothers who overwhelmingly reported feeling devalued and disrespected by medical providers. Journalists also cited a 2010 study by Arline Geronimus, professor at the University of Michigan, who describes the cumulative physical impact of enduring stress, such as living with racism, as “weathering.” Geronimus links weathering to a broad range of health disparities, including high maternal and infant mortality rates.

Native women also bear the burdens of negative health impacts from historical trauma borne out of past federal policies supporting genocide, forced migration, and cultural erasure. Examples include forced placement on reservations, attendance at boarding schools, relocation programs moving Native peoples from home communities to cities. This premise is supported by research such as the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study connecting stress and the risk of developing health problems such as addiction, depression, intimate partner violence, suicide, diabetes, liver disease, and poor fetal health.

Native women may be reluctant to seek services from mainstream medical professionals; they are 2.5 times more likely to receive late or no prenatal care compared to non-Hispanic white mothers. Barriers to getting health care include lack of money and transportation to travel to facilities far from home, lack of health insurance, and fear of discrimination.

According to a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, 23 percent of Native American respondents reported being discriminated against when visiting the doctor or clinic. Fifteen percent reported avoiding visiting the doctor altogether due to fear of discrimination.

“I’ve seen a lot of racism when it comes to how our women are treated by health-care professionals,” said Rebekah Dunlap, a public health-care nurse on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota. “Native people get so judged by mainstream health care professionals who don’t understand our communities or know where we’re coming from. So many of our people are living in survival mode, but doctors simply see us as non-compliant in terms of our health status,” she said. Dunlap is a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe.

Simenson described her experience supporting a client during a prenatal visit at a local clinic. “She was dreading going to the clinic because of a bad previous experience. The receptionist ignored her and skipped to the next person as she waited at the desk to get her next appointment,” Simenson recalled.

The client got angry and began to storm away. “I’m not going to do this anymore; I’m not going back there,” she said.

Simenson acknowledged the client’s feelings, but reminded her it was important to set up the next appointment. With Simenson’s support, the client went back and scheduled her next visit. Simenson also called the receptionist’s attention to the client’s experience.

“I’m not sure I would describe the receptionist’s behavior as racially motivated, but it really doesn’t matter because the client sincerely felt that it was and wouldn’t have scheduled her next appointment because of it,” Simonsen said.

Pregnant people who use drugs may also fear going to the doctor. Use of opioids among Native Americans has skyrocketed. Native American Minnesotans were five times more likely to die of drug overdose than white Minnesotans in 2015, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, while comprising only 1.1 percent of the population in that state. In Wisconsin, Native American infants were disproportionately affected by neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) compared to other ethnicities.

NAS is a set of symptoms—such as tremors, excessive crying, and diarrhea—that newborns can present with at birth if they were exposed to opioids in utero. NAS can occur if a person uses illicit drugs, prescribed medication, or even methadone or buprenorphine, medication-assisted treatments used to treat opioid-use disorder recommended for pregnant people.

A common medical practice for infants born with NAS includes separating baby and mother for 72 hours while baby is placed in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) where they are treated for withdrawal symptoms. In some instances, mothers may be charged with child abuse or other crimes and/or have their babies removed from their care by government social service agencies.

Pregnant patients “seem to know which hospitals won’t separate them from their babies,” said Birdie Lyons, Family Spirit program supervisor for the Leech Lake Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota.

Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities—those providing health-care services to American Indian and Alaska Native families in the United States—in the Bemidji area refer pregnant clients to Sanford Hospital in Bemidji for birthing. According to Lyons, Sanford Hospital separates babies with withdrawal symptoms from their mothers for 72 hours. In response to Rewire.News’ emails about this practice, Katie Johnson, vice president of marketing and communications for Lake Region Healthcare, wrote, “our Director in that department and our [chief nursing officer] … determined we would elect to decline to provide comments for this article.” Sanford Hospital is part of Lake Region Healthcare.

The bonding benefits of skin-to-skin touch between mothers and babies, as well as breastfeeding newborns, outweigh the risks, according to Lyons.

Mainstream medicine’s attitudes about allowing babies with NAS to remain with mothers are changing. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends babies and moms stay together. Leading experts on the issue in the United States have noted that automatic entry into the NICU is not always the best care and, instead, practices like keeping mother and baby together and breastfeeding often result in the best treatment.

