activism 101 - social justice martin donohoe. perspective the earth spins at 1,038 mph at the...
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Activism 101 - Social Justice
Martin Donohoe
PerspectiveThe earth spins at 1,038 mph at the
equator, between 700 mph and 900 mph at mid-latitudes
The earth rotates around sun at 18.5 miles/sec
The solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy at 137 miles/secOne rotation per 225 million years
PerspectiveThe sun is one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way is one of over one hundred billion galaxies in the known universe
The universe may be one of an infinite number of universes
The Planets
Our Solar System
Jupiter = one pixel, Earth = invisible
Sun = one pixel, Jupiter = invisible
Our Home
Earth/Moon Seen by Voyager Spacecraft through Saturn’s Rings
Am I Stoned?A 1999 Utah anti-drug pamphlet warns:“Danger signs that your child may be smoking marijuana include excessive preoccupation with social causes, race relations, and environmental issues”
Harvey Cushing“A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man. He must view the man in his world.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
Important Historical Figures in Medicine/Public Health and Social JusticeFlorence NightingaleClara BartonMargaret SangerThomas HodgkinAlbert SchweitzerRachel CarsonLois Gibbs
Important Historical Figures in Medicine/Public Health and Social JusticeCharles DickensAnton ChekhovUpton SinclairGeorge OrwellWilliam Carlos Williams
Important Historical Figures in Public Health and Social JusticeDr. Thomas Hodgkin (abolitionist and
opponent of British oppression of native populations in South Africa and New Zealand)
Nurse Margaret Sanger (founder of the family planning movement in the US)
Dr. Albert Schweitzer (won Nobel Peace Prize in part for developing a missionary hospital for the poor in Gabon, Africa)
Important Historical Figures in Public Health and Social JusticeFlorence Nightingale (feminist, founder of
the modern nursing profession, and advocate for hygienic hospitals)
Dr. Salvador Allende (assassinated president of Chile and promoter of better living conditions for the poor and working classes).
*The quiet and unknown*
Rudolph VirchowFounder of modern pathology
Thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, leukocytosis, leukemia
Member of state and local government for over 30 years
Founded journal Medical Reform
Rudolph VirchowArgued that many diseases result from “the unequal distribution of civilization’s advantages”
Advocated public provision of medical care for the indigent
Promoted universal education
Rudolph VirchowWorked to outlaw child laborImproved water distribution and sewage system
Enhanced food inspection processPublished study of skull volumes to dispute myth of larger Aryan brains
Rudolph VirchowPassed hygiene standards for public schools
Set new standards of training for nurses
Improved local hospital system
Rudolph Virchow
“Doctors are natural attorneys for the poor … If medicine is to really accomplish its great task, it must intervene in political and social life…”
The Role of LiteratureVicarious experienceExplore diverse philosophiesPromotes empathy, critical thinking, flexibility, non-dogmatism, self-knowledge
Encourages creative thinkingAllows for group discussion/debate
Why Study Literature?“Why live? Life without literature is reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people…It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life more enjoyable.”
M.H. Abrams
Race and Access to CareErnest J Gaines
“The Sky is Gray”
in Gray, Marion Secundy, ed. Trials,Tribulations, and Celebrations: African American Perspectives on Health, Illness, Aging and Loss. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, 1992
U.S. Health CarePer capita expenditure on health
care = $8,160Typical poor African/Asian country = $5-50
49 million uninsured48,000 deaths/yr
Health outcomes poor
Headline from The Onion
Uninsured Man Hopes His Symptoms Diagnosed This
Week On House
Racial Disparities in Health Care:African-AmericansHigher maternal and infant mortality
Higher death rates for most diseases
Shorter life expectanciesLess health insuranceUndergo fewer diagnostic tests / therapeutic procedures
Racial Disparities in Health Care:African-AmericansEqualizing the mortality rates of whites and African-Americans would have averted 686,202 deaths between 1991 and 2000Whereas medical advances averted 176,633 deathsAJPH 2004;94:2078-2081
PovertyOrwell, George. How the Poor Die. In Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds. The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letter of George Orwell, IV; In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc: pp.223-233.
Jacob Riis
Dorothea Lange
Poverty and Inequality in the U.S.22% of children live in poverty
Food insecurity common
Gap between rich and poor widening, largest of any industrialized nation
Poverty Worldwide1.1 billion people lack access to
safe, clean drinking water2.6 billion do not have adequate
sanitation servicesHunger kills 18,000 people per day,
most under age 5
James Nachtwey
Maldistribution of WealthTop 250 billionaires worldwide worth
$1 trillion, the combined income of bottom 2.5 billion people (45% of world’s population)
U.S: Richest 1% of the population owns 50% of the country’s wealth -poorest 90% own 30%-widest gap of any industrialized nation
Overconsumption (“Affluenza”)U.S. = 6.3% of world’s population
Owns 50% of the world’s wealth
U.S. responsible for:25% of world’s energy consumption33% of paper use72% of hazardous waste production
Income InequalityLower life expectancyHigher rates of infant and child mortality
Short heightPoor self-reported healthAIDS
Income InequalityDepressionMental IllnessObesityCrimeDiminished trust in people and institutions (↓ social cohesion/happiness)
Maldistribution of Wealth is Deadly880,000 deaths/yr in U.S. would be averted if the country had an income gap like many Western European nations, with their stronger social safety nets
BMJ 2009;339:b4471
U.S. Constitution/Thomas Jefferson
“All men are created equal”
George Orwell
“Some people are more equal than others”
Voltaire
“The comfort of the rich rests upon an abundance of the poor”
Hudson River, 2009
Primo Levi“A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.”
Homelessness
Doris Lessing. “An Old Woman and Her Cat”
From the Doris Lessing Reader (New York: Knopf, 1988)
Rachel Adams
Homelessness2.5 to 3.5 million people (U.S.)
Increasing incidence7 percent lifetime prevalence (U.S.)
Women’s RightsViolence against womenAccess to reproductive health careFemale genital cuttingPolitical, legal, and educational marginalizationWomen do 67% of the world’s workReceive 10% of global incomeOwn 1% of all property
IssuesEnvironmental degradation
OverpopulationAir and water pollutionToxinsDeforestationGlobal warming
IssuesEnvironmental degradation
Unsustainable agricultural and fishing practices
FamineCommodification of world’s food and water supply by corporations
Species loss
Toxins:Minimata Disease - W Eugene Smith
Wars and Human Rights Abuses250 wars in 20th CenturyWorld military budget = $1,7 trillion
in 2011US - largest military budget, largest
arms supplierGreatest debtor to UN peacekeeping fund
Non-cooperation viz a viz international agreements
Colonial ExploitationChristopher Columbus’ log entry upon
meeting the Arawaks of the Bahamas:“They…brought us…many…things…They willingly traded everything they owned…They do not bear arms…They would make fine servants…With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Colonial ExploitationCecil Rhodes (Rhodesia, Rhodes Scholarship,
DeBeers Mining Company):“We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.”
WarWars often fueled by battles over natural resources:LandWaterGold, diamonds, rare earth metals
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
The Military: Diversion of Resources Away from Health Care3 hours world arms spending = annual
WHO budget1/2 day of world arms spending = full
childhood immunizations for all world’s children
3 weeks of world arms spending/yr. = primary health care for all in poor countries, incl. safe water and full immunizations
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Impediments to Public Health and Social JusticeScientific IgnorancePseudoscienceDamaged educational systemThe corporate media/media
consolidation
All lead to the decline of democracy“Information is the currency of
democracy” (Thomas Jefferson)
What you can doExplore the history of medicineRead great literature
Patients illnesses are storiesDevelop a public health-oriented perspective in care of patients
Find your passion
Work Together“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.“
- Margaret Mead
Speak Up for the Disenfranchised
“The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open.”
- Günter Grass
“First they came for the Jews”by Pastor Niemoller“First they came for the Jews, and I did not
speak up, for I was not a Jew.Then they came for the communists, and I
did not speak up for I was not a communist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
did not speak up, for I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me.”
African ProverbIf you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in your tent
