Dear friends,
It’s going to be a sober day. Today’s theme is betrayal.
Until the recent closure of Black Oxygen Organics (BOO), the product was selling on Facebook for $110 a bag. The tag line in the marketing was
A gift from the Ground. Drink it. Wear it. Bathe in it.
Not only did the scheme prey on economically vulnerable people, but the product itself posed real dangers to consumers. Last month, a federal lawsuit seeking class action status was filed on behalf of four Georgia residents who purchased BOO; the suit claims negligence because of the product’s
“dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals.”
Assuming the company-provided analysis was correct, two of the scientists confirmed that just two servings of BOO exceeded Health Canada’s daily limits for lead, and three servings — a dose recommended on the package — approached daily arsenic limits. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has no comparable daily guidelines.
I happened to read about BOO on the same day that I read this very illuminating piece about vaccine hesitancy. The gist of the piece, authored by people who have been studying the reasons for vaccine hesitancy, is that a broken social contract is at the root of the problem; people have gotten the message that they are on their own.
Most of the people we interviewed in the Bronx say they are skeptical of the institutions that claim to serve the poor but in fact have abandoned them. “They are over here shoving money at us,” a woman told us, referring to a New York City offer to pay a $500 bonus to municipal workers to get vaccinated. “And I’m asking, why are you so eager, when you don’t give us money for anything else?” These views reinforce the work of social scientists who find a link between a lack of trust and inequality. And without trust, there is no mutual obligation, no sense of a common good.
For those of us who live in well-maintained buildings in safe communities, with access to clean drinking water and health care, it can be hard to fully understand the sense of betrayal felt by people who live just miles away.
The authors describe the experience of tenants in St. Mary’s Park Houses in the Bronx:
Here, amid the peeling walls and broken front door, residents say that New York City’s chronically underfunded housing authority has left them to fend for themselves. When we visited recently to ask about vaccines, the heating system was out despite the November chill. The roof was in disrepair. Some residents had no choice but to occupy unlivable units; gas line interruptions forced tenants to use hot plates. Homeless people have taken shelter in the stairwells and hallways.
Dana Elden, the tenant association president, said she’s felt neglected by the city’s public housing authority. When the pandemic hit, she said, residents were forced to dip into funds meant for the property’s upkeep to purchase masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. They’ve leaned on local charities for Covid testing, and even for meals for hungry tenants. “People are thinking, ‘If the government isn’t going to do anything for us,’” said Elden, “‘then why should we participate in vaccines?’”
When people experience Covid as just one more of many mortal dangers to which they have been left exposed, they can be forgiven for a cavalier attitude toward masking and vaccines. This is a stark reminder of the work ahead of us.
Citizen Action notes that “New York State holds the unforgivable title of being the state with the highest number of lead-poisoned children in the country.” Unsurprisingly, children who live in poor Black and brown communities are at the highest risk for lead poisoning.
In 2018, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) began reinspecting more than 100,000 apartments, including tens of thousands of units which had been deemed “lead free.” So far, more than 5,000 of those apartments have been found to contain lead paint. There are still 30,000 apartments awaiting reinspection.
Call on the Governor and state legislators to take action to prevent lead poisoning. This is a ready-made action from Citizen Action.
A friend recommended that I read Linda Greenhouse’s The Supreme Court Gaslights Its Way to the End of Roe. It was a painful read. For reasons I cannot explain, I broke my rule and read the comments. Fortunately, I came across a comment from Valerie Elverton Dixon of East St. Louis, Illinois.
Dixon responded to the various justices who are trying to dismantle abortion rights with stunning clarity:
Human rights begin at birth. That is the line of demarcation. . . . The right to own one's body is guaranteed in the 13th amendment and its prohibition of slavery. The right to be free from forced labor is also guaranteed by the 13th amendment and its prohibition against involuntary servitude. When Thomas asks where in the Constitution one finds the right to an abortion. The 13th amendment. When Kavanaugh wrongly claims the Constitution is neutral on abortion. The 13th amendment. When Roberts keeps thinking that 15 weeks is enough time for a person to make their decision about carrying a pregnancy to term. The 13th amendment says pregnant people do not lose power over their own bodies not for 15 minutes let alone 15 weeks. When Barrett says that safe haven laws relieve the burdens of motherhood and compares pregnancy to getting a shot, she shows that she has no business sitting on the Supreme Court. The question before the Court is about terminating a pregnancy. The 13th amendment gives women the right to do this.
Before my springling was born, I terminated a Tay Sachs pregnancy. I endured judgment from a Christian colleague who knew that I terminated a pregnancy and apparently thought that I was wrong to do so.
I willed myself to look my colleague in the eye. I was not going to feel guilt for wanting a healthy baby and a hopeful life.
To bear a child only to watch it suffer and die would have violated both my 13th and 8th Amendment rights, because it would have been a cruel and unusual punishment. For what crime? a bad roll of genetic dice.
Forcing people — sometimes children themselves — to bear children that resulted from rape is doubly cruel.
But to Valerie Elverton Dixon’s point: no one should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. It does not matter how they got pregnant.
Every man has a right to his own body – to the products of his own labor – to the protection of law – and to the common advantages of society.
Yes, I see the pronouns and the failure to consider at least half of humanity.
In 2014, Amnesty International launched a campaign called My Body, My Rights.
Being able to make our own decisions about our health, body and sexual life is a basic human right.
Whoever you are, wherever you live, you have the right to make these choices without fear, violence or discrimination.
Yet all over the world, people are bullied, discriminated against and arrested, simply for making choices about their bodies and their lives.
A woman is refused contraception because she doesn’t have her husband’s permission. A teenager is denied a life-saving termination because abortion is illegal in her country. A man is harassed by police because he’s gay.
We have not made enough progress and the costs in human suffering are staggering. Some of the fault lies with the leaders of the pro-choice movement.
Referring to the failure to defeat the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal funding of abortion, Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, explains the betrayal:
Organizations that were established at the time, that were predominantly white-women-led, ignored then the suffering that Latinx and Black women endured, including back-alley abortions that took place after Roe because poor women of color could not afford to terminate their pregnancies.
Goodwin states that fighting the Hyde Amendment should have been the priority.
The other day, I encouraged you to give to Planned Parenthood NY. I want to revise my guidance. We need to support a new approach. SisterSong’s justice mission reflects the comprehensive notion of bodily rights that we need right now.
Read about and support SisterSong, a reproductive justice collective formed by 16 organizations of women of color.
The mission of this publication is education and activation for justice. The actions today are baby steps. I invite you to propose our next steps.
with love,
L