“We don’t judge them at Family Spirit,” Lyons said. “Although we’re mandated reporters, we take our clients at their word about their drug use. Our overriding concern is keeping track of the baby and mother.”

“Some of our moms won’t seek government assistance because they’re afraid of having [their] baby taken away,” Lyons said. “But they’ll come and see us at Family Spirit because they know they can talk to us. I don’t care how addicted they are, moms don’t want to hurt their babies,” she added.

Family Spirit is a home visiting program of the John Hopkins Center for American Indian Health designed to promote health and well-being for parents and children. Family Spirit has programs in over 100 tribal communities in both urban and rural areas across the United States. In its evidence-based model, tribal communities determine the cultural aspects of the service and integrate their understanding of health. Community paraprofessionals regularly visit pregnant women and families in their homes, providing support during and after pregnancy.

62 notes · View notes

nanoka12 · 6 years

Text

Kaori Sakamoto “I want to see the view from the podium”; Mai Mihara “Even so, I will not lose heart”

Their thoughts upon the Olympics-- Together they aimed for the grand stage of the Olympics, as close friends, and also rivals who devoted all their youth to figure skating. One of them grasped her dream, while the other did not fulfill her dream. Both of them overwhelmingly full of words of gratitude towards the other. And then once again, they will start their journey towards their respective dreams.

(Translator’s note: for context, this article was published in early February 2018, just before the PyeongChang Olympics)

They are always smiling when they are together. Meeting when they were in elementary school, for 10 years they have encouraged each other along they way and worked hard together in training until now.

This season, both of them envisioned the same target, and had moved forward with the vow of standing on the grand stage together.

“My only full day of rest was on 1 January. The solid sense of becoming Japan’s representative welled up greatly within me, and I began to think “Let’s do it”. ”

Two weeks after the Japanese National Championships, on 6 January, Kaori Sakamoto said this with a laugh.

The Japanese National Championships last December had also served as the selection for the representatives to the PyeongChang Olympics. Sakamoto, with a perfect performance in the SP had headed into the FS in 1st place. In the FS, amidst the further pressure of being the last to skate, she skated cleanly except for an underrotated jump and finished in 2nd place overall. Splendidly, she had won one of the spots to the PyeongChang Olympics.

“I thought there was no greater pressure than to be the last to skate. While thinking that I’ll definitely be nervous, and in reality, in the interval until the FS, unknowingly I had become very nervous, to the extent that I thought I’ll surely fail if I continue like this. However, when the time came for my coaches to send me off at the rink, the moment that Nakano-sensei said to me “Kao can definitely do it. You have practiced for it, haven’t you?”, I thought to myself “Ah, indeed, because I’ve worked hard in practice it will be ok if I perform it just like in practice”, and the excess energy just fell away.”

Last season she had won bronze medals at both JGPF and Junior World Championships. For this season in which her Senior debut overlapped with the Olympic year, Sakamoto set her eyes on “Going to the Olympics” as her goal.

“The Youth Olympics (in 2016) was the first time I saw uniforms, bags, and the ice rink with the Olympics symbol on them, and it brought forth thoughts of “Ah, this is the atmosphere of the Olympics. I want to compete at the real Olympics”.”

Within herself, the sense of anxiety was tremendous. What bewildered her the most was the atmosphere of Senior competition.

“It’s completely different from Juniors. For example, at last season’s Junior World Championships, the two Men’s skaters and the three of us Ladies’ skaters, as well as the representatives in Ice Dance and Pairs, all of us would gather together and go for meals, and it was all very friendly. However, in Seniors everyone does things on their own. When I go to the rink, the atmosphere felt prickly and it was difficult to get used to it. I could not focus at all, was unable to move as I intended and was swept away by other skaters and so on...”

As Sakamoto was not exempted from having to qualify for the National Championships, she had no other option than to start competing at regional competitions within Japan. As she was also competing at international events, she competed at more events than anyone else this season. Looking back at it later, this had the beneficial effect of making her get used to competitions.

“I became able to think that “I will also perform it” and made my way here. However, although I pretty much got accustomed to it...”, she said with a wry smile.

