Category: By Geography

We Beretta Do Something: Gun Violence, Public Health & Their Discontents

 

doctor-gun. Source: spacecoastdaily.com, Creative Commons

Continuing the Institute for Human Rights’ blog series on gun violence, this contribution illuminates a public health lens, offering an evidence-based analysis and pragmatic solutions to the U.S. gun violence epidemic.

Following the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, FL) that resulted in 17 fatalities, mainstream fervor on U.S. gun violence has, once again, returned. Parkland Students have utilized their recent tragedy as a platform to demand an end to gun violence and mass shootings, stressing why their lives matter. According to Amnesty International, the world’s largest grassroots human rights organization, U.S. gun violence is a human rights crisis. Human rights are protected and enforced by international and national policy, and with the U.S. government marshalling many of these treaties and laws, it is, too, culpable of upholding such rights.

The nation’s leading science-based voice for the public health profession, the American Public Health Association (APHA), claims gun violence is one of the leading causes of premature death in the U.S., killing over 38,000 people and injuring nearly 85,000 annually. Gun violence can not only affect people of all backgrounds but disproportionately impacts young adults, men and racial/ethnic minority groups. Recently, Parkland Students teamed with students in Chicago to address inner-city gun violence, a phenomenon commonly overlooked by the media while addressing its threat on young lives. Though most gun violence is not an agent to mass shootings, the APHA claims, in 2017, there were 346 mass shootings in the U.S., killing 437 as well as injuring 1,802.

Furthermore, the American Medical Association (AMA), who leads innovation for improving the U.S. health care system, labeled gun violence “A Public Health Crisis”. At their 2016 Annual Meeting of House Delegates, the AMA actively lobbied Congress to overturn legislation that averts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from researching gun violence. The CDC is one of the leading institutions of the Department of Health Human Services (DHHS), working 24/7 to protect Americans from foreign and native health threats, whether they be chronic, acute, curable or preventable, accidental or intentional. Ultimately, the CDC protects U.S. national security and critical science is imperative to addressing health threats.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a 1993 CDC-funded study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that firearms in the home increased the risk of homicide in the household, as opposed to home protection. This galvanized the National Rifle Association (NRA), a major force in U.S. gun rights and education, to campaign against the CDC and its “anti-gun propaganda”.

In response to this 1993 publication and the NRA’s support, Congress in 1996 passed an appropriations bill known as the Dickey Amendment, named after former Arkansas congressman and NRA member Jay Dickey, which states, “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Almost two decades and thousands of tragedies later, Dickey renounced these restrictions in 2015 by claiming, “Research could have been continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners, in the same fashion that the highway industry continued research without eliminating the automobile.” Despite this humility, the Dickey Amendment persists, curtailing efforts to address gun violence in the U.S.

a picture of a Beretta handgun
Beretta 9000S. Source: James Case, Creative Commons

In the U.S., a common method to circumvent the argument that guns extrapolate acts of violence is to scapegoat people with mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA), the leading voice and conscience of modern psychiatry in the U.S., recently published a book on gun violence and mental health. Specifically, they address the topic of mass shootings and mental illness.

Some popular misperceptions are:

  • Mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent the most significant relationship between gun violence and mental illness.
  • People with serious mental illness should be considered dangerous.
  • Mass shooting will be effectively prevented with gun laws focusing on people with mental illness.
  • Gun laws focusing on people with mental illness, or a psychiatric diagnosis, are reasonable, even if they perpetuate current mental illness stigma.

On the other hand, it is evidence-based that:

  • Mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent less than 1% of all annual gun-related homicides.
  • People with serious mental illness contribute to an overall 3% of violent crimes. An even smaller percentage of them are found to involve firearms.
  • Laws for reducing gun violence that focus on the previously mentioned 3% will be extremely low yield, ineffective, and wasteful of resources.
  • The myth that mental illness leads to violence is perpetuated by gun restriction laws focusing on people with mental illness, as well as the misunderstanding that gun violence and mental illness are strongly linked.

However, a significant caveat related to mental illness and gun violence is suicide. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), who funds research and offers education on suicide, claims depression is one of the most treatable psychiatric illnesses yet is seen in over 50% of people who die by suicide. Suicide lays in the shadow of repetitive, media-frenzied mass shootings, while representing nearly two-thirds of gun-related deaths in the U.S. Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health indicate a number of factors that define lethality of suicide methods, including inherent deadliness, ease of use, accessibility, ability to abort mid-attempt and acceptability — all attributable to gun ownership and usage, specifically in the U.S.  To strengthen civil discourse on gun-related deaths and injuries, we must uphold a national platform for suicide prevention, too. If you or a loved one is experiencing a suicidal crisis or emotional distress, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 (available 24/7).

Last year, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine analyzed data from the Nationwide Emergency Department (ER) sample between 2006-2014 and concluded the U.S. accumulates an annual $2.8 billion in hospitals bills from gunshot wounds, with an average ER cost of $5,254 and approximately $96,000 in follow up care per patient. This study was limited because data was only used for gunshot victims who arrived at the hospital alive; people who did not seek medical treatment or were dead on arrival were not counted. Furthermore, after accounting for lost earnings, rehabilitative treatment, security costs, investigations, funerals, etc., a 2015 Mother Jones report estimated gun violence cost Americans $229 billion annually.

The APHA insists gun violence is not inevitable but preventable, and suggests core public health activities are capable of interrupting the transmission of gun violence. Notable ways to curb gun violence are:

  1. Better Surveillance
    • Increased congressional funding of The National Violent Death Reporting System which is currently employed in 40 U.S. states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
  2. More Research
    • Lifting restrictions on federal funding for research on gun violence. There is barely any credible evidence on the effect of right-to-carry laws.
  3. Common-Sense Gun Policies
    • Criminal background check on all firearms purchases. This includes gun show and internet purchases.
  4. Expanded Access to Mental Health Services
    • Funding for mental health services has declined, so increased financial support for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is advised.
  5. Resources for School and Community-Based Prevention
    • Intervention and preparedness programming to prevent gun violence and other emergencies in communities, namely schools.
  6. Gun Safety Technology
    • Innovation that prevents illegitimate gun access and misuse such as unintentional injuries.

If the above prescriptions are not followed, the tragedies will likely continue. So, it is imperative we support leaders who will encourage gun policy that protects public health and our right to life. Tomorrow, March 24, 2018, people across the world will March For Our Lives, demanding the lives of kids and families, amidst the controversy circling around gun violence, become prioritized.

A march for our lives, your life and mine is exactly what the doctor ordered.

The Responsibility to Protect, Revisited: Gun Ownership in the United States

Tennessee, Tennessee, Ain’t No Place I’d Rather Be

I grew up in rural Northeastern Tennessee, situated 30 minutes from both the Virginia and North Carolina state borders. In my hometown of Kingsport, itself a part of the Tri-Cities, I inherited many traditional Southern cultural mannerisms and beliefs as a growing kid. True to form, I can whip up banana pudding and biscuits and gravy, I sometimes use the word “ain’t”, and I will always hold the door open for others. Southern culture can be a simple one; try sitting on your front porch for the entire weekend – something we in Tennessee consider high entertainment. Tennessee made me a fan of great music (I’m an avid Bonnaroovian), a taste for delicious foods (ever tried Pal’s Sudden Service?), and a reverence of nature. My family, tried-and-true Southern kinsfolk, embody many Southern ideals. Most of these traditions, such as saying, “yes ma’am” and “no sir” are benign. These mannerisms just are – part of the charm of hailing from the South. Tradition is quintessentially Southern.

A photo of the author's family farm in Tennessee.
“Tennessee.” Photo by: Nicholas R. Sherwood

Part of a traditional Southern rearing is a respect for and knowledge of firearms. Almost all members of my extended family know how to operate these weapons using proper gun safety measures. I recall many afternoons as a child refining my marksmanship. This often involved setting up targets (nothing fancy, soda cans would do) across long pastures in the various farms my family owns. All the cousins and our parents would gather ‘round, grilling ribs, searing vegetables, and baking buttery breads. We swam in muddy ponds and hightailed across our properties in four-wheelers. All the while, the children, teenagers, and adults would take turns practice shooting a variety of revolvers, magnums, bolt-action rifles, and muzzleloaders.

This is a Sherwood tradition- we all know how to responsibly fire a weapon.

In my family, gun ownership is a serious endeavor. I vividly remember my uncle and my dad explaining to my sister and me that guns can and do often kill other human beings. To own and operate a gun is to have access to an awesome power, and we only used this power under the strict supervision of properly-trained adults. Firing a gun required two things: every person on the property was safely accounted for and our parents knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that we were mature enough to grapple with the destructive power in our still-growing hands. Today, I am thankful for being desensitized to firearms. I can watch someone shooting a gun and know if they have good or poor form, how to properly handle the weapon, and have the maturity to wield it. Most of the Sherwoods have taken at least one, if not several, Tennessee Hunter’s Safety Courses. This too was crucial to our firearm education. Additionally, many of us have Conceal & Carry permits. This is not to say the Sherwood clan only buys guns just to keep them; we have several avid hunters in our ranks. For us, hunting is a sacred tradition with specific rules we abide by. I was taught never to overhunt in an area – disrupting animal populations would wreck local ecosystems. Thankfully for us, East Tennessee has an overpopulation of deer, meaning local hunters can bag and tag a regulated amount of these animals without destroying the Tennessee natural ecology. In fact, by hunting excess deer, wild apex predators are kept in check and the vegetation deer overconsume is conserved. Descending from a long line of Cherokee Native Americans, instilled in every Sherwood is an understanding that we, like our ancestors, have a responsibility to care for the land around us. Hunting is part of that responsibility.

A Portrait of the Responsible Gun Owner

With this upbringing in mind, when acts of mass gun violence rip through the social fabric of America, I am thrust into a dissonant space. How do I reconcile my upbringing of responsible gun ownership with the dire need to regulate these weapons – for the safety of all Americans? Parsing through these issues, the Institute for Human Rights is currently running a series on gun control in response to the horrific massacres of school-children throughout the United States. It is my intention to show that responsible gun owners do exist, and they too must be a part of this conversation. Moving towards reconciliation of these two issues, public safety and private liberty, I have these questions:

  • What is responsible gun ownership?
  • Is it a regulatory process that educates the general population on gun safety protocols or an ethos of responsibility? Is it both?
  • Does gun control involve federal law, perhaps barring ownership from individuals with moderate to severe psychopathologies, histories of criminality, or a lack of maturity to handle weapons?
  • Is gun control a responsibility to protect the gun owner from his or her own mistakes in handling the weapon, or is gun control a responsibility to protect society at large from individuals with the sole intent to do as much damage in the least amount of time?
  • How do we reconcile the responsibility to protect the most defenseless members of society with the responsibility to protect freedom of thought and behavior?
  • What institutions bar authentic and transformative debates from occurring in the American public sphere and within global civil society at large?

What is undeniable is this: no productive and sustainable progress in gun control will take place without the inclusion of responsible gun owners within the conversation. And all gun owners must accept that governmental limitations on gun ownership is not an existential threat to one’s personal liberty. This limitation is a recognition that an individual’s participation in society requires a widening of responsibility to protect not only one’s immediate family and friends but also the protection of all members in a society. What we are facing here is a tension between individual liberty and the need for a cosmopolitan protection of all members within a society. To resolve this tension, we must first acknowledge that a solution is indeed possible, and that we already have the necessary tools to move towards successful resolution.

Towards this end, we must first define an oft-nebulous construct: responsible gun ownership. I propose a “responsible gun owner” possesses the following qualities:

  1. a working knowledge of local, regional, and national laws that dictate the possession and usage of any and all types of firearms,
  2. a vetting by official state authorities (such as the local police and / or military personnel) on said knowledge of gun possession and usage,
  3. is of sound mental health (yes, this advocates for universal mental health background checks upon purchase of any firearm),
  4. constant usage of a locked gun safe that prevents children and other unqualified persons from accessing firearms,
  5. has undergone a rigorous criminal background check, with a waiting period before firearms can be purchased, requiring an utter absence of violent and harassment-based crimes, such as stalking and intimate partner violence,
  6. an acceptance that gun ownership will always be a contested issue that must be resolved through constant dialogue between all invested parties with concessions on all sides,
  7. a commitment to solution-focused resolution rather than a problem-focused resistance to negotiating gun ownership.

This last point is especially salient. Any meaningful conversation on gun control must arise from a negotiation between second amendment advocates and gun control advocates.

Too often (on both sides of the spectrum) the prevailing narrative of this discourse is a blanket denial of the rights, responsibilities, and needs of all involved parties.

Specific institutions promote this denial and antagonism, thereby promoting a particularly insidious form of structural violence and resistance to civil dialogue. I speak specifically of the National Rifle Association.

A man photographs the National Rifle Association logo.
“NRA” by Bart, Creative Commons.

The National Rifle Association’s Culpability

In the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the National Rifle Association (NRA) participated in a town hall on gun policy in America. In attendance were survivors from the high school, Senator Marco Rubio, local politicians, and the NRA’s spokeswoman, Dana Loesch. Ms. Loesch, a one-time contributor for Breitbart News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, relied heavily on her familiar stumping strategy: invoking the maternal instinct as an emotional appeal to advocate for gun ownership. She and other members of the NRA assert a broad dissemination of guns throughout American society (their opinion of who deserves such weaponry is inconsistent, to say the least) is one of the most promising methods to protect children and other marginalized groups in America from the “people who are crazy” who possess guns. Essentially, the NRA argues more guns in society increase the chances that “good guys with guns” will deter or kill the “bad guys with guns”. This is, of course, tautological.

Flooding the market with guns would increase the likelihood that these “crazy” people get ahold of a firearm. After all, the NRA has made no serious attempt to advocate for mental health reform in response to calls for tightened gun control. The ‘mental health’ argument has long been a smokescreen of the NRA, a method of distraction to bait the normally health-promoting left a fight on mental health care reform. This bait-and-switch technique is a political gambit used by an inherently political institution, and it does a disservice to responsible gun owners throughout the United States.

Furthermore, it duplicitously reduces individuals with mental health issues to be political pawns; this reduction is utterly dehumanizing and offers no solution to the massive structural issues facing access to mental health care in America.

These theatrics add to the antagonism on both sides of the issue. Of course, a critical question remains regarding why such controversy exists: who stands to benefit from these bitter feuds? The answer is overwhelmingly politicians.

Millions of dollars of contributions from the NRA have fundamentally altered how politicians are able to fundraise, which politicians receive adequate funding to mount serious campaigns, and (this is most concerning) when or if a given politician will advocate for common-sense, widely-supported gun control policies in the face of unspeakable tragedy. This puppeteering is, by its very nature, anti-democratic and antithetical of American ideals. This ability to openly buy politicians, including Presidents of the United States, is an existential threat to American democracy. Add in the suspected ties to Russia and the political jockeying on display during CNN’s Town Hall, and you have a political institution that effectively and openly operates as a site of political nepotism and deception. Topping it all, the National Rifle Association has been linked to white supremacy ideology and it’s spokeswoman, Ms. Loesch, accused of encouraging violence as an acceptable form of response for critiquing the NRA. This dimension of intentional structural violence transforms the NRA from an institution not only engaging in political bribery, but also one that reflects tendencies of homegrown terrorism.

In my opinion and personal experience as a responsibly-trained gun user, the National Rifle Association functions a terrorist organization stoking fear and tribalism, thereby driving responsible gun owners away from the debate table on this issue.

Support for the NRA is a moral failure to denounce election-buying, white nationalism, and foreign meddling in the American political system. This support is an abject failure to protect American society from treacherous forces undermining a functional society, and this failure is far beneath the maturity and discipline typically shouldered by responsible gun owners throughout their mastery of weapons capable of both indiscriminately murdering and responsibly nourishing.

Conclusion

As I have stated, responsible gun owners do exist. These individuals see the inherent danger and power in firearms and acknowledge that controlling this power requires specialized education, careful observation, and highly specific locations where guns may be appropriately used. Responsible gun owners must hold other gun owners responsible, whether leading by example or calling out inappropriate practices as they occur. This responsibility extends not only to other gun owners, but to the American public as well. The conversation on gun control requires an intentional suspension of disbelief from both camps in order to find a middle ground in the issue.

I assert responsible gun owners have the moral responsibility to inclusively and adroitly address the legitimate calls for disarmament in the face of such abject horrors and losses exemplified by the recent school shootings throughout America. Without genuine participation in this exchange, gun owners lose the opportunity to educate the public on successful encounters between liberty and responsibility, and they may well lose their firearms as a result. An unwillingness to come to the discussion table with open ears and clear heads will result in the marginalization of responsible gun owners unless they are willing to make strident concessions in the ongoing debate of gun control. Similarly, gun control advocates must accept that responsible gun owners do exist, and these individuals have a constitutional right to bear arms.

The only way the mayhem will stop, the only way lives can be saved, is if both sides accept the only way towards a meaningful and equitable solution for all involved parties will require an intentional partnership to confront and transform the meaningless violence that currently terrorizes the safety of many Americans – most notably schoolchildren.

The first step in this partnership must be a resounding denunciation and deconstruction of the practices and ideologies of the National Rifle Association. You are not a responsible gun owner if you support the NRA in its current form. Only once the NRA has been disbanded, its latent ideology of political radicalism reconciled, can authentic encounters between gun control advocates and responsible gun owners reshape the horrifying trends of gun violence currently annihilating the safety and wellbeing of schoolchildren and marginalized groups throughout the Unites States.

Human Rights and Guns

**Due to the continuing tragedies of gun violence, especially in schools, and stalled legislation, our series on guns and gun control (from two months ago) will repost over this week.  

a picture of the end of a gun tied in a know
pistola floreada. Source: Edith Soto, Creative Commons

The gun rights vs. gun control debate is again at the forefront of our national discourse after 17 people lost their lives in a school shooting in Florida last month. School shootings hit close to home for all of us, and especially those of us engaged in education or with school-aged children. As an educator and mother, this is very personal. We need this public discussion on what our children’s lives are worth to us, on guns, and laws and policies that will help protect us in cases of gun violence.

I have noticed that both sides invoke human rights when they advocate for either gun rights or gun control. The human rights case for gun control is pretty clear and straightforward. Gun control advocates base their claims on the most fundamental human right: the right to life and security of the person (Articles 6 and 9, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Article 6 ICCPR very clearly states that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life” and that states have an obligation to ensure the security of all persons. School shootings fall within the realm of arbitrary taking of life, and therefore need to be addressed by the government. The government has a duty to protect people from these types of events. When the government fails to do so, we speak of a human rights crisis, which is what the Amnesty International has called gun violence in the United States.

The “other side”, namely the gun lobby and gun rights advocates, has used human rights language mostly in terms of “right to own a gun”. Gun control has been said to “be the ultimate human rights violation.” However, this rhetoric is highly problematic.

Let me be very clear:

There is no human right to gun ownership.

Human rights are essentially the opposite of guns. Here is why.

According to the preamble to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person’ and are aimed at achieving ‘freedom from fear and want.” Human rights are moral rights with legal implications. They are about the value of each human life, and about people’s most basic needs. Access to food, water, housing, for example, or equal treatment before and under the law and not to endure discrimination on grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, sex or gender, national or social origin, and disability status. These rights are codified in international human rights treaties or part of customary international law.

The right to own a gun is not mentioned in any human rights document.

It is not part of customary international law or a general principle of law as recognized by the international community. It is not general state practice, which is what you would think following the debates in our own country. In fact, the United States is one of three countries in the world that has included the right to bear arms to their constitution, so it is quite an outlier.Therefore, the fact that the right to own guns is a constitutional right (although there is some debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment) does not mean it is a human right.

The reason the gun lobby is proposing a human right to gun ownership is easy to see. First, human rights are “sexy”, they are “in”. Their proposition reflects an overall trend to construct more and more issues in the language of human rights. Second, calling gun ownership a human right also strengthens their argument – who would not want their position to be supported by an inalienable right? But again, this is not what human rights are. You cannot simply take any individual right and call it a human right. As discussed above, human rights carry greater moral weight than individual rights by themselves. This might be splitting hairs to some, but it is an important distinction. It makes all the difference. Third, gun rights advocates often argue that not only is gun ownership is a human right, but also that the government cannot legally limit this right. That is not how rights work, regardless of whether we are talking about a human right or any other right.

No rights are absolute – they are limited by the rights of others. Governments can certainly limit rights, for national security reasons, for example, or to uphold public order, or to confront a health threat. Take freedom of speech as an example: You cannot say anything you want. You cannot incite murder, leak government secrets, or distribute child pornography. The idea that there is a human right to own guns and that this right is unlimited is incorrect.

But what about self-defense? Isn’t there a human right to individual self-defense from which the right to own guns would follow? This is where things get a bit more complicated. The academic literature contests whether self-defense is a human right. No international human rights treaties or resolutions mention the right to individual self-defense, which leads me to conclude that individual self-defense is not recognized by international law (unlike collective self-defense, which is the right of the state under Article 51 of the UN Charter). The right to life and physical security might imply that states must recognize an individual right to self-defense since states will never be able to defend all individuals from being harmed at all times. However,

the entitlements that flow from a human right are not the same as the human right itself.

For example, the right to work does not include a specific right to conclude a contract for employment. Or the right to freedom of movement does not liberate you from rush-hour traffic.

In short, the assertion that there is a human right to individual self-defense has dubious legal and moral foundations, and scant empirical support. The conclusion that this means there is a right to gun ownership for private citizens is clearly false. A conclusion like this would imply that guns are only be used in self-defense. However, studies have shown that guns are not used in self-defense as often as people claim. A recent study by the FBI showed that in 2012, only 259 homicides were justifiable (in self-defense), but 8,342 criminal gun homicides. In other words, for every one (1) justifiable homicide in the U.S. involving a gun, 32 criminal homicides occurred. This ratio does not take into account gun-induced suicides or fatal accidents involving guns. In other words, the assessment of gun rights cannot depend solely on their positive or negative impact on the right to self-defense, since no gun is inherently limited to defensive use.

Studies have clearly demonstrated that more guns mean more homicides (see here, here, and here). Individuals who have a gun are almost 5 times as likely to be shot in assaults than those who don’t have a gun. Other studies show that living in a home with guns is less safe than living in a home without guns (see here and here). Gun proliferation has a negative impact on the right to life and physical security and can lead to human rights violations. It is, therefore, important for the government to take action and regulate and hinder the proliferation of guns as part of its obligation to protect the right to life, as I explained above.

Human rights and guns do not go together. Using human rights to justify gun rights is not only wrong but it is dangerous. Human rights are about the lives of human beings, about freedom, liberty, and the betterment of these lives. Guns or “gun rights” have no place in human rights discourse; countering gun violence, engaging in public discussion, and instituting gun control do, however.

This is the mission of the March for Our Lives, which is scheduled for this Saturday, March 24, to raise awareness of the gun violence in schools. The March’s mission statement reads: “Not one more.  We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.”

 

The Re-segregation of Schools

**Today is the 64th anniversary of the landmark Brown v Board of Education decision. The decision acknowledged and established the unconstitutionality of the notion “separate but equal”. This blog is a repost from the fall. 

The eraser ends of a pile of pencils.
Back to School. Source: Mark Bonica, Creative Commons

What do you think of when you hear the word “segregation”? You probably flash back to your high school history class, when you learned about the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., bus boycotts, the Little Rock Nine, and Ruby Bridges. Segregation is something we generally think of in the past-tense, as a phenomenon that occurred throughout much of history but ended in the 1960s. A common assumption is that these issues of racial discrimination and segregation on a systematic level are over. However, this is not the case. Schools in the United States seem to be going through rapid re-segregation. A reminder of our nation’s shameful past of dehumanizing and oppressing people on the basis of skin color, the idea is a hard pill to swallow. Many people find it difficult to come terms with our history and find it even more difficult to admit that serious issues related to race are still present in our society.

In 2010, Jefferson County opened Gardendale High School, one of the few high schools in the county that were actually well-integrated. By 2012, the campaigning for the secession of the schools of Gardendale from the district school system had begun. The concept of city school systems has grown increasingly popular in recent years. Many communities believe that it would be best if the taxes from their local areas only contribute to local schools. They have made claims that they believe that this would greatly improve the academic success of schools. In the case of Gardendale, these claims are not well supported. Creating a new school system would actually make it more difficult for students to attend the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate school (JCIB), which has been ranked by the Washington Post as the best school in Alabama and the seventeenth best school in the country. In order to attend JCIB, students would have to pay $1,500 in out-of-district tuition. In 2013, the Gardendale City Council voted to create a separate school system, and a new property tax was implemented later that year in order to fund the new system. An all-white school board and superintendent were then appointed for the system.

However, there were still obstacles for the new school system. Jefferson County is still under the desegregation order from the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Gardendale would have to receive approval from Birmingham’s federal court in order to secede from the district. There were three main forces that all agreed that allowing Gardendale to secede would create significant problems for the efforts to continue desegregation. Representing the black children of Jefferson County was Legal Defense Fund Lawyer, Monique Lin-Luse. The Obama administration had involved the revitalizing of the civil rights division of the Justice Department. Jefferson County had just hired a new superintendent who was dedicated to desegregation. Though the residential area of Gardendale is 88% white, the schools are 25% black due to the busing of students from North Smithfield. For the majority of residents who want a completely separate school system for the city, the goal is to have a system that contains only students who live in Gardendale. Though this would not completely remove all of the black students, it would seriously reduce the number of them.

