Every other day, when I peek in at Haiti, my heart starts beating fast… I click through pictures, and I read “nearly 200,000 dead.” And I try to imagine: What would Oakland (where I live now), or Flushing, NY (where I grew up), look like if there were upwards of 200,000 dead people lying in the streets?
I close the screen.
I am once again overwhelmed by that bewildering feeling that I had a little more than four years ago, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. My heart broke then, while I, along with the rest of the world, watched as thousands lost their lives in the aftermath. Ironically, I was on the Island of Hispaniola at the time, though not in Haiti, but rather in the east, on a family vacation in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
I am not naïve. So I do not expect for any pre-existing bias held previously toward the nation of Haiti to have magically disappeared because disaster struck. Thanks to the same journalists who report the news, while simultaneously making claims of objectivity, we are reminded, time and again that there are still so many of them (and if we are honest, there are still so many of us), who are blinded by variable levels of xenophobia and racism.
…is what my modern ‘medicine woman’ asked me over Facebook.
I'd just returned from a trip to NY where I fell ill. My mom, concerned about my lingering cold, wanted to send me to a doctor straight away. There’s just one complication…
I've been ineligible to receive benefits from my mom’s employer provided health insurance coverage since February 18, 2008 – the day I turned 23.
I explained that it was “mostly yellow and clear.” And she replied “Green means infection virus contagious, yellow is a cold, and clear is either allergies or jus and imbalance of some sort - mostly your system doing what it needs to cleanse. Get lots of sleep and clear hot fluids. Stay away from dairy it increases mucus!”
She sent over B-complex, and D vitamins, along with some Triphala - to help clean the colon. She says when you get sick, the bug gets stuck in your colon - and subsequently in your blood which contributes to what helps keeps us sick for longer.I spent the weekend close to home drinking tea, having soup, taking my vitamins and lots of water. By Monday I was still a little bit congested, but I've been feeling a whole lot better and eating more thoughtfully since -- doing a little bit more physical activity (basketball on Tuesday nights after my internship), and trying to consume LOTS of water.
As for not having health insurance because I'm 24 -- it’s an inconvenience for sure, especially for someone who, until recently, didn’t know what it meant to live without coverage. Still, I count my blessings. In this economy, I'm lucky to even have a job, much less one that could also offer me some kind of health insurance. But to be honest, for better or for worse, the loss of the safety net has forced me to think about my "health care" differently. I have had to learn to stop acting as I am in some way defenseless against my own body. And I am beginning to realize that my well being is predicated on more than having a defense alone.
"Health Care" Reform vs. "Health Insurance" Reform
"70% of Health Costs Generated By Preventable Chronic Diseases"
(H/T James Hodges)
While largely billed as a Health Care Reform program, what our President and our nation's pundits have been clamoring about is really health insurance reform. It is important that we recognize the difference. This isn't a bill that is going to magically revamp all health care services, but it will begin to put the reins on the people who play middle[wo]men between health care providers and us, the would-be patients.
This bill has been attached to big ticket issues like our economy and job stimulation because at the root of it all our health care system is a business - with real profits and real losses. And under the existing system, insurance companies have a great deal of control on how that business operates (or doesn't) to serve the needs of patients. For example, while this video explains the benefits of health insurance - pay-in and the pool levels costs, I have to agree with Nick Lee:
"When you have companies that are making $37.8 billion dollars in “total revenue” and there are still millions of people going without health insurance because they can’t afford it then there’s seriously something wrong."
In short, this is about money, not people, and would explain why much of what we hear in policy disputes seem externalized - focused on who gives care, how health care is financed, and how to enable more people to access financing. There's no doubt, the system is broken, but it has been so for a little while now.
Who Knew?!
Until recently, people who've never been without access have been none the wiser. Growing up I had the luxury of being able to get up and go see a doctor whenever my mother felt it was necessary. The inability to do so now was certainly an odd change of pace, but being sick, while at home, forced me to actually consider my lack of access, and what that means.
