The Multicultural Nurse

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/donald-trumps-victory-speech-i-am-reaching-out-to-you-1788740492

Let’s give him what he is asking for, folks.

http://www.evancarmichael.com/library/donald-trump/Contact-Donald-Trump.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

He can certainly choose to ignore all of us, but we don’t have to make it easy to do so, do we? Off to write an earnest letter to our newly elected coalition-builder. And another tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and so on…

TMCN

Please read this: https://iambeggingmymothernottoreadthisblog.com/2016/10/09/scold-me-once/

And please vote. Vote your conscience and vote your humanity.

TMCN

From TransGriot this morning. A security guard in Washington, D.C. took it upon himself to play bathroom police. WTF?? Like your mama said, mind your own damned (bathroom) business and keep your hands to yourself. Kindergartners get this, folks, so why are some of the rest of us struggling so much??

I’m not a big shopper, so I don’t generally pay much attention to department store advertisements. So I didn’t pay much attention to the lovely couple pictured above because they are actors and because the company (Macy’s) is obviously trying to get me to shop. Nice try. Still not working.

This ad, though, is worth a second look: not because of the ad itself but because of the reaction it engendered. It is 2016, people, and yet we still have ugly racists calling black people names and insinuating (no, flat-out stating) that black people are sub-human. It’s sickening and disgusting. If you can read this $h!t and still tell me that racism isn’t an issue, I don’t even know what to say to you, except maybe you should extract your head from whatever orifice you’ve buried it in?

If you want to read the comments, you’ll have to go to the article: Racist Trolls Tear Apart Macy’s Ad. I can’t bear to post them here.

TMCN

Health care in America is a mess, quite frankly, and I am not going to sit here and pretend I have any sort of solution for cleaning it up. Change makes a lot of us uneasy, I think, and so it is tempting to blame everything on the biggest recent change in health care that comes to mind: The Affordable Care Act (ACA). Some folks like to call it “ObamaCare” but I prefer using the official title of the law. I’d like to direct your attention to The Great Cost Shift, an article that blames our increased out-of-pocket spending on health care not on the ACA but on cost-shifting by employers.

From the article:

The actual reason why employee and employer costs are increasing at different rates is because employers have, over time, shifted greater responsibility for health care expenses to their employees through higher deductibles, higher copayments, and higher coinsurance—a practice that began long before the passage of the ACA. Other employers pay smaller shares of their employees’ health care premiums.

To some degree, this long-term cost shifting has contributed to the overall health care slowdown. Increased cost sharing discourages the use of health care—individuals tend to spend less on their health care when they are subjected to higher fees or deductibles—which has lowered overall health care spending. Employees with higher cost sharing are more likely to avoid or delay even beneficial and cost-effective care. Employers, insurers, and public health care programs benefit from these savings, while individual employees with significant health care needs face greater out-of-pocket costs. Employees have increasingly reported that their health care costs are unaffordable. In other words, almost everyone in the health care system is realizing savings, but employees’ costs are rising.

The authors, Topher Spiro, Maura Calsyn, and Meghan O’Toole are advocating for reforms that allow employees to share in the cost-savings realized by employers. I am not optimistic with regard to such reforms, but passing along some of these savings to employees would surely incentivize a more thoughtful use of health services, and that would be a benefit to all of us.

TMCN

I’m going to be taking a brief respite from my work during the month of May. I’m on a school break and I think I’ll be much more productive if I take advantage of it. I don’t have a large following yet, so it is probably a good time to take a break. I have been trying to post 5 times a week, but during May you may see just 2 posts a week. This anti-racism work is a marathon, not a sprint. I constantly have to remind myself of that fact!

Thank you to those of you who are reading, commenting, and messaging me thus far. I am also grateful to my Twitter followers, who interact with me on a daily basis. You guys rock!

TMCN

From the Chicago Tribune , a hilarious (or it would be, if it weren’t so frightening) piece from a white guy, who finally sees the light and endorses Donald Trump.  Author  Rex Huppke nails it.

From the article:

But if there’s one thing we (white guys) can count on it’s that a Trump presidency will make things better for all of us. There will be fewer Mexicans (wall); fewer Muslims (closing mosques, no refugees, general intolerance); fewer weak men with feelings (everything will be SO strong); and fewer women and minorities in the workplace thanks to political correctness being outlawed and everyone who’s not a white guy wanting to move to Canada rather than deal with all the loud-mouthed white guys.

And why is it good to have fewer of all these people? Because we (white guys) all know that every out-of-work white guy is a victim of “others.” It could be the fault of the president who happens to be black. Or it could be the Mexicans pouring across our Swiss-cheese border, as long as you ignore the fact that, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, there are more Mexicans leaving the United States than entering.

It’s definitely not the fault of globalization and America’s change to a more knowledge-based economy. It’s the fault of us believing the politically correct myth that it’s the fault of globalization and America’s change to a more knowledge-based economy.

Trump will erase that myth and return all the high-paying manufacturing jobs by destroying political correctness, which is what’s forcing us white guys to tolerate all these other people who have made white-guy America less great.

HA!

TMCN

This is an older post (from August, 2015), but I just found it and I think there are some excellent points herein. It is from Everyday Feminism, and it is titled: 10 Ways Well-Meaning White Teachers Bring Racism Into Our Schools.

From the post:

…considering that 80% of our teachers are White while nearly half (and growing) of our students are youth of Color, part of improving teaching practice means paying more critical attention to race in our schools.

Though I know there are actively racist teachers out there, most White teachers mean well and have no intention of being racist. Yet as people who are inscribed with Whiteness, it is possible for us to act in racist ways no matter our intentions. Uprooting racism from our daily actions takes a lifetime of work.

The post is long, but it is a good read if you teach or are considering a career in education.

TMCN

I found this wonderful essay, titled Listening to Old Women by Soraya Chemaly, while reading some political news. I tend to chase rabbits while reading news sites, and it is sometimes difficult for me to trace back to wherever I started, so I can’t with any certainty say how I found it. I can say, though, that I am very glad I did.

Chemaly is telling the story of her grandmother, a woman who refused to be silenced. We are such youth-worshippers in this country that older women, particularly older women of color, are often ignored, marginalized, and silenced. We all know a few older women who refuse to go quietly into that good silence, though, don’t we? And good for them. Society wants us to sit quietly in our boxes – I say we upturn those boxes, climb up onto them and make our voices heard!

My favorite paragraph in the essay:

Here was a wise old woman, never considered smart, who lived unapologetically. Spoke her mind. Intuited the difference between being sociable and being true to oneself, being popular and not. She showed us how to be self-sufficient, something still not to be taken for granted when you’re a girl basted in benevolent sexism. She taught us to seek love, even if it was flawed; to work hard, to care quietly, to complain loudly, to be loyal and firm. She was an example of the much disputed idea that people can change over time. She did of all of this without giving any of us more than a few scant words of direct advice. In other words, this old woman with no power trusted us to know what was best for ourselves, something rooms full of old men with too much power can have serious problems understanding.

I bolded that last bit for emphasis. “This old woman… trusted us to know what was best for ourselves…” – that, friends, is what we all want, and what we all deserve.

TMCN

 

Some tone-deaf folks in Alabama celebrated Confederate Heritage Month in April. And, yeah, I’m late posting on it. But, in my defense, there is SO MUCH CRAP going on in the realm of racism and diversity that there’s no way one nurse blogger could stay on top of it.

Back to Alabama, though, Secretary of State John Merrill says Confederate Heritage Month  totally isn’t about slavery and he isn’t racist. He has a signed photo of John Lewis. There are TWO black people working in the lobby, ya’ll. And they aren’t there because of the color of their skin, either, so get that out of your head, you racist!

From Think Progress:

Merrill explained to ThinkProgress that he wanted to participate in a “celebration of the heritage of the south” because he believes young people need to “to be respectful of those historical traits we hold dear.” Those traits, he emphasized, are “not related to race, divisiveness, or a heritage of fighting.” Rather, they are “pride in our work and in our communities.”

He repeatedly assured ThinkProgress that he personally has no racial biases, noting that he owns a signed photo of Alabama civil rights icon John Lewis, and touting the diversity in his agency.

“We’ve got two African Americans that work in the lobby area of our office here,” he said. “None of them are working here because they’re black, but because they’re highly-qualified, trained professionals. I judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”

The controversy over the Secretary of State’s remarks comes amidst a national debate over how to appropriately remember the state-sanctioned slavery on which much of the U.S. was founded and sustained for hundreds of years.

I can’t even. I’m completely out of evens for the week, and it’s only Monday. SMH. My sentiments are with this chick:

TMCN