A row of school buses.
School Buses. Source: JohnPickenPhoto, Creative Commons

In the court decision regarding the Gardendale school system, the judge, Madeline Hughes Haikala, found that the motivation for the secession of Gardendale was undoubtedly based in a desire to control the racial demographics of the city’s schools. Despite this, Gardendale was not exactly denied their request. For the 2017-2018 school year, the city of Gardendale is operating Gardendale Elementary School and Snow Rogers Elementary independently from Jefferson County. If the city is able to run the schools for three years “in good faith,” then they have a chance at a full secession from the district. They were given three requirements. First, they are obligated to appoint a black board member to the school-board. Second, they must work with the plaintiffs of the decision and the Justice Department to create a desegregation plan for the new district. Lastly, they must either give up Gardendale High School, which was paid for by the residents of Jefferson County, or repay the $33 million that the county spent building the school. If Gardendale can show “sufficient” evidence of integration, then they will be released from the court order.

The release from this court order would be much more significant than one might think. Let us consider Central High School in Tuscaloosa, whose city school system was released from its desegregation order in 2000. By the 1980s, Central had developed into a very well-integrated school. However, after the desegregation order ended, and a new school was built in the mostly white and affluent part of the county, 99% of the Central High School students were black. Combined with the United States’ long history of systematic racism and economic disparities, this also led to the school having higher rates of poverty and less access to important academic resources. This shows that even a “sufficiently” integrated school has the potential to re-segregate without a desegregation order.

Clearly, the inequalities re-segregation creates between black and white students are unjust and need to be addressed, but it is important to realize that re-segregation is wrong regardless of whether or not it has negative impacts on black students. Even in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Brown family was not pursuing the issue because of a dissatisfaction with the quality of education at the all black school their daughter attended, but because black and white children should not be separated simply because of race.

When it comes to specific cases, such as in Gardendale, it can be easy to be misled by what seem to reasonable claims, such as the improving of education, that do not actually have any solid support. We have to pay attention to the larger scale impacts of situations like the one in Gardendale. If we do not pay full attention to the things that are happening, we can overlook serious effects of seemingly small situations. Tuscaloosa and Gardendale are just two of many places in Alabama where systematic racism is still very much a living issue. We cannot allow ourselves to be complacent or to think that racism is over. The fact of the matter is that slavery occurred over hundreds of years, and legal racial segregation continued long after that. It would be foolish to believe that everything would be perfect only 63 years after the Brown v Board decision and 53 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Change takes time and diligence. This makes it absolutely necessary that we be fully aware of what is going on in our own backyard.

 

Child marriage and the human rights of girls

Delaware, on May 9, 2018, became the first US state to prohibit child marriage, removing loopholes and exceptions that currently exists in marriage laws in every other state. This historic legislation–the first of its kind in the US–champions and protects the rights of children, especially girls. **This blog is a repost from 2016.

A child bride in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Source: SAM Nasim, Creative Commons
A child bride in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Source: SAM Nasim, Creative Commons

 

Imagine for a moment that you are a 13-year-old girl. Your parents are no longer as cool as they were when you were in elementary school but life on the whole is pretty chill. With the exception of awkward junior high encounters with people of the opposite sex, the occasional bully, unbearable PE class, and dreadful puberty, being a kid isn’t awful. Personally, you’ve graduated from earning coins for your chores to actual dollar bills and from having a pink room filled with stuffed animals to one with posters of your favorite boy band and magazine cutouts of women you want to dress like when you turn 18. At 18, real life happens. At 18, you’re an adult and the whole world knows it! Everything about your 13-year-old life is moving towards adulthood until your parents let you know that one of their friends is interested in marrying you. He is a nice man who is at least 10, 20, 30 years older than you so he will be able to take care of you, just like you were his own child. Except that you would not be his child, you’d be his wife. In all the ways a wife takes care of a husband…

 

Children are not small adults. They are molded by socialization as a result of the physical and cultural contexts of their lives (Boothby, 2006; Goodhart, 2013). They are vulnerably presented and completely dependent upon adults, typically parents, for the purpose of nurturing potential and protecting innocence (Garbarino, 1991). Garbarino asserts, “childhood is a special period in the life course when we shield the individual from the direct demands of the economic, sexual, and political forces of the adult world” (p. 10). Childhood is the loci for growth and development.  

The United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), signed in 1989, defines who qualifies as a child and outlines ideas on how to care for those most vulnerable among us. For the purpose of this blog post, I will appropriate the definition of a child as defined by the CRC:

The Convention defines a ‘child’ as a person below the age of 18, unless the laws of a particular country set the legal age for adulthood younger. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the monitoring body for the Convention, has encouraged States to review the age of majority if it is set below 18 and to increase the level of protection for all children under 18.

The notion of childhood was recognized as law by the international community with the passage of the CRC (Garbarino, 1991; Goodhart, 2013). The childhood experiences of the female differ so dramatically from the male. In 2013, Malala Yousafzai’s speech to the UN leadership, reintroduced the female experience into the global narrative as she requested improvement for and protection of the rights of women and girls. There is a significant disparity and cultural bias when attempting to define the daily lives of children, particularly girls, living in the global South and developing nations as compared to those in the global North and developed nations (Boothby, 2006). The United States of America is the only country in the world that has not ratified the CRC.

Girl wearing a wedding dress. Source: Amy Ann Brockmeyer, pixabay.com
Girl wearing a wedding dress. Source: Amy Ann Brockmeyer, pixabay.com

Child marriage is legal in the United States. In Massachusetts between 2010 and 2014, 200 children were married. The state does not have a “minimum age to get married, as long as minors receive judicial approval. Minors don’t need a lawyer, and the petition is only half a page. Parental approval is required, although with several exceptions.”

There were 4,500 children married over the course of 2004-2013 in the state of Virginia, and more than 200 of them were under the age of 15. On July 1, 2016, the state of Virginia passed a law that only adults could marry in the state. This new law replaced portions of the marriage law that had allowed for girls “13 or younger to marry if she had parental consent and was pregnant.” The new law has set the minimum marriage age at 18 but it also allows for emancipated minors of 16 to enter into marriage if a judge decides to overrule the law. Judges have the power to overturn this newly implemented law on the basis of four ideas:

  1. If the minor is not being compelled to marry
  2. If the parties are mature enough to get married
  3. If the marriage will not endanger the minor
  4. If marriage is in the best interest of the minor

Child marriage is illegal in some parts of the world, although it is common. Guatemala has recently increased the age of marriage to 18, while acknowledging there will need to be a cultural paradigm as to the relevant implication of “recognizing the full potential of girls and reframing how girls should be treated in society”. In Nigeria, child marriage is illegal; however, in the Northern, predominantly Muslim region of the country, the law is implied rather than enforced. Fifteen year-old Nigerian Wasila Tasi’u is a murderer. She poisoned her 35-year-old husband and three other men. For ten months, Tasi’u awaited trial in a Nigerian jail where she faced the death penalty. She was acquitted and will live with a foster family. Maryam Uwais believes this to be “an entirely avoidable tragedy, leaving in its wake four dead men and a thoroughly traumatised little girl. Poison – the only feasible escape to freedom – devised from the wild imagination of a naive, depressed little girl caught up in a painful forced marriage to a much older man. A tough lesson for families, communities and a government that is still ambivalent about sanctioning the perpetrators of child marriage.” The social justice organization, Girls Not Brides, has ranked Nigeria 13th in countries with the highest rates of child marriage, despite a governmental declaration entitled, Child Rights Act of 2003–which was created to make every action concerning a child and his/her best interest, a paramount consideration.

Child marriage impacts the female child more than the male child. Childhood creates the revelation of identity.

Young females in the West and developing nations should capitalize on their girlhood, embracing it as a time to discover themselves—their identity, their relationships with men, what boundaries or rules they can break without consequence, and to receive an education.

For child brides, the whimsy of girlhood is non-existent because they enter womanhood before they fully grasp puberty. The US has relegated the creation and implementation of marriage laws to the state level. The age of majority is 18 in the US. Although the state law of Virginia or Alabama [AL code 30-1-4] allows for a 16-year-old to marry, majority of Americans as well as the international world, she is still a minor who cannot vote, buy alcohol, work after 8pm, and possibly carries a high school identification card. For the thousands of children—90% of whom are girls—this change comes too late.