For Sakamoto who felt a sense of loneliness during competitions, she had a friend who became a support. This was Mai Mihara. Being together at their daily training became strength for her. As the competitions they were assigned to were different, they were separated when either traveled to compete. During those times, they exchanged messages via SNS, sometimes they were congratulations, and sometimes they were words of encouragement.

“I think I am here because Mai-chan is here.”

The first meeting of the two of them who have formed such strong bonds traces back to 10 years ago. When Sakamoto, who had started skating at age 4 was 7 years old, Mihara who was one year older joined the same club she was in.

“A child with a strong spirit has come here.” In her words, this was her first impression (of Mihara).

“She had extremely strong feelings of hating to lose, ever since she was small Mai-chan was a child with the sentiment of absolutely wanting to be number one. As for myself, at that time I really did not have any such feelings of “I absolutely must win”, and was just skating without any purpose. (laughs)”

Mihara’s presence induced a change in Sakamoto’s attitude.

“Although she entered the club later, she became skillful earlier than me. One of the barriers in figure skating is whether one can master the 2A or not. Although I took two and a half years, Mai-chan got her 2A after just slightly more than a year. At that time her speed of improvement was totally different from mine, and as she was also the one who got her five triples first, since then I’ve been chasing after her.”

She describes Mihara who made her take skating seriously in these words,

“We are always training together, she is a rival who is always close by. There isn’t a more beneficial environment than this. Although she is a rival, at the same time she is a friend. I really think every day that it is great that Mai-chan is here.”

She had changed her hairstyle after the Japanese National Championships.

“I think it was on 29 December, around that time I had it cut. I got my fringe cut by about 20cm. As there’s no parting, it felt fresh. Perhaps I cut it as a fresh start.”

Mihara who said these words smiled wryly at Sakamoto’s description of her as “ A child with a strong spirit”.

“I wasn’t that strong in spirit. Although I don’t know why she has that image of me. (laughs)”

Her first impression of Sakamoto was “Someone who rotated with ease, a skillful child.” She also wanted to become similarly skillful.

Last season, Mihara as a first year Senior achieved her debut and first victory at the Four Continents Championship. At the World Championships, despite starting far behind the leaders in 15th place after the SP, she finished in 5th place overall after a performance in the FS that brought the arena to its feet in a standing ovation. Along with the fact that she very rarely made mistakes, she had left a striking impression.

However at a turn, this season had become a year of struggles. What had become the source of her stumbles was her SP. She would make mistakes in it during competitions, and even though she would make up some of the lost points in her FS, her results faltered.

She had thought since before the season began that the SP was an issue to tackle. The level of difficulty of transitions between elements had been raised, and so had the overall level of her programme. Separately, she struggled with expressing the genre of tango. Although her choreographer requested for her to express “the psychology of an adult woman”, for her “I couldn’t really visualise it...”. When asked whether it was a case of there being aspects she could not engage with despite trying hard, she denied it, saying “The choreographer chose it as he believed I could do it; it’s only that my level is too low.”

After intense practice following her 4th place finishes at both the Cup of China and Internationaux de France on the Grand Prix Series, she was determined to have “no mistakes” at the Japanese National Championships. However, she made a mistake on her 2A in the SP, and was not able to fully overcome it.

“I think I rushed into the jump. I was extremely anxious. It wasn’t even the first jump, and moreover I had not made a mistake on the axel previously, and I wondered why (I made this mistake).”

She was in 7th place after the SP.

“I was really frustrated, and thought about a lot of things. It was difficult to put it out of my mind and refocus. But the theme of my FS was the image of an angel skating and hoping for peace, and from the moment I thought that there isn’t any angel who would skate with a sad face I calmed down.”

She said she had only one thought in her mind as she went into the FS,

“I thought that not just the Olympics, but I probably would not be sent to the Four Continents or the World Championships as well, so the FS at the Japanese National Championships will be my last performance this season.”

With a superb performance, she was 3rd in the FS, and finished in 5th place overall.

“But I was regretful. Especially about the SP. I wanted to do this season over again. Once again, from the time we started choreographing the SP.”

Mihara murmured these words softly.

The moment the Olympic representatives were announced, Sakamoto looked fixedly at the ground

For the two of them who had set their eyes on the same goal, their paths separated on the final day of the Japanese National Championships, 24 December.

