āSpiritual bypassing is to sidestep dealing with pain, strong feelings, trauma, etc. It can be helpful when we are not ready to confront difficult emotions in our lives. However, it is commonly used to avoid acknowledging privilege because doing so is inherently messy, painful, and requires continued awareness.
Over the past year, the global pandemic has highlighted the vast racial disparities in medical treatment in the U.S. Many of its elements are more subtle; difficult to see if you donāt experience it first-hand. But some are more blatant ā like racial correction factors. In medicine, equations and algorithms can often be used to diagnose or screen patients. Racial correction factors are when physicians adjust the measurements or risk calculations for patients based on their race. Despite the fact that race is a social construct, many medical providers hold on to the idea of race as a biological variable. This has a severe, sometimes fatal impact on people of color.
Outdated housing policies, like redlining, continue to have rippling effects on communities and Black maternal health.
The body always remembers. Like other children of Vietnamese war refugees, I understand how hardships and inconceivable loss leave marks. Psychologists in the 1990s found roughly half of Holocaust survivors were still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience). Emerging studies show that, in communities of survivors, trauma may also be passed onto subsequent generations through epigenetic changes, where the mechanism by which our body reads DNA ā not DNA itself ā is altered (Stanford University). This intergenerational transfer can also be behavioral; parents with severe anxiety may model detrimental patterns of thinking and feeling.
The pandemic underscores the need for comprehensive paid sick leave, especially for hourly-wage workers.
Columbus Day represents the history of colonization and erasure of Indigenous communities. Learn about the movement to change it.
Reflect on how to build solidarity for the long term, both as movements and individuals, in a struggle that spans decades and generations.
A list of ways to begin to unlearn the harmful narratives around Thanksgiving and support the wellbeing of Indigenous communities.
Addressing the racial and geographic disparities that make PrEP less accessible.
Rising food costs add a racial and economic burden to Indigenous communities who disproportionately struggle with food insecurity.
