...Running head: WHY NOT ME? Why Not Me? African Americans and Organ Donation XXXX XXXXX Winston Salem State University CONTENTS ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 THE IMBALANCE OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 THE ROOT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN DISPROPORTION OF ORGAN NEED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 THE ROOT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN DISPROPORTION OF DONATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Abstract This article takes a brief look at an informal discussion of three groups of African Americans on organ donation as well as the author’s personal decision to become an organ and tissue donor. The disproportion of African American need to African American donation and the root causes are explored. Religious beliefs and uncertainties about the death process held the highest concerns in the three groups. WHY NOT ME? African Americans and Organ Donation I was 15 years old when I found out that Billy was my brother. My father explained that Billy’s mother...
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...the 1960’s which represents the voice of African American maids in Jackson, Mississippi. It gives them a voice through the incorporation of issues such as inequality, discrimination and domestic violence. Although released in 2011, when the Civil Rights Movement had already been established, the film represents and gives voice to those who suffered during this time and conveys their struggles to the modern audience. Through the use of conventions and film techniques, the viewer is enabled to view a significant historical event through the perspective of an African...
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...African Americans and Unhealthy Eating There is no secret that the African American community is known for unhealthy cooking. There are generations of recipes that are consistently passed down from family to family and often Sundays are set aside to display the misguided teachings of generations past. Foods like, pork chops smothered in gravy, mashed potatoes with high concentrations of butter, fried chicken, collard greens seasoned with hammocks or bacon fat, macaroni made with two pounds of cheese, potato salad drenched in mayonnaise are all examples of unhealthy foods. Also, this style of cooking leads to poor health. For this reason, education, frequent check-ups, and changes in eating habits, will reduce unhealthy eating. The harmful eating practices of African Americans are taught at early ages. This unhealthy trend has lead to African Americans being the leader among those who die from attacks such as strokes and heart attacks. With this in mind, education is imperative to this ethic group. Education on how to properly prepare meals will increase the knowledge of making better food choices. Also, it will introduce how unhealthy eating is really harming the body. Schools can introduce breakfast and lunch foods that teach young African Americans the difference between unhealthy and healthy foods. For the adults, grocery stores can offer information on the product of choice to show if there is a healthier version along with healthy recipes. Educating on better food choices...
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...Consultant Title: Obesity, Lifestyles and African-Americans – What are the Correlations? Publication / Internet Site: http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/african/family_lifestyle_traditions/bpr_obesity1127.asp Date: N/A Issue: IMDiversity Body: Makeisha Lee, Black health consultant in this article speaks to us as African-Americans about having the right balance of foods in our lives. The article goes on to explain that eating is one life’s greatest pleasures. We human beings enjoy the smell of good food, the taste of good food, the texture, as well as how it makes us feel when it goes down, so food can be very pleasurable but it can also be very dangerous if not kept in its proper balance. As Ms. Lee said earlier we can enjoy food but the primary job for food is to nourish our bodies. The nutrients that we get from the foods help our bodies to sustain life, health as well as strength. When we don’t have the right balance of foods that are bodies, ( mind-body and emotion) gets all a lot of whack. If you don’t have the right balance of food and have adequate exercise you end up with, “Obesity”. A definition for obesity is the intake of food overpowering the needed exercise in order to keep the weight down. Obesity is more common in African Americans than any other ethnic group. Let’s take a closer look to see why this is. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of vital health statistics, 16.1% of African-American males are overweight and 78% of black...
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...Karl Bell Ingrid Castro Sociology Sexism, Racism and Stereotypes in the media of African Americans, Sex sales everything and any thing in our society. People want to be like the people in the Media, Stereotyping of African American in the media, newspapers, television, movies, magazines and music videos are where people get these images of what African American women and men look like, these are the vehicles used to alter and form their perceptions. The media has a powerful influence in the everyday thoughts and lives of Americans. The way they depicted what African American wears and who they are. I want to be sexy and pretty and want all the people to lust after me The American media, in particular, and Western media, more generally, are charged with glamorizing and perpetuating unrealistic ideals of feminine beauty. This is the state of mind the media wants to develop. But is any of this real? Why are women sex objects in the Media? Why is beautiful defined by hair and body structure and skin tone? Why are couples more loving when they are Caucasian and seen as angelic. But African women don’t look pure or innocent; they look like whores in the Media. Why is it that African American women attributes are made so they look like a sex toy? The Caucasian woman looks like the women a man takes home to mom. In the media several men are lusting for the African American women, but none are communicates marriage to her and yet Caucasian women are seem like...
