I want to make sure that everyone realizes that what passed for Democracy before the January 6, 2021 events was already under fire. Because systemic, toxic racism runs through our nation like blood in the body. But yesterday was so much more. It touched us—it touched me—on a soul-deep level. More importantly, it did something else… Read more >

Las esterilizaciones forzadas de ICE son un crimen de lesa humanidad
September 22, 2020 12:18 PM EDT
Recordando a la jueza de la Corte Suprema de EE.UU. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Una persona extraordinaria y una defensora incansable de la justicia, alguien que ayudó a reparar el dolor en nuestra sociedad y a que el país continuara adelante.
Me dolieron los ojos y el alma cuando vi las noticias sobre las esterilizaciones forzadas a las que están siendo sometidas mujeres inmigrantes a manos del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés). Supimos de esto gracias a la valentía de Dawn Wooten, una enfermera Afro-Estadounidense que trabajaba en uno de los centros de detención de ICE en el estado de Georgia, y quien recientemente puso una denuncia formal reportando los horrorosos procedimientos médicos cometidos contra inmigrantes.
Esta no es la primera, segunda ni tercera vez en la que personas Negras, Indígenas, Mestizas, pobres y encarceladas han sido sometidas a procedimientos médicos invasivos sin su consentimiento previo. Estados Unidos tiene una larga historia de procedimientos médicos forzados y experimentación tanto en personas que no son Blancas como en personas con discapacidades físicas y psicológicas, basada en la eugenesia, un conjunto de ideas pseudocientíficas sobre las supuestas fortalezas y debilidades físicas y morales inherentes a una persona según su origen étnico o racial. Read more >

ICE’s Forced Sterilizations Are a Crime Against Humanity
September 19, 2020 9:37 AM EDT
Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. An extraordinary and tireless champion of justice, someone that “help[ed] repair tears in [our] society” and move the country forward.
It hurt my eyes and soul when I saw the news of forced sterilizations of migrant women conducted by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We learned about this thanks to Dawn Wooten, a brave Black nurse working at an ICE facility in Georgia who recently filed a whistleblower complaint reporting horrendous medical practices against immigrants.
This is not the first, second or even third time that Black, Brown, poor, Indigenous and incarcerated people have been subject to unethical, invasive medical procedures without their explicit consent. The United States has a long history of forced medical procedures and experimentations on people of color and persons with physical and mental disabilities based on eugenics, a collection of pseudo-scientific ideas about the supposed physical and moral strengths and weaknesses inherent in a person’s race or ethnic origin. Read more >

Hurricane Laura and the Inequities of Evacuating to Safety
August 26, 2020 12:28 PM EDT
For decades—if not longer—people in the United States have found themselves on one side or another of a widening equity chasm. The vast majority of people are on the side of that chasm that is also crumbling beneath our feet, yet somehow the chasm remains invisible in the list of the nation’s priorities. But sometimes there are events that lay our vulnerability so bare, so crystal clear that they serve as clarion calls for change. COVID-19 is that event. Hurricane Laura, forecast to make landfall somewhere along the Texas/Louisiana coast this week as a Category 3 or higher hurricane, could be the next. Read more >

Museums Should Publicly Address Racism in their Histories
July 28, 2020 12:54 PM EDT
In June 2020, the American Museum of Natural History in New York announced that it had asked the City of New York to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that stands at its entrance. A small step in the necessary decolonization of this museum and the rest of the museum world. Read more >