I'm so long overdue for a blog... But I've got a good excuse ;)
So many things have been going on at the same time this summer. I've been ramping up efforts to promote my social networking site for masculine identified women and transmen, The Definition, while juggling work responsibilities, promoting amazing movies like Pariah and a bunch of other things as they come. In the midst of it all, I've been trying to make sure to juggle all of that in addition to my responsibilities as the Logistics Chair for the first ever BUTCH Voices Conference.
Someone at NPR got wind of our conference and reached out Tuesday to schedule an interview. And as has been the case throughout this journey, Conference Chair Joe LeBlanc and I connected with them remotely, (as Joe is now back in his hometown of Tacoma, I'm here in the Bay, and our host was presumably calling out of Washington, DC) to talk about the experience and to give a little more insight on why we committed ourselves to this work.
I'm still processing it all, searching for the right words to express what this process has meant to me. I can say that working on this conference has been quite the lesson, but all of the work we did seems to have been well worth it, given the overwhelming response we've gotten from the attendees. Coming away from the experience, I can say that I have worked on this with of some of the most amazing people I've encountered to date (some of them are pictured above - from left to right Mary Stockton, Wolf Painter, Q. Ragsdale & Joe LeBlanc). For first timers, I think we did well!
Would love to hear your comments, questions or thoughts about the interview!
As the lights went up, more the year ago, I sat in the balcony of the Egyptian theatre, with Kai - my twin, sobbing uncontrollably and only marginally concerned with who might be watching. For any of you who know me very well, that's not normal. I'd sooner hide my face behind a soaked cotton t-shirt than let anyone see me publicly cry. But I was at an the OUTFEST Los Angeles screening of "Pariah," a film, by Dee Rees. Even as a short, it hit so close to home it brought me back to some of the most diffcult portions of my teenage years.
I went to OUTFEST particularly to see this film. And nearly 2 years later just watching this trailer makes me well up from the memories. The story of this young woman is almost parallel to my OWN - not just a young woman, but a young queer/les bLaK woman struggling to get a stranglehold on a sense of self, that even now I have to sometimes fight myself to muster. And it awakens some of that deep seated hurt that have yet to fully heal, because we still live in a world where our civil liberties are up for popular vote. And where I struggle almost daily to put together the right words to plead a case so logically sound that I can't be rebutted by uncritical and unthoughtful analysis, often taken as common sense truth.
I'm not asking you to vote for this piece if you don't find it compelling, but I'm almost certain that something about it IS. On its own merits, the production is phenomenal, the writing is realistic and the scenario is ALL too familiar to me and many of you.
My name is Dee Rees, and I’m a 2008 Sundance Directing lab fellow. I’m writing/directing a coming-of-age film about a black, lesbian teenager called PARIAH. PARIAH seeks to personalize the struggles of gay/lesbian youth of color in such a way that evokes empathy, opens doors to communication, and promotes dialogue within families. The short film of the same title screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and has won numerous festival awards both domestically and abroad.
I’m reaching out to you because PARIAH is a semi-finalist in the Netflix FIND Your Voice Competition, but it’s a very close race and I could really use your organization’s support in order to raise awareness for the project. PARIAH is the only African-American, gay project in the running and we really need voices across all communities to show the film industry that we want to see this story and more stories like this represented onscreen.
We were hoping that you could please support us by announcing the news in your Women’s/Gender Studies departmental communications; forwarding this message to your student listserv; and by encouraging your peers to visit www.netflixfindyourvoice.com to vote for our trailer .
Only the top 5 projects in this round move on, and we’re currently in 6th place and hanging on by a thread... Our goal is to get 10,000 stars, so any support you could lend us in getting this out to the broader academic community would be amazing.
Please find below a link to the film’s website where you can learn more about myself and the project’s history.
Thanks so much for your support— I believe that this film is a very important story that needs to be told and would be extremely grateful for any help you could lend!
Warmest,
Dee
Writer/Director “PARIAH”
www.pariahthemovie.com
Every other day, when I peek in at Haiti, my heart starts beating fast… I click through pictures, and I read “nearly 200,000 dead.” And I try to imagine: What would Oakland (where I live now), or Flushing, NY (where I grew up), look like if there were upwards of 200,000 dead people lying in the streets? 