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...young African Americans girls view their self with beauty and the way they look to others young girls. African Americans females view beauty as the color tone of their skin, along with the way their hair appears to others around them in society. They see their self as being different with the color tone of their skin and the fact that their hair is “nappy”. The video also show the fact of what color doll they would pick out to play with and what doll was the “ugly” one. Race is made from the ancestors of one and the defining of skin color. Most African Americans can not trace their ancestors back to a certain part of African continent. The surprising thing of the video is not what one would think that a young African American would prefer their skin color to be in life. “ Any conduct based on a distinction made on grounds of natural or social categories, which have no relation either to individual capacities or merits, or to the concrete behavior of the individual person” ( Nieto, Bode, p. 63). The young African Americans girls talk about bleaching their bodies to be lighter in color because it is more beautiful to be light-skin than dark skin. The young girls were also asked to pick out the good doll from the bad doll and most picked the white doll instead of picking the doll more like their own color. Young African Americans want to look lighter in skin tone than to be dark –skinned. The attitude is that white girls have better and prettier hair than the African Americans. ...
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...Health Disparity Among African-Americans Melissa Swanson Grand Canyon University Family Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V-0506 Sandi Coufal February 8, 2015 Heath Disparity among African-Americans The United States is a melting pot of cultural diversity. For a country that was founded by individuals fleeing persecution, it has taken us many years to grant African-Americans equal rights, and even longer for those rights to be recognized. Despite all the effort to eliminate inequality in this country, health disparity among this minority group remains a significant issue. Research in this area has pointed to several key reasons for this gap that center on differences in culture, socioeconomics, and lack of health literacy. The CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report of 2011 shows the average American’s life expectancy at 78.8 years, while the average African-American should expect to live only 75.3 years. The statistics gathered by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) are striking in painting the health status of African-Americans in this country. African-American infants have a mortality rate twice that of Caucasian infants. The CDC recognized that African-Americans lead the nation in death rates from heart disease and stroke, as compared to any other ethnicity. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health presented data in 2012 showing that African-American adults have a 40% higher rate of hypertension and a 10% less...
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...In order to fully understand the motives behind the organization Black Lives Matter one must know the history behind the struggles of African Americans in the United States. Throughout history African Americans have been pushed down, forced to do the work of the white man, and criticized for the color of their skin. Some of the most violent and unforgettable tales of American history date back to the 17th century. During this time period the slave trade was introduced to the state of Virginia (Carson 19). Millions of innocent African Americans were targeted by colonists who bought these slaves for their own profit (Carson 19). Years of torture, malnutrition, and neglect had passed by and there wasn’t much hope for a bright future for those...
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...that anorexia causes. People with anorexia look in the mirror and see a distorted image rather than what is reality. Victims of anorexia see someone that is huge when in actuality they may be average size and weight. Once a person is diagnosed with anorexia it is hard for them to recover. Not only is it hard for a person with AN to recover, it is also extremely easy to relapse. It takes intense therapy and treatment to cure someone with anorexia. AN exists in every culture and race; it varies amongst African Americans differently as opposed to other cultures. Symptoms of anorexia include an intense fear of gaining weight, refusal to keep body weight up, and amenorrhea for 3 consecutive months (Kumar, Tung, & Iqbai, 2010). Amenorrhea is the abnormal absence of menstruation. Some other symptoms of AN are lanugo, joint swelling, dental cavities, tooth loss, and abdominal distension (Kumar, Tung, & Iqbai, 2010). Lanugo is the growth of fine white hair that grows when anorexics have no body fat left to keep themselves warm (Morrisey, 2010). There also tends to be changes in the endocrine and metabolic systems that encourage AN patients to further constrain their diet. People with anorexia have major impairments in psychological functioning, severe medical complications, and is associated with psychiatric morbidity (Carter et al., 2009). Anorexia can even cause bone loss in individuals of severe cases. It is obvious why people with anorexia...
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...When The Blues music started to become popular, this made many African-American women start to feel more comfortable with who they were. During this time period, many white middle class people were started to finally see African-Americans as equal, however, it was still up for debate to most. I find it interesting that the blues music genre is the only one that really stands up and talks about intersectionality. When I think about contemporary society, I can easily think of many songs in many different genres that deal with issues of inequality, but none of these songs really focus on the issues that exist when it comes to intersectionality. Thus, in a way I don’t really think that pop culture has been an effective tool to protest against white...
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...The dream of racial equality has taken great steps towards becoming a reality in the past 50 years. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the election of the first black President are counteracted by events such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the fact only nine African-American senators have ever been elected to the Senate. In this way although on the surface racial equality appears to be achieved, the reality is that with economic discrimination increasing during the recession, and instances of white flight increasing, racial equality has not yet fully been achieved in the USA. There were many formal attempts to establish civil rights in the USA from 1950s onwards. Before this the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments created to guarantee the rights African-Americans had been ignored by many states, especially in the deep South, meaning that for most blacks racial equality was a distant dream. However, the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the creation of affirmative action policies under JFK began to change things. For the first time government policy began to make up for years of historical discrimination against the African-American population. Affirmative action ensured that members of all previous disadvantaged minorities were given a head start, specifically in areas like education and deployment. With all federally funded projects from the 60s onwards applying policies of affirmative action disadvantaged groups finally...
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...African Americans with HIV/AIDS African American with HIV/AIDS One of the most important issues in an individual’s life is their health. The question that many individuals are wondering is how many different diseases are affecting millions of individuals throughout the world? These sometimes harmful diseases are affecting new born, young children, teens, adults, and elderly. Some of these diseases syndromes, disorders, and ect are curable and others can’t be cured which is only increasing the death rate around the world. According to science and health observations there are over 100,000 human diseases that have been discovered throughout the world. HIV/AIDS are the second most deadly diseases out in the world. Scientists believe that HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western African. Scientists also believe humans came in contact with HIV as early as the 1800s because individuals used hunting as survival skills and a way of living. They ate food that was infected by HIV that soon was discovered as a harmful disease. Decades later the virus slowly spread across African and later into many other parts of the world infecting thousand and then millions. HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that affects both men and woman of all ages. In 1985 scientist discovered the human immunodeficiency virus which is also known as HIV. HIV is a virus that attacks the human body’s immune system. It also affects the blood cells within an individual’s body (lymphocytes) and cells of the...
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...Picturing Us Deborah Willis’ essay, Picturing Us, tackles the issues of self-representation of African-Americans in pictures. In 1955 when Debra Willis first saw the photographs in the book, The Sweetfly Paper of Life, it left an “indelible mark” on her youthful mind. (Pg. 3). It was her first time seeing “colored” people that she could relate to. Through the narratives of the photos Willis was reminded of her family and the universal pride of other African-American families. From that point onward her sense of self was positively awaken, which promoted her to pursued books and photographs that honestly depicted stories of Black people through the eyes of other Black people. Year prior to Willis’ revelation, in 1882, Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm wanted to tell stories of Black people through Black people’s eyes and decided to start the First African-American newspaper, the Freedom's Journal. Russworm said “We were truly invisible unless we committed a crime.” Thus, in its inaugural issue, the paper clearly stated “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.” With the start of this newspaper, and many newspapers following, Black people developed a sense of self. Their images were positive and commonplace, a far cry from being displayed in the major newspapers as criminals and thieves of chickens. I choose the following three images from Willis essay that I reason may influence African-American’s sense of self: * Couple with a Cadillac - James...
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...It could be a religious approach to health or a cultural tradition. Health has a different meaning for different people. So, everyone has a different approach to his or her health ( Alpa, 2007). Cultural heritage is an important of one’s economic, social and health issues. It helps one understand someone else’s health heritage, as well as traditional health methods that are used to maintain, protect, and restore health. Applying these concepts makes it easier to deal with a person’s physical, mental, and spiritual beliefs. Different cultures have different values and beliefs of health, disease, illness, birth, and death. It is essential to open a pathway for the effective communication of others values and beliefs, in regards to health, illness, family support as well as spiritual values ( Agec, 2012). Health concerns though practiced in all traditions, varies among different cultures. To become aware of another’s culture and health traditions can enable one to better understand and respect another’s cultural traditions, health concerns and issues. In this paper I will write about three different cultures. They will be East Indian, Black/African-American and my own Nigerian. East Indian Culture First, my neighbor is from India. She talked to me about the culture of India and its...
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...come out of it.” The language used in this quote, is uplifting but sobering. As a poet, Maya Angelou uses the written expression of language to describe her experiences as an African American woman. How we utilize the gift of language can not only determine our success or failure in life, but it can also affect those exposed to it. As an African American female, attending predominantly white private schools, I quickly realized the life changing effects language could have on me. I was misunderstood and labeled by the African American kids who went to public school and made to feel unworthy by the white kids who attended private school. I should not be characterized as “stuck up’, or “acting white”, nor made to feel as though I do not belong just because I attended a predominately white private school. We all know that language can be used not only to inform, educate, and inspire, but also to discourage, degrade, and judge. African Americans in public schools often thought I was “stuck up” just because I went to a private school. Sometimes, I was actually called “stuck up” other times their body language told me how they felt. I can remember one time my best friend, who went to a public school, and I were at the mall shopping and she ran into one of her friends from school, who was also African American. I introduced myself and told him where I went to school, after he asked. He immediately responded back I must be “stuck up.” Honestly, this statement made me feel uncomfortable...
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