Stanford neurobiologist Ