Race and Healthcare

Once of the issues we'll be exploring this Fall is the connection between health care, health disparities and race. Given all the media attention (some false, some true) that the Health Care reform plan is give, we're including a video of Tim Wise here on CNN. Tim Wise spoke last Spring during our "Be the Change" series.

Organic vs Proactive Diversity

cross posted from To Loosen the Mind

written by Tami Winfrey Harris, editor of Anti-Racist Parent

One of my favorite bloggers/writers is Tami Winfrey Harris. She's brilliant, and she can be found at What Tami Said and at Anti-Racist Parent. Here is just one of the many posts that I love:

written by Anti-Racist Parent editor Tami Winfrey Harris

Diversity is important to personal and community development. Diversity is not organic. Kathleen Parker's article two week's ago in the Washington Post helped me to crystalize my thoughts on diversity, its importance and how community's can achieve successful and beneficial diversity. You may remember that Parker wasn't sold on new radio commercials celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act:

Lately, the fine intent of eliminating discrimination seems to have morphed into diversity advocacy.

Before I proceed, let me say that I prefer a world in which not everyone is the same. I like that my neighbors include a gay couple and a single mother and that several languages are spoken on my street.

But happy diversity is an organic process that results when like-minded citizens congregate around shared values and interests. Often those interests and values have evolved from racial and ethnic identities, but not necessarily. Sometimes neighbors of diverse backgrounds share affection for old houses, or window boxes, or pet-friendliness.

That not all people have access to all the same housing opportunities is called life in a free-market society. But the fair-housing folks want life to be more fair, and the ads are warming us up for some really fun social engineering. Read more...

One of the ads that so disturb Ms. Parker:

The wormiest of three ads posted online features a mother and daughter just home from visiting mom's workplace. Daughter is breathless with wonder at how diverse Mom's workplace is, but wants to know why everyone in their neighborhood "looks just like us?" Dum-de-dum-dum.

Horrors!

I tend to think those who disdain proactive encouragement of diversity are really poor students of human behavior and that they don't really believe in diversity's importance. It feels more secure to be surrounded by people who look and think and eat and worship and work and live and parent the way you do. The echo chamber of homogenity is comforting in the way it tacitly approves of your life and choices. Who wouldn't want this? Like seeks like--it is easiest that way. It is the rare person who likes to be uncomfortable.

Diversity done correctly is almost always uncomfortable--at least a little. Living or socializing or working around people who are different--racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, etc.--requires compromise, requires empathy, requires withholding judgement, requires being open to learning. Being confronted with difference can mean having your way of looking, thinking, eating, worshipping, working, parenting and living challenged. It means having your biases and bigotry challenged (and we don't like to think we have any of those, do we?). But these are good things, yes? The discomfort of diversity yields better people and better communities. Diversity done correctly is also almost always rewarding. But it should be clear why it isn't and never will be "organic."

Anti-Racist Parent columnist Susan Lyons-Joell also weighed in on the article:

What do people want in their neighborhood? How about affordable housing, access to decent hospitals, grocery stores and businesses, a police force on your side, and a good public education and the careers that come with it. It’s no coincidence that neighborhoods where those things are missing are those that overwhelmingly are minority-dominated. That’s not the “free market,” that’s institutional racism held in place by economic disparity. Where one grows up can be a burden or a blessing, and it is not easily negated after the fact. Contrary to what Ms. Parker claims, diverse neighborhoods are not produced deliberately and intentionally – they are more often than not a product of economic and social circumstance. For that matter, so are the non-diverse neighborhoods, like the 1950s white-only enclaves that have only recently begun to have ethnic diversity, as those neighborhoods decline and the white people MOVE OUT.

It must be so nice to be able to pretend that a diverse environment is something willfully chosen or unchosen based on your own personal preference and needs. But it’s not. It’s a social justice issue, showing the inequalities, often along color lines, that still exist in America. There’s nothing “free-market” about a social stratum that is stacked against you from day one because of where you live. Ms. Parker, if you’re not committed to fixing it, you’re part of the problem.