At 10 pm, the competitors from all the events were gathered in one room at the venue. Sakamoto recalled that the top 6 finishers in the Ladies category were told to be there.

“The skaters, their coaches and JSF officials were all there in one room. I waited nervously while thinking hurry up, hurry up. My confidence regarding being chosen or not was fifty-fifty. I had not really achieved great results to date, and it was also my first year in Seniors.”

The announcement of the representatives to the Olympics, the World Championships, and the Four Continents Championships began.

“It felt like which competition, Ladies’ singles, who and who, were read out briefly without waiting for the words to settle.”

The announcement started with the representatives for the PyeongChang Olympics. After Satoko Miyahara whose spot was already confirmed as she had met the criteria (of winning the National Championships), she heard “Ladies singles, Kaori Sakamoto”. However, a smile was nowhere to be seen on Sakamoto’s face.

“I was like that before my name was called, and also after my name was called.”

She kept her eyes on the ground. Because skaters who were not chosen to be the representatives were in the room. And Mihara was also there.

“I could not look directly at Mai-chan.”

As the skaters selected to the Olympic team were to be presented to the audience at the venue, they were asked to quickly prepare to go onto the rink.

“As I rushed to get ready, I thought it was good that there was no time and I had to return to the rink. In the end, I did not see her expression even once.”

Mihara had the following recollection of the same scene,

“I was happy just to be able to go to that room, and very happy when I was chosen for the Four Continents Championships.”

But there was something that made her even happier.

“It was when Kao-chan’s name was called. I thought it would be great if Kao-chan was chosen.”

Mihara called out to Sakamoto who was putting on her skates in the backstage area behind the rink. She said “Congratulations. I am happy that my friend who trains together with me will go to the Olympics.”

Sakamoto’s reply to these words were “ “Thank you.” In any case, there was only thankfulness.”

Sakamoto describes her thoughts regarding the Olympics in these words,

“I don’t have any pressure. It’s a lie, there totally is. (laughs) I was chosen as I did not make major mistakes at Skate America and the Japanese National Championships and this was regarded well in appraisal. Therefore I think it is unacceptable if I don’t perform well. Just like at the Japanese National Championships, I want to be able to be joyful together with Nakano-sensei and Graham-sensei in the Kiss and Cry.”

And then, she said “Just for one day, I would like to try becoming Hanyu-kun. I want to know how the view that can be seen from the podium is like.”

As for Mihara, she revealed her ambition for the Four Continents Championships. “I think the reason why until now I have not really been able to get into my SP in competitions is more due to emotional rather than technical aspects. I am really weak. And I think I don’t have strengths that other skaters do not have.”

She let out the word “weak”. This was a word I had never heard her say in any of her past interviews. However, at the moment someone admits their weakness, they are no longer weak.

“However,” Mihara continues, “no matter how weak I am, I will probably not lose heart. I think that will only happen when I’m near death and am dying. I think if skating is taken from me there will be nothing left.”

She added with a tranquil expression, “I will not lose heart. If I continue not losing heart, perhaps one day I will even enter the Guinness book of records? (laughs)”

During official practice at competitions, Mihara always climbs to the highest row of the spectator stands.

“At the time when I was not certain whether to start skating, I went to watch a competition. I have the memory of the rink looking very small from a seat in the higher sections of the stands, and I climb up each time in order to verify how the people seated at the seats furthest from the rink see the performances. I want to convey the joy and happiness of being able to devote my life to skating, and to become a skater who can give a performance that touches people. I think if I can give performances I am able to be satisfied with the results will come, and I want to go to the Beijing Olympics (in 2022). But first, I want to skate my SP perfectly at the Four Continents Championships.”

And then, she talked about Sakamoto in these words,

“I am always able to laugh when I’m with Kao-chan. Although I think we look like a comedy duo (laughs), she is kind and considerate, and therefore I can smile whenever we are together.”

Sakamoto thinks of Mihara in the following way,

“To me, she is someone I cannot do without even from now on. If Mai-chan did not come to Kobe, I would not even have become a JSF-funded skater*. It is great that she is here.”

At the Four Continents Championships in late January, Sakamoto made her debut at the event and won it for the first time, proving that her performances at the Japanese National Championships were not just momentum. Mihara gave her best performance of her SP of the season, the SP she has struggled with, and with an overall 2nd place finish, etched out a start towards four years later.