Child marriage does not take place solely in poor communities. In Virginia, the new law arose when Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel learned that a high school student in an affluent Northern Virginia district dropped out of school when she married a man in his fifties. The marriage, granted by the parents, halted all child-protection services. It is illegal to engage in sexual activities with a minor yet marriage laws make allowances and create caveats for offenders to marry their victims, rather than facing justice for their illegal behavior. Jeanne Smoot of Tahirih Justice Center states that the “laws can facilitate forced marriages of children.”  It is to be understood that not all marriages are forced; however, who is standing up for the rights of the child to remain a child? The laws may not facilitate forced marriage of children, but they are failing to protect children from the threat of human trafficking, statutory rape, divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, poverty, mental health issues, premature death, and becoming a murderer.

Child marriage makes children targets because the authorities given agency to ensure their best interest aren’t always acting on the behalf of the child. Fraidy Reiss declares that children are not equipped to live and play in an adult world, considering the imbalance of power when married to an adult and lacking adequate resources to acquire help and freedom. Gerison Lansdown, Tony Waterson, and David Baum acknowledge that governments are failing to honor the four principles of the CRC as they relate to the world’s children, but also argue that lack of knowledge within civil society is not a valid excuse. “Ultimately the government is responsible for the full implementation of the convention” and everyone working with children need to do their part in helping to protect their rights (1565-6). Diana Francis identifies it as “people power.” People power is the decision to act at “any level…ensuring that those who have been the subjects of structures of domination discover and develop the power to participate in what affects them” (Francis, 2002). In other words, it is the voice of the collective speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, in order to arrive at justice and democracy for all.

UN banner promoting the Sustainable Development Goals. Source: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/
UN banner promoting the Sustainable Development Goals. Source: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/

Ending child marriage around the world is an essential target in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as a Sustainable Development Goal of the UN. The UN is responsible for global governance. It offers suggestions that may be refused if the country deems it is not in their best interest. Joel Oestreich says that despite being considered a Western ideal, countries have signed the CRC, recognizing it as a model of international consensus building and allowing UNICEF to work intra-nationally as well as internationally in order to provide the implantation of CRC standards as a way of life for the children (184). African nations have identified the necessity of bringing an end to child marriage; there needs to be long-term strategies, governmental infrastructure, and a responsible civil society working together to see an advancement. The same can be said of the United States. As a result of the Virginia legislation, bills are set to pass in California, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. Nelson Mandela concluded that each of us as citizens, has a role to play in creating a better world for our children.

 

Works Cited:

Boothby, Neil, Alison Strang and Michael Wessells. A world turned upside down: Social Ecological Approaches to Children in War Zones. Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 2006. Print.

Francis, Diana. People, Peace and Power: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. London: Pluto, 2002. Print.

Garbarino, James, Kathleen Kostelny and Nancy Dubrow. No place to be a Child: Growing Up in a War Zone. Massachusetts: Lexington, 1991. Print.

Goodhart, Michael. Human Rights: Politics and Practice. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.

Additional Resources:

Callaway, Rhonda L. and Julie Harrelson-Stephens. Exploring International Human Rights: Critical Connection – Studies in Peace, Democracy, and Human Rights. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2007. Print.  

World Policy Forum

UNICEF Child Marriage

America’s Child Marriage Problem by NY Times

Child Marriage is an unseen problem in US by Boston Globe

Child Marriage Video

UNICEF Video

 

 

When You Are Ready for the Baby Carriage: Black Maternal Health and Disparities

by MARTINIQUE PERKINS WATERS, Ph.D. 

a maternity shoot
Source: Ariane Hunter, Creative Commons

I did something very interesting in my mid-twenties. I asked a few of my family members if they would be willing to be a surrogate if I could not have children. Now, let me preface this by saying I never had any kind of health issues and most women in my family conceived with no problem. My OB/GYN never mentioned irregularities, fibroids, or cysts. My graduate school research had nothing to do with women’s health so I was not inundated with facts and figures. Yet, here I was already concerned and worried (with no discussion of even a long-term future with my partner at the time might I add). My wonderful family, including my mother, tentatively agreed but I am sure were thinking “she has to be joking”. I had never been more serious; I wanted to have options. I did not know what would happen when my womanhood was called out on stage. As women, that is how so many of us define ourselves, right? This is what famed Developmental Psychologist Erik Erikson called generativity: deciding how we will contribute to future generations. In his theory, however, he felt that people usually did not start worrying about this legacy until middle age (or at the very least until a partner was on board), but here I was already thinking about my grandchildren.

About 5 years later, while I was teaching Public Health and Medical Issues in African American Communities, I discovered the documentary series, “Unnatural Causes.” Unnatural Causes delves into the relationship between social conditions and population health. When it came time to discuss health disparities as related to women’s issues, the episode “When the Bough Breaks” was perfect. One statement in the video astounded me: Black women with advanced degrees have worse birth outcomes than White women without a high school diploma. I nearly cried in front of my class. It not only took me back to my concerns in my 20s, but I had just found out I was pregnant with my first child. Would I, a Black woman with a PhD in her early 30s, not be able to carry full-term? Infertility issues, low birthweight babies, and high-risk pregnancies can absolutely influence any woman and family. However, research has uncovered unique circumstances that impact the maternal health of Black women.

Physical Factors

The 2006-2010 National Survey on Family Growth interviewed over 20,000 men and women about family life, pregnancy, infertility, general health, and reproductive health. Chandra and colleagues found non-Hispanic Black women were 1.8 times more likely to report fertility issues compared to non-Hispanic White women. This finding was true among married women as well.  It is possible that uterine fibroids, benign tumors in the uterus, affect fertility. Reproductive Science is a relatively young field (compared to Obstetrics and Gynecology which date back to the 19th century), therefore the relationship between uterine fibroids and infertility is far from definitive. However, race/ethnicity is a well-established risk factor for uterine fibroids with Black women developing uterine fibroids at an earlier age than White women. A recent analysis of couples in a reproductive medicine clinical trial found that Black women with uterine fibroids were more likely to miscarry before 12 weeks compared to White women with uterine fibroids. Researchers are trying to identify genetic causes but that will not help the thousands of Black women trying to conceive now.

Psycho-social Factors

Were you ever told babies do not grow in a hostile womb? I heard that at some point in life. During my first trimester, I learned this new information about health disparities in pregnancy outcomes and I was going through a career transition. I was stressed out. Stressors cause the body to release cortisol, which is a necessary hormone when you need to react during intense situations. However, long term exposure to cortisol weakens your immune system and puts you at risk for disease. There is a significant amount of data to support that high levels of cortisol (from continual exposure to stressors) throughout pregnancy can impact the development of your baby. At the same time stress, as a psychological and emotional reaction, is at the center of two of the most common psychological disorders: anxiety and mood.

Anxiety disorders often include fear, tension, nervousness, and dizziness whereas mood disorders often include a sense of hopelessness, fatigue, depression, and an inability to concentrate. Although pregnancy does not increase the likelihood that you will develop either disorder, whether stressed or not, undiagnosed psychological disorders prior to pregnancy can advance further because the symptoms go undetected due to similarities with the normal experience of pregnancy. Dealing with the stigma of mental health issues in the Black community will have to be for another time, different blog! What should a Black woman dealing with certain psychological and emotional symptoms, particularly as stressors, do? Best solutions to deal with stress: walk, yoga, cut out unnecessary activities, watch TV, journal, eat well, and countless other suggestions from books and websites about de-stressing your life. I will admit that I failed miserably in completely de-stressing but I did manage to incorporate a few suggestions over my pregnancy.

a pregnant Black woman sitting on a windowsill
maternity 5. Source: Ariane Hunter, Creative Commons

How can Black women deal with cultural, historical, and intergenerational stress…the kind of cumulative stress that comes from 400 years of slavery, racism, and discrimination? The pervasive stress that has entrenched itself in the Black psyche? Yes, it is absolutely in there, but it has not just remained in our minds as simple negative thoughts. If that were the case, we could have some sessions of cognitive therapy, learn to counteract those aversive thoughts, and stop perceiving the world as a threat. When one examines racial differences in health outcomes with all things being equal across the racial groups, for example money, education, health care access, and family life, health disparities are still present. Scholars have offered the historical trauma of Blacks throughout the course of US history as an explanation. Could racism not be another explanation for infertility? According to Prather and colleagues, it is the perfect explanation for the social conditions endured by Black women that ultimately influence sexual and reproductive health outcomes.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is additional research on the impact of lack of quality healthcare for Black women experiencing fertility issues. Differences in healthcare options affect the recommended treatment and patient understanding of alternatives. There are also observed racial differences in In Vitro Fertilization usage, with money most often the biggest deterrent.  Low-income families are very likely unaware that there are grants available to assist with infertility treatment. These are macro-level factors that require changes in resource distribution, medical training, and public policy. And I ask again, how does it help the Black woman trying to conceive now?