Readers, what do you think?

Thanks to Tami for allowing the cross-post!

Diverse Friends

Cross posted from To Loosen the Mind

And so it begins -- the marathon stretch of birthday parties, graduation parties, long weekend parties, and just-because-its-summer parties. This weekend was no exception.

Except, this time, my husband, who usually doesn't engage me in diversity conversations (knowing that we'll talk about it for the next few hours) actually turned to me during a birthday party and said, "Why are we the only brown people here?"

"Because. We are," was my witty response. "What do we want them to do about it?"

"I mean WHY are we the only brown people here? It's not like there is a shortage of people of color in this area or anything. So, why, in a room full of about 50 people, are we - and our children - the only brown people here?" He began to go on about how the children at the birthday party were all of school age, ranging from 4 year olds to 6 year olds, and that if this was an actual "school" party (the kind where you have to invite everyone in your class), then why were we the only brown people in the room (note: our children don't go to school with the children at the party - we know the parents from college).

"I don't know, honey. Believe it or not, there are people who don't know any people of color - at least not well enough to invite them to their kid's birthday party."

Husband wasn't impressed. "I just don't understand. I don't understand how kids can be in school and not know any children of color."

Needless to say, the party ended but the conversation didn't.

I reminded Husband of all the posts I have written over the past few years, all of the questions very well-meaning white parents write about how to engage in diversity, and all the frustrations people have about truly not having a diverse circle. Husband wasn't implying that the people at the party were racists nor that they were ignorant. Not at all.

Rather, the point he was making was this: How can we truly teach our children to accept others if the "others" are never in the room. How can we teach children to see the beauty in our diverse skin colors if there is only one color in the room? Religion? Regional accents? Hair texture? Language?

And, while this question often gets posed, it's worth bringing it back again -- can we truly learn to accept all people if we only meet one type of person?

Darmouth email and racism

Cheers of joy erupted at the breakfast table (at my Asian family house) when we read that the first Asian president of an Ivy League university was appointed to Dartmouth College. Reading his long list of accomplishments, that included activism in the health care industry and research, certainly helps to diminish the idea the belief that someone could possible pull the "he only got it because he's Asian" card (except for the fact that this is the FIRST time in hundreds of years that this is occuring!).

Then, of course, the other shoe dropped. An email sent out by a Dartmouth student that was.... get this ... included in a larger "newsletter" sent out to over 1,000 alumni and students was an email:

Date: March 3, 2009 11:06:39 AM EST
To: GOOD-MORNING@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU
Subject: Good Morning

This is the Generic Good Morning Message for March 3, 2009.

Yesterday came the announcement that President of the College James Wright will be replaced by Chinaman Kim Jim Yong. And a little bit of me died inside.

It was a complete supplies.

On July 1, yet another hard-working American's job will be taken by an immigrant willing to work in substandard conditions at near-subsistent wage, saving half his money and sending the rest home to his village in the form of traveler's checks. Unless "Jim Yong Kim" means "I love Freedom" in Chinese, I don't want anything to do with him. Dartmouth is America, not Panda Garden Rice Village Restaurant.

Y'all get ready for an Asianification under the guise of diversity under the actual Malaysian-invasion leadership instituted under the guise of diversity. It's a slippery slope we are on. I for one want Democracy and apple pie, not Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. I know I sure as shit won't ever be eating my Hop dubs bubs with chopsticks. I like to use my own two American hands.

Of course, a quick apology was issued - including the heard-it-all-before-passing-the-buck of "I didn't mean for it to be racist" bull -- and that it was meant to be satirical.

Yeah, people's race/ethnicity can certainly be used in humor as a part of a humorous agenda; however, this isn't funny. It isn't appropriate. And, yes it is racist.

Even more disturbing in some comment threads on the Ivy League blogs is the "guess you can't take a joke" type of line.

Post racial America... uh, huh. Sure.