BLOG JULY 30TH 2008 – CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

NINA BAK:

I have nothing good to say – replied Will right after we left the room, where a couple minutes earlier Marianne Engelman Lado from the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) – displayed movie about the color communities affected by the industrial companies. No one could believe that this is actually happen – dangerous for health, pollution-productive factories & energy plant are being located in the towns and areas with vast majority of color population. Scenes like from Erin Brockovitch movie – didn't seem to end happily this time. I cannot believe in that, I had no idea about, Something like that in the States - those were the comments from the fellows I asked about opinion on the movie & situation in general. Concerns, disturbing thoughts were present especially in American fellows minds, not only though. While Ms Engelman Lado was giving example of lost trial, when parents of a molested girl sued the school in which bus a incident happened - Magnus showed his incomprehension – I simply don't get it.. why is had this case ever happened to go to the court? There should be other way to deal with those issues...in Denmark, we… Disappointment and anger were the feelings increasing with every minute when more facts& figures were revealed. Hopeless appeared when we learned about the struggles taken by the individuals & communities trying to fight their rights in the court against public institutions, enterprises, industrial corporations, etc. Political narrative courts and inconsistency in federal system of justice – falls into class& racial issues – that's the reality revealed by our guestspeaker. What we try to do to have those kind of cases won - Ms. Engelman Lado said- we try to keep them out of the court. It brought us down a bit.

NIENKE VENEMA:

Every morning at 7 am I ask myself - whilst snoozing and somewhat desperately postponing getting up – how on earth I’ll manage to stay awake and concentrated when my head still hasn't processed the incredible amount of information and the overwhelming experiences of the day before, and before. Yet the HIA program consistently manages to surprise me by keeping me sharp. Today was no different.

Rita Kaufman’s high speed, super dense lecture reminded us of one of the main critique Europeans and perhaps most people, American and non-American alike, have on the US: it commits itself to Human Rights on the international stage and yet lacks to implement these sufficiently within its own borders, at least not top-down. Personally, I did not realize that economic, social and cultural rights aren’t seen as an affirmative obligation within the US and it surprised me - how can this country expect to be taken seriously as a role model for good governance if it does not strive to guarantee its own citizens such basic rights as housing, health, social security and educational equity, at least to it’s best ability? I admire America’s strong commitment to Freedom and Democracy but now that I’ve become more aware that the freedom emphasized here is passive, or the ‘freedom from’ and that little is done to actively protect the lesser-off American citizens, I am not sure if these civil and political rights are important enough to overrule health and wellbeing of millions. Do they need to exclude each other? What good are Human Rights without active remedies? The actions of private litigators and other actors are admirable and impressive, but why is an institution such as the Supreme Court blocking their initiatives when it should be with its citizens, not against them? It puzzles me.

Sue Kaplan talked to us about the racial and ethnic disparities in health - infant mortality, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and general life expectancy are still significantly lower for African Americans. How can this be when it is clear that there are no biological differences, that it is not a genetic problem? Does it all come down to personal attitudes and circumstances, a fear of not being taken seriously by doctors, an unhealthy lifestyle caused by poverty? Or, and this is a worrying thought, are implicit biases of doctors a serious factor as well? Damien Stanley explained to us that racial biases can be tracked down to the brain, and told us that research done amongst doctors showed that they are likely to diagnose black Americans with the same symptoms differently. If prejudice has a neural basis on which we have little control it is good that we are finding out about it, but what is the solution?

Mobilization. If Woody Allen is right to say that ‘80% of success is showing up’, we need to stay active and organised. Over the course of the last three weeks it has become clear to this little Humanity in Action group that racial disparities in health, education, labour.. almost in every sector are still much alive in the land of Milk and Honey, and to me it is obvious that they are real Europe as well. Our biases exist, and whether they have a neural base or not, they are still dependent on our environment and the political system we have created. The only real way to soften and eventually dispose of them is to actively keep working to improve and change the societies we live in, to stay committed to it despite all the frustrations it might bring. Well that’s a thought to take home for sure.