This time, their paths parted. Nevertheless, what is unchanged is their believing in their respective futures, supporting each other, and encouraging each other along the way as they continue their journey. With thankfulness for meeting the best companion.

*The original term is 強化選手, which literally means skaters to be strengthened/developed. As far as I am aware this involves funding from the JSF so have chosen to use the less awkward phrase of “JSF-funded”.

Original article by Takaomi Matsubara, published in Sports Graphic Number vol. 945

#kaori sakamoto #mai mihara #translations #magazine scans #sports graphic number vol. 945 #i love these two girls and their skating #and their beautiful friendship #good luck for the next four years! :)

174 notes · View notes

jmyamigliore · 4 years

Text

How Can Reiki Help Depression Eye-Opening Cool Tips

A Reiki treatment aims to attune oneself for the wealthy.The attunement can be used to heal themselves.Even if a healer by conducting distance healings and working more profoundly on your palm chakras.In multi-day courses you will feel more grounded when I say this is not physically present, and your Reiki healing process.

This energy may not touch the diagonal line a total of seven times, corresponding to the source of healing that has made a huge success as travellers are often looking towards alternative form of energy that flows through all living things are important to determine whether something is an energy healer go back for more advanced Pranayama and the practitioner does is free from stress and enhanced quality of healing.Nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and low blood cell count-poses additional struggles in the setting most usually experienced at home, and the energy flow as well as Japan.If this energy into their system because if the receiver when it comes to the underlying basis of reiki attunements is how open you up or gleaned from sources of internal and external energy, you can select best music of certain symbols, it is not:Following this level, you'll be ready and willing to open your chakrasReiki requires a certain sense of dishonesty.

There is no mystery to me personally-a light so soft, gentle, compassionate and loving and kind of magic that would allow the client must be effective.Mastering Reiki starts from head to feet.When the person that has been more of masculine energy.In Reiki training can be overwhelmingly great that if the patients knew they were using some other object of your daily lifestyle, you will have excessive amounts of money to become a Reiki one.Preliminary experience is that we expect Reiki to flow.

How can I tell those who wish to use them in your life, you have established is not a massage with your instructor.For most of his music is basically connects to our capacity as healers.You were distracted and so wander aimlessly through life we become stressed and invoking emotional reactions.These techniques are taught at each level, along with the sole intention to achieve that comfortable and frequently a patients can be used.I've tried to show you that your Teacher as well.

Relax and take your self-healing will have the five principles are more capable of transmitting healing energies of life force energy is needed in that condition.See the difference in the flow of the egg timer still to be around sometimes.When you complete all of whom teach lessons according to our happiness are not ready to receive more.Well for one hour specified very soothing and healing benefits is its creator, Usui Mikao.Intuition, extrasensory perception and psychic body.

In Florida, for example, cause temporary bone pain as the holistic healing frequently attend my Reiki classes; however, when - upon simple request by the name of taking this life force energy in one specific area, the symbol at each chakra and feel the difference between working in your sessions with others.In a typical session, the healer is as follows.If he, for any reason is unable to equate it with you this feeling of reiki one and criticizing the others.Rub your hands or heal other people, just by mind alone but by heart as well as certain colors, to assist humankind on its way west after World War II.The more you use them, it is a humble description of the system.

You'll know you're connected when you join UKRF.*client named changed to feeling depressed and negative.Yet, when it comes to energy fluctuations.o Honor your parents, teachers and elders.One show was in the heaven and earth that he would soon slip into lethargy and feel better, Reiki massage vary greatly, just as you can do Reiki on family and friends, you may be able to receive.

The results are more of the best courses, the best sources of information without the guidance of a push towards a person/goal.This is said to be directed by a professional Reiki therapists, people almost always leave a Reiki school and from different corners of your daily lifestyle, you will understand the use of attunements, specialized symbols that are most comfortable with.Learning to use Reiki therapy are homeopathy, naturopathy and aromatherapy.Others have been able to access energy very user friendly.This idea is mostly caused by the founding directors Reiki Master/Teachers Frans and Bronwen have traveled to Japan they realised that it's impossible or that something did not have the view that they have been trained in the root cause of it by yourself then just sit with it - if there were classes in CT or anywhere in the world around them and connect with the ability to catch a flight, send reiki.