As it turns out, I worried for no reason as I thankfully have two healthy and beautiful little girls. I want to ensure that my outcome continues to be the norm rather than the exception going forward. In my opinion, increased awareness of this problem in the Black community will cause a push for more research on racial disparities in fertility issues. Only then will we begin to see changes that will eventually trickle down to support for another young girl in her 20s wondering “can I conceive?”

 

Dr. Martinique Perkins Waters is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavior Sciences at the University of West Alabama. She obtained a PhD in Lifespan Developmental Psychology from UAB in 2010 and since then has taught a variety of courses for Psychology, African American Studies, and Public Health. For over 10 years, Dr. Waters’ research has broadly related to gerontology with specific interest in the social role of caregiving and how that impacts physical, mental, and emotional health.

Disarmament: Redefining the Power Perspective

**In light of yesterday’s announcement to withdraw from another international accord, the US, once again, positions itself as unwilling to cooperate with and participate in the international community. This blog is a repost from the fall. 

a picture of an abandoned nuclear bombs storage in Germany
Nuclear Weapons Depot S (1). Source: Jan Bommes, Creative Commons

Talks surrounding disarmament and nuclear weapons, including threats by North Korea against Japan, South Korea, Guam, and the US, are in abundance of late. However, the decision of the Nobel Peace Prize community to award this year’s prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a key development in the disarmament conversation, seems to have fallen by the wayside. Gene Sharp, a nonviolence theorist, demands, “A reexamination of the problem of war and the possible means for its solution must begin with a recognition of the failure of past movements and the proposals for the abolition of war.” In laymen’s term: the repetition inherent in the conversations of the status quo surrounding war, defense, and the military prove little in their manifestation of peace and its maintenance on a national and global level. To this end, he argues for a redefinition and reconceptualization of the true nature of war as it relates defense, deterrence, and peace. This blog briefly explains disarmament while celebrating the achievement of the organization and the treaty.

Disarmament consists of the reduction of and/or total elimination of military force and weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. International disarmament is an essential component in the creation of “global norms…vital to the sustainable development, quality of life, and ultimately the survival of the planet.” ICAN is a grassroots, cross-cultural, and international NGO movement taking the lead in “reshap(ing) the debate on nuclear weapons” by working with survivors of US atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dignitaries and actors, and the United Nations. On July 7, 2017, the UN General Assembly convened and negotiated a legally binding treaty calling for “multilateral disarmament negotiations… and establish general prohibitions and obligations as well as a political commitment to achieve and maintain a nuclear-weapon-free world.” Ambassadors from at least eight of the nuclear powerhouse countries were not in attendance.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) identifies China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and the US as the least peaceful when accounting for the combined nuclear threat to international peace and security over the last seven years. “There has been a decline in militarization over the past three decades. Globally, the economic impact of violence…is enormous. Current peacebuilding spending on building peace is well below the optimal level”. GPI reveals an increase of resources utilized for the creation and containment of violence but few on the cultivation and maintenance of peace. Peacebuilding, whether domestically or internationally, does not appear as a priority of the current administration.

The majority of humanity understands the power of words; there are studies and reports confirming the power of positive confession and the purposeful use of written and spoken words. The word ‘peace’ appears in the US Government budget three times, whereas ‘defense’ appears 70. According to A New Foundation for American Greatness: Fiscal Year 2018 Budget for the US Government, the administration lays out the eight pillars of American reform and outlines a reprioritization of federal spending “to unleash the power of American work and creativity—and drive opportunity and faster economic growth… so that it advances the safety and security of the American people.” In other words, American creativity, work, opportunity, and growth is tied to the $639 billion US Defense budget with discretionary overview of $574.5 billion dollars–more than the combined proposed discretionary overview for the remaining cabinet departments, including education and labor. It is important to remember: discretionary allows a consumer to spend money on wants rather than on needs. The Defense budget sends a message to the world about the resolve and strength of America as a fulfillment of a Trump promise to focus on the safety of Americans from terrorists and other violent offenders.

a picture of an abandoned nuclear weapons depot in Germany
Nuclear weapons Depot S (4). Source: Jan Bommes, Creative Commons.

America, in the past as an international leader, bore much of the financial responsibility for multilateral cooperation. However, with the steady withdraw of financial support and non-appearances at UN agency meetings, the US government reaffirms its value for national defense over participating in creation of international peace and security for all. In their article, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”, Schultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn argue the US has a unique opportunity to lead the way in reversing the global reliance on nuclear weapons. Written in 2007, they suggests nuclear weapons “were essential to maintaining national security during the Cold War…but reliance on for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly ineffective.” Highlighting the words of former US Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, they posit a bipartisan presidential agreement since Nixon regarding the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and remind how the Reagan-Gobachev agreement turned the conversation of arms race on its head. They conclude that a world without nuclear weapons because of multilateral cooperation aligns with the moral heritage of America.

Societies often equate defense with military; however, Sharp questions whether a redefinition of the function of the military in terms of deterrence or defense, can assist in the creation and acceptance of nonviolent solutions. Defense is employed as a function of “internal domination or is used to disguise for the home population what is in fact an attack on another country.” He establishes a need for the military while suggesting reliance on the military is the international symbol of an independent state unable to recognize: the provision of massive death and destruction, the inability of others to defend themselves against the impending destruction and death, and nonmilitary forms of resistance are possible as national defense. Unfortunately, the application of negative descriptions for alternatives to war render them passive, soft, submissive, and interdependent. In other words, the characterization of war and military power is masculine, and nonviolence and cooperation is feminine.

The unintended consequences of war heavily burden women and girls who “have responsibility and no power” due of the gendered division of labor, placing men in the public sphere and women in the private sphere. Antrobus postulates the intersectionality of the female life offers a unique perspective on the interplay of war and gender; the UN agrees. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons notes the disproportionate impact on women and girls, and indigenous people when considering the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” of using nuclear weapons. Additionally, it reaffirms the principles of humanity as a public conscience, and recognizes the need for female participation in the peace process by supporting and strengthening the input of women as equal to men.

“Recognizing that the equal, full and effective participation of both women and men is an essential factor for the promotion and attainment of sustainable peace and security, and committed to supporting and strengthening the effective participation of women in nuclear disarmament.”

Boulding points out understanding and valuing the feminine perspective in a ‘male-dominated’ area requires men “in tune with the feminist redefinition of political goals and processes.” Collaboration can yield results, which extend beyond the short term through the identification of alternatives while working within the standardized international relations model. In short, the nature of peacemaking, peacebuilding, and peacekeeping requires an egalitarian and gender equal value based partnership stance, capable of visualizing and verbalizing the long-term ramifications of short-term solutions on global humanity, rather than one nation and her citizens.

 

From Memory to Action: “Never Again” Begins with You

by W. JAKE NEWSOME, Ph.D.

Courtesy of USHMM.org

This month the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum marks its 25th anniversary. This offers a chance to reflect on the mission and work of the Museum, and also an opportunity to look forward at how we will ensure the permanent relevance of Holocaust history for new generations, reach global audiences, and create more agents of change who will work to make the future better than the past. Working with partners like the Institute for Human Rights at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is vital in achieving this mission.

In the fall of 1978, President Jimmy Carter established the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which was charged with the responsibility to submit a report “with respect to the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust.” One year later, the Commission concluded that the memorial could not be a static monument. Instead, it should be a “living memorial” with a strong educational component. The result was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, an institution that is both a memorial to Holocaust victims and a museum that educates visitors, collects and preserves evidence, and produces leading research and scholarship. The Commission also issued a call to action, concluding that “A memorial unresponsive to the future would also violate the memory of the past.” As such, in addition to honoring the memory of Holocaust victims, the mission of the Museum is to inspire leaders and citizens worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity.

When the Museum was dedicated and opened to the public on April 22, 1993, its founding chairman Elie Wiesel told the crowd, “This Museum is not an answer. It is a question.” For the past 25 years, this is how the institution has approached its work: relentlessly exploring complex questions about history and human nature. We have designed programs and resources that not only ask what the Holocaust was, but delve deep into explorations of how and why it happened. Moreover, we aim to prompt people to recognize the importance of this history’s lessons about humankind and societies, and to take an active role in confronting divisions that threaten social cohesion.

It is a sad reality that in the near future, we will live in a time when there are no more eyewitnesses to the Holocaust alive to share their stories. It is more important than ever, therefore, to teach the next generation of emerging adults about the Holocaust as a way to ensure the lasting memory of the victims. As Wiesel says, “I believe firmly and profoundly that anyone who listens to a Witness becomes a Witness, so those who hear us, those who read us must continue to bear witness for us. Until now, they’re doing it with us. At a certain point in time, they will do it for all of us.”

In that spirit, the Museum works with diverse audiences to demonstrate the importance of honoring the memory and exploring the universal lessons of the Holocaust, even if one doesn’t have a direct connection to the history. These audiences include judges, the military, law enforcement, youth, and faith communities.

Youth Summit 2017. Courtesy of USHMM.org.
Youth Summit 2017. Courtesy of USHMM.org.

As the next generation of thought-leaders and changemakers, college students have been an important audience for the Museum. To date, through a wide range of resources, traveling exhibits, seminars, lectures, conferences, and other programs, the Museum has engaged more than 630,000 college students, faculty, and local community members on 545 college and university campuses in 49 states across the United States.

American college students’ interests with the history of the Holocaust are different across the country. Their own background, upbringing, and educational experiences shape how they approach and understand the history of the Holocaust and its relevance to their own lives. As such, the Museum recently launched an initiative to put the history of the Holocaust into conversation with local or regional histories in the United States. This initiative enriches campus dialogue by provoking critical thinking about the history of antisemitism, racism, extrajudicial and state-sanctioned violence, and the power and limits of human agency in different historical contexts. By examining themes through the lens of multiple histories, the Museum connects with new audiences and works with partner campuses to educate students about the history of the Holocaust, model how to responsibly research and talk about different historical contexts, and facilitate informed dialogue about the lessons and contemporary relevance of those histories.

Over the past year, the Museum has been working with faculty and students at universities across the Southeast region on a series of programs that explore the histories of race and society in Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South. These programs are neither an equation of suffering nor meant to gloss over the uniqueness of each historical period. Instead, they bring communities together to explore what can be learned from studying the similarities, differences, and gray zones of these two histories.

Courtesy of USHMM.org.

In February 2018, the Museum, with the UAB Institute for Human Rights, organized a capstone event of this regional program: a two-day interdisciplinary symposium entitled Bystanders and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South. In total, 401 people from 10 states — including 203 college students, 20 high school students, 47 faculty, staff, and teachers, and 131 local community members — gathered together to explore the complexity of these histories.

Through this symposium, history became a way to build common understandings, bring diverse communities together, and foster a sense of human solidarity. Although — or perhaps because — participants came from many different backgrounds, we understood that we were discussing more than just past events. Our conversations posed timeless questions: about relevance to our lives today, about the vulnerability of societies, about democratic values and human nature.

Attendees and presenters discussed how, when, and why ordinary people supported, complied with, ignored, or resisted racist policies in two very different systems of targeted oppression and racial violence. It takes a critical minority of determined leaders with the support of an acquiescent general population to introduce and establish state-sanctioned racism, antisemitism, and violence. The extreme examples of Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South show that the majority of the population in these two worlds witnessed the widespread persecution against a targeted minority and either actively or passively tolerated what they saw, thus enabling the continuation of persecution and raising pressing questions about the role of onlookers and the nature of complicity. Examining the role of ordinary people, therefore, provides us with a better understanding of how and why such atrocities like the Holocaust could happen. This focus also helps us to make a more intimate connection to the history since we often each think of ourselves as an “ordinary person,” rather than as a victim, perpetrator, or bystander.

Niemoeller Quote
Niemoeller Quote. Courtesy of USHMM.org.

Dr. Beverly Eileen Mitchell, Professor of Historical Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary, delivered the symposium keynote address: “Racism and Antisemitism: Sibling Threats.” She argued that we cannot understand antisemitism and racism as separate prejudices that each affect only one particular group of people. History reveals that while the two may manifest uniquely, racism and antisemitism are children of the same father: white supremacy. “Lessons from history can shed light on what is happening in our own time, if we pay attention,” she says. A key lesson, Prof. Mitchell concluded, is that we all must actively confront discrimination, even when it does not affect us or our community directly, because hate against one group ultimately grows to affect us all. “We must remain vigilant. … There are no innocent bystanders where white supremacy is concerned.”

A highlight of the symposium was “Keeping the Memory Alive,” a session that featured a conversation between Riva Hirsch, a Holocaust survivor, and Josephine Bolling McCall, whose father was lynched in Alabama in 1947. These two women shared their powerful stories about the dangers and personal impact of racial violence and genocide. Their testimony ensured that their memories would be carried on by others. “Don’t ever stop learning about the Holocaust,” Hirsch told the crowd. “Don’t ever stop talking about it. There are people who say that it never happened, but I’m here to tell you all that it happened to me. To you youngsters out there: our memory is in your hands.” But the women also issued a challenge, urging everyone to speak up when they see discrimination. “You can’t wait for someone else to do something,” McCall said. “All it takes is one person to change someone’s mind for the good. Be that one person.”

The women’s parting words reflect a guiding principle of our Museum’s work: when you learn about how and why the Holocaust happened, you now have a moral obligation to act on that knowledge and to confront hatred and promote human dignity.

photo of Riva and Josephine
Josephine and Riva. Courtesy of USHMM.org

As we honor the memory of Holocaust victims during the Museum’s 25th anniversary, we recommit our affirmation that the exploration of this dark history must illuminate lessons that can guide us in our mission. One important lesson is that, as individuals in a pluralistic society, we have a responsibility to each other, to defend against threats to social cohesion, and to protect democratic institutions. Second, the confluence of motivations, pressures, fears, and concerns of daily life means that moral choices are not always clear or easy, yet we must commit to making the moral choice. Our (in)actions have unintended consequences and reverberate further than we may realize. What you do matters.

And finally, one of the most important lessons is that the Holocaust was preventable. “That’s not just a statement of fact,” says Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield. “It is a challenge to all of us.” After the Holocaust, the world promised “Never Again.” But this promise cannot only apply to mass atrocities or genocide. It is up to each of us to make sure that “Never Again” is a challenge to combat discrimination, prejudice, and hatred before it evolves into violence. Never Again begins with you.

 

Dr. Jake Newsome is the Campus Outreach Program Officer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he is responsible for developing strategic outreach programs and resources for institutions of higher education throughout the United States. These programs take the lessons of the Holocaust beyond the Museum’s walls and inspire new generations of scholars, students, and leaders to engage with the history and contemporary relevance of the Holocaust. Dr. Newsome’s research focuses on Holocaust history, gender and sexuality, and memory studies.

Cornbread Millionaires: Reflections on Riva and Josephine

 by LEONARD SMITH
a picture of Birkenau in the snow
Birkenau. Source: Midnight Believer, Creative Commons

I was enthused and a bit trepidatious when professor Madden-Lunsford announced we would be attending, as a class, the lecture of a Holocaust survivor and an African American woman whose father had been lynched when she was a child. I knew their stories would be both amazing and difficult to hear.

During my undergraduate studies in the early 90’s at Auburn University at Montgomery, I took a history course on the Holocaust. Before the course I had considered myself knowledgeable of the Holocaust. I discovered how ignorant I was when I learned of: the depth and breadth of the brutality and mass murder; the willing collusion of many nations and millions of people; how many nations including the U.S. denied sanctuary by not increasing immigration visas; how entire educated societies and cultures readily accepted the expansion of racism and anti-semitism to point whole scale genocide without question, because it fed their fear and anger; the discovery that if a group can be successfully scapegoated almost anything can be done to them, with little resistance, because to defend a scapegoat with logic and reason is to become a scapegoat. The most shocking discovery for me was that despite mountains of irrefutable evidence, the number of Holocaust deniers was growing. The knowledge I learned in that course changed me permanently and profoundly. I lost much of my faith in mankind. For a period of time during and following the class I suffered recurring nightmares.

Before entering the class I had naively believed that such an event could never happen again. I now know that not only could it be repeated, but that it has, in Cambodia, and most recently Sudan.

However, I also discovered that individual human courage was boundless and that miracles large and small happen. That was where my last personal seed of hope took refuge.

It is with this background and knowledge that I intellectually looked forward to, and was emotionally apprehensive of, hearing Riva Hirsch and Josephine McCall speak. I knew that these women were and are courageous. I wanted to be near that courage and learn from it.

Riva is a force of nature. She spoke of her own miracles; being found in Ukraine by people who spoke German and because of her Yiddish background being able to understand them (She referred to Yiddish as Jewish and I hoped that didn’t confuse too many people in the audience); the guard not looking underneath the carriage where she was hiding during her flight to safety; being hidden by a nun, who also spoke German, and that nun paying the ultimate sacrifice for helping her. When she spoke of being all alone in the forest, battling malnutrition, typhus, malaria, and hordes of lice, I knew she was made of far sterner stuff than I.

Riva spoke of her father’s business and how her family and his workers were a close knit group, an extended family before the war came to the Ukraine. Yet, for fear of putting themselves and their families in danger, these workers shut their doors to Riva and her family during their flight. Only one offered temporary refuge and only after Riva’s mother gave him all her jewels. As Riva spoke, so many of the atrocities I had learned of in that Holocaust course came back to the forefront of my mind. My faith in mankind was eroding again.

Though I had girded myself for  Riva’s story, Josephine, was like so many neighbors, coworkers, and friends I have known over the years. I had heard voices like hers over countless retail counters, through back screen doors and hollered from front porches. Her soft Blackbelt accent lulled me into a sense of comfort.

Riva’s story had taken place in WWII era Ukraine; a place I had only known through books and movies. But, I am familiar with Lowndes County, Alabama. I spent my childhood in neighboring Montgomery county. I had crossed Lowndes county many times on both the Old Selma Road and Highway 80. I knew the upper echelons of white society in Lowndes county were mockingly referred to as cornbread millionaires. They lived in antebellum mansions full of antiques; they were land rich but money poor. So much so, that if you went to their homes for supper, the only thing they could afford to serve in their heirloom china and silver was cornbread and beans with hog meat. I had heard it discussed that this facade and lack of resources made whites in Lowndes County particularly brutal in their treatment of black folks.

I am well steeped in the culture and nuances of Southern race relations. Though my experience of it is as a white male, born in 1964. This was the first time I had heard someone speak personally of the loss of a family member at the hands of open, socially sanctioned racist. I was surprised to learn that lynching was defined as death at the hands of three or more people and was not limited to death by hanging. I should not have been as surprised, as I was, when Josephine informed the audience that indenture (the practice of holding someone on your land as a laborer if they owed you a debt, essentially de facto slavery) was still enforced by they law in Lowndes County in 1947.

Josephine stated that her father, Elmore Bolling’s crime in the eyes of white men was that he had succeeded and purchased land, resulting in a white woman having to move off the property. Even though Mr. Bolling helped the women move and found her exactly the accommodation she wanted, his actions still constituted a crime against an unwritten social code, punishable by death.

I knew whites who thought this way, including many within my own family. They believed that all black men were lazy and stupid. Therefore, if a black man succeeded and had wealth, he must have cheated a white man or had help from interfering Northern whites and/or the Federal Government, which was the same as cheating a white man.

That was what was most disturbing for me about Josephine’s story. Her father’s murderers could have been friends of my grandparents or distant relations. Many people within my family were certainly capable of such a crime. Even the more moderate older family members believed that if a black man was lynched he must have done something stupid to put himself in harms way.

Both Riva and Josephine talked about how we must continue to speak up and talk about such atrocities and not let the deniers corrupt history and attempt to repeat it. Silence is the enemy of justice.

My lack of faith in mankind was growing. I wondered if speaking out was enough. The attitudes of many whites I know, especially those young enough to know better, is still shockingly racist. Just this week, I spoke with a friend who teaches high school English. She was distraught because a student had turned in an essay that was essentially a white supremest manifesto. The student was not a child on the fringe but rather a well liked person very popular in the high school social structure. I am often gobsmacked when I hear well educated white colleagues use the N-word, assuming I am as racist as they. I looked around at the audience in attendance and found them to very simpatico with the Riva and Josephine. The people who most needed to hear the speakers were not there. Just last night the local CBS news reported that according to the Anti-defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents were at a twenty year high. Up 47% in just the last two years.

I am honored to have heard Riva and Josephine’s stories and bask in the presence of their courage. I will speak up and continue to seek to root out my own internal vestiges of racism.

I spoke to Josephine after the presentation. We chuckled about Lowndes County’s cornbread millionaires. She told me where her father’s historical maker, that she had worked so hard to get erected, was located in Lowndesboro, just two hundred yards from the yellow flashing caution light. I knew the spot.

I spoke of my racist father who carried a badge and a gun for the Montgomery police force for twenty-five years and then twenty years more as an Alabama State Trooper. I told her, with dismay, of my father’s braggadocios, I heard as child, after he had a few beers. He told how he and his friends in high school would lay in wait in the dark, to catch the black men walking to town along the railroad tracks on Saturday night to visit their wives or girlfriends who were domestics and nannies in town. They subjected these men to humiliations and tortures. Their favorite being to strip them of their clothes and put them in the trunk of a car. They would release them naked on the highway, hands bound with lit firecrackers tied to their ankles and backside. My father always smiled with glee when he told these exploits. Josephine, compassionate and understanding of my grief over having such a father, clasp my hand and nodded. She was familiar with these kinds of events.

I left the lecture remembering that in my youth, in the seventies and eighties, I had believed by now we, as a society, would have a more level field of justice and opportunity for all, and that hate crimes would become fewer and fewer as society became more enlightened and heterogenous. However, as I walked to my car, a fear chewed at me. Was the leveling so many had fought for, and were still fighting for, beginning to slope again, becoming muddy and slippery, rising in elevation to the disadvantage and injustice of minorities? Will there be enough voices speaking up to again seek a leveling? History does not make me hopeful.

 

Leonard Lee Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Auburn University at Montgomery. He is a non-degree seeking graduate student in writing at University of Alabama at Birmingham. He won a Hackney award in 2012 for short fiction. He has told stories for The Moth Radio Hour

 


Nazis to Lynching: Two Narratives of Survivors

a vineyard
Vines. Source: Richard Grant, Creative Commons

Black tablecloths drape over oval tables scattered about the square room, with its square doorways, chairs, and ceiling accents. Oranges and tiny cinnamon rolls sit on a silver platter in the corner, and the last light of the sun filtered through the blackout curtains over the wall-length windows. The olive-green carpet patterns stood against the flurry of heels and brown dress shoes. However, near the front is a pair of blue converse sneakers with bright yellow socks. Next to him, red heels, red suit, red lipstick. Then, to the left a man with short blonde hair shifts his navy jacket over his pink dress shirt and brown tie—melded together with a silver clip.

Their clothing was reminiscent of vines. The kind of foliage that you imagine in a rose garden filled with the generational knowledge of the gardener—whom tenderly cares for us all from the bugs, diseases, and birds that seek to feed off it. Although even he cannot keep watch all the time.

With violet flowers on her dress, pink flowers on her scarf, and vines connecting the two, Riva Hirsch sat with her square jaw set into concentration. The points came to her cheek as she looked on to the crowd.

A deep olive-green pullover with stripes in the fabric sat on her shoulder, with embroidered vines creeping from her other. A turquoise bracelet dripped from her wrist, a greener string of stones from her neck, and her fingernails were as bright as the oranges on the tables. Josephine Bolling McCall sat with an earnest look on her face, as she smiled at her family among the audience.

Riva started the conversation, and retold her story about surviving the Holocaust in Ukraine.

            “My mother said to ‘Kiss the mezuzah, because we won’t be able to come back here,’” said Riva, as her strong Ukranian voice rang in the room.

She told her story about how she and her family were captured in the forest—about how they separated them all apart from each other—about the trail of dead babies, young men, and old folks—as she was taken to the train filled with the dead.

Silent tears dripped on the tablecloths, while sniffles replaced the sound of the usual cell phone rings at public events such as these. “The future is in your hands!” she yelled to the audience, stopping to look into a few specific faces. “Never let it happen again!”

Josephine told the story about being 5 years old and seeing your father dead in a ditch. Her eyes looked into the past as she spoke.

“A car followed him and blinked three times—which back in the day meant to pull over—so he did, thinking they needed help,” she paused. “Then, they shot him multiple times with a pistol and once with a shotgun. I saw him dead in the ditch with his eyes wide open.”

The family went through the ordeal of losing everything. They lost a father, husband, breadwinner, and a respected community businessman. They had to move away to Montgomery to escape the corrupt sheriff—the same one that assisted in the murder.

Josephine spent years researching her father’s death and who was responsible for the lynching—which is defined by a unjust murder done by more than one person.

She survived the Jim Crow South, the other the Holocaust. Their scars surround them like vines, the ones that remind them they are alive, they survived, and continue to grow—to show others that they can grow without vines, without prejudice, without hatred.