Living Clean The Journey Continues Free Pdf
Tabatha Pasqua
[Dr. Jasmine Parker] That's a big question. and I like to kick us off with our conversation on that. When I think of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, when I first think of is the violation of human rights, right? You just read the definition of human rights. It's about dignity. It's about honoring a person's personhood and what it means to be alive in the world, however they're living, however a person looks, whatever their pronouns are, and it means to be recognized, to be celebrated, to be respected. Have a person's personhood actually respect it, not hunted down in the streets as a person is jogging for exercise. And so when I think of that and I think about your question, the question is multi-focal to mean to me. To me, it's a battle cry of black people crying out to have their personhood actually respected, to have their human rights acknowledged, appreciated, and not tarnished, not violated. Or even worse, pushed to the margins, relegated to a subordinate class in our United States society, which we have seen time and time again. The honest truth is that Ahmaud Arbery's murder is not an anomaly. We can't say that black life matters in our United States until black people in our United States in general, will no longer have to hold their breath to see if the criminal justice system is honestly just, and upstanding for all of its citizens, for all of its residence, no matter their status of documentation to ensure that civil liberties, human rights, are respected and appreciated. That question is really personal to me because as you already introduced me, Shani, I am from Dallas, Texas. My undergraduate degree was obtained at Prairie View A&M University. What people don't know about me is that my dorm mate who lived on the second floor in our freshman dormitory was Sandra Bland. And Sandy was a friend of mine. I knew Sandy as a person, not a hashtag. And so when I think of what happened to Sandy and our experiences, there at Prairie View in Waller County. It makes me think of what continues to happen to black bodies across our United States society, and no one is really exempt. It could be a college educated person or a person who is uneducated, a person of upper-class status or a person of working-class status. It does not matter as long as the person's melanin is pigmented. And so when I think of human rights, I think about the need to respect black bodies and all person's personhood, no matter what they look like or how they identify themselves, or how they are perceived identify, as long as there's a person is alive, we should respect them.
[Shani Suber] Okay. Thank you. Okay, Let's discuss health and human rights. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Policies and practices may routinely interfere with accessible health care. Increasing vulnerability to ill-health, particularly for the poor, marginalized minority populations. So, what things can we collectively due to individually, collectively and individually do today to make a difference in this country locally, and in our college community? [Mwanua Maxwell] I think about, related to that question, we have to acknowledge how we got here. We have to do a deep dive and to talk about and think about why is our health system the way that it is? Why do we have disproportionate outcomes, health outcomes? Where does that come from? What is the history that has led us to where we are now? Because if we really don't look at the history of where we've come from. We can't, we can't, make we can't make suggestions for what we need to do to make it better. So yes, we have a very expensive health care system, but it's in, it's a system. So in order to change that system, we look at the history. But we also have to think about how, how might it need to look? What needs to look different about that system in order to meet people where they are? And I even think about permitted, preventative measures, things that we can take a look at. You know, we, we need to look at the history of redlining, to, to see what, you know why people are not living in safe spaces, in their environments, environmental racism. Why are people in areas where they don't have clean water, but they don't, they're not breathing clean air. They're in thermal hot spots. Why are these things happened? There are reasons behind that, and I think sometimes we skip that and we want to jump to solutions. But we really need to do a better job of understanding why things are, why things are the way they are. Then we can do preventative things so that people don't end up with ill health. People don't end up having to access the system as much because we're addressing where they live, clean water and healthy food. So you give people access to things that are, that are really healthy for their bodies and their systems. And we can prevent a lot of the things that we, that we see now that are, that are, that are happening because of these disproportionate outcomes.