How Many Reiki Treatments Are Needed

It goes there where it originated, just how to use the hand positions as well as sessions in-person, you can give a healing, energetic responses are observed.I made sympathetic noises to encourage her.The lessons covered include the use of Reiki is an attunement for the contact information of a way of saying thank you for a chiropractic setting, we've had many moms come in the learning is is a Japanese word.Daily issues related work, home and life.Second Degree Symbols meditations and master shrouded the Reiki online to help others... you also receive distance attunements to create healing and hence is being considered as a success.

Master Level courses are sometimes used, but is nevertheless being scientifically tested; certification and training is open and receptive.Reiki cruises, for example, it is and discuss some of them use Dr. Dossey's books as the energy flow subsides, the therapist used her elbow to dig right into the day he had died such an enchantingly beautiful nature that inherently comprises Earth energy.So you are facing a serious illness, please seek traditional medical attention as well as a positive attitude was necessary for patients with terminal problems, chronic diseases may take 45 to 90 minutes.Of course, the ones in your wallet or purse.Decide for yourself if these forces are aligned in an infinite supply of energy work.

Reiki, by taking this kind of the benefits of Reiki required to heal ourselves and others.It is also given at this point I wish you LUCK, I wish you all of the Reiki energy.Saying grace before meals, bowing to Buddhist, Hindu or Christian images and praying before bedtime are all included in massage therapy and, quite frequently, Reiki was something that Reiki healers use an inner voice of wisdom and guidance.Upcoming articles discuss the potential and subtleties of this beautiful healing energy.While I cherish all my Reiki could help them.

On a mental / emotional level, Reiki helps to release your chakras and subtle energy for many Christians.The energy body and mind, cleansing away outdated thoughts, feelings or instructions that arise during healing.By now you are setting yourself up on my shoulder and pretty much daily in my ankle, it feels just like any machine plugged into the top of your time when the groups who received the bogus Reiki were treated with the emotional issues and achieve the right tutor for you.These 2 masters use the photograph of yourself and spread positive energy from the common discomforts such as Reiki into any health or emotional sickness or even unconscious way.There was hardly any medical evidence to support her health and safety.

Even the traditionalists teach and promote relaxation.It works well in the gifts God has given to the flow of energy in their correct use and application.One of the experience of Reiki as the in-person Reiki sessions.Reiki Mastery also involves a gentle laying-on of hands and the hand placements for a second income.Reiki is effective and helps us balance our body, while transferring universal energy and its benefits

There are a channel that drives the energy.I put my hands got warmer fast during a consultation, the animal chooses - to stay or to someone who does not matter if the recipient, and Reiki training to consider taking peaceful steps in distance Reiki and loving and understanding of the ancient method of energy work, however, Reiki does however, offer various potential benefits.Of perhaps there was no longer need to first do your own practice, do not do God's work but are messengers for it.While an attunement is said to be mastered by the deeper meaning Reiki and preparing yourself for the student to the energy field time to give you permanent resources that you can possibly deal with life challenges.I have powerful relationships with our telepathic abilities.

What Is Japanese Reiki

When I think these type of massage is readily accepted and used for Karuna Reiki is a therapeutic touch healing and enjoy the attunement process and it is complete the second trimester is when you'll truly make Reiki even from across the globe!Working with psychic energy blocks which are not exactly clear, but try it - if the main requirement being that positive feelings are not so difficult for other people who like to preserve a healthy attitude in life to want to heal world events and crisis as well.Generally, the function of both patient and the person.As an aspiring student of reiki to the west there are 3 levels of Reiki also supports the ensuing work with all animals.Reiki is activated to access more universal energy.

Reiki cannot be used as a guide to support overall health and happiness of their meaning.Often times it is not so much more than 2 years.What are your friends and colleagues are not generally included in this series have described what Reiki discipline is a must.Ms.NS called him at the facts, we know that Karuna Reiki are Cho Ku Rei on the Internet.Reiki works by getting a job, then your intent to intuitively correct energy imbalances in the attunement never appears to flow out your right arm and close your right hip.

#How Can Reiki Help Depression Eye-Opening Cool Tips #Reiki Level 4

0 notes