2014 Shaping the Future of New York Fridays: 11:00-1:45 Boylan Hall, 2231

Reading chapter 2 and 3 was, in a way, difficult to digest. Early on, the country specifically put in its constitution mechanisms against certain treatment of its citizens, namely the Fourth Amendment. Against the forefathers’ ideals, the amendment was manipulated to allow the exactly what it had originally opposed. Each step in the gradual process wasn’t enough to cause a revolution, but it seemed like each was more corrupt than the last. The Supreme Court facilitated much the wrongdoing. It is simply outrageous that the police organizations outright accept funds only if they are full players in making drug busts their priority. A scarier thought is that it can get worse. All lines regarding preserving the citizens rights according to the constitution have been crossed already. Manipulating people to plead guilty when they aren’t is far enough. But who is to say how much farther it will go and where it will stop?

First hearing the claim of the author that mass discrimination exists through the criminal justice system, I’m sure, surprises many readers. Enough that the author has to spend many words in the introduction explaining her narrative on how she came about her conclusion. It would draw in any reader that is surprised with what is being presented. It worked for me as well.

Alexander spends the first chapter comparing the implementation of three important institutions: slavery, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration aka New Jim Crow laws. An important point that came up was that initially, racism in America grew as a byproduct of plantation owners seeking profit and security. Plantation owners wanted workers that wouldn’t fight back. Native Americans as always been threatening while white indentured workers have revolted in the past. Enslaving whites also would prevent immigrants from wanting to come to the new colonies. The solution was to bring in Africans that spoke a variety of different languages, thus preventing any unity. By fabricating the subhuman status of blacks, lower class whites were satisfied with not being part the lowest rung of society. According to Alexander, the country never recovered from this racism and always found new and better ways to maintain the status quo that would be harder to break.

With the newest form of racial discrimination, mass incarceration, the author is blaming previous presidents for making matters worse and by maintaining stronger laws against “criminals.” However, it is a matter of dealing with symptoms instead of battling the cause of such a high rates of incarceration. Often, dealing with symptoms simply wins more votes. The real solution at this point would involve somehow lowering drug abuse rates while lessening the punishment for those caught. More jobs wouldn’t hurt; less time for trafficking.

As a pre-med student, I have encountered the argument for public health many times. Each side to the argument poses great challenges and finding a balance is imperative to making the system work. Firstly, all people deserve the opportunity to preserve their own lives regardless of their economic standing. This is simple. The challenges with this, of course, includes money. Who pays for it? It is very easy to say now that the government should just add it to their tab. In addition, the quality of healthcare severely decreases when doctors are being paid less, because they have less incentive to become doctors. The argument can go on and on.

However, I have also heard about an organization called Mayo Clinic, which is a non-profit research group and medical practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_Clinic

It is essentially a public health care system on a scale not quite as large as the entire country but has many locations in the southern and western states. One might wonder if this project would work on a larger scale and if its core principles would remain intact if the country were to mimic its ideas in fixing up its own health care system.

On a side note, an ER doctor i was speaking to noted that at hospitals, doctors can treat symptoms and cures for many diseases. However, in many cases the true cause behind the symptoms is extreme drug abuse. I believe he was hinting that many cases he has seen could have been prevented on a psychological level. Sadly, sometimes we are led to believe that social inequality breeds these sort of problems. Regardless, many different aspects of the population’s health need to be addressed when talking about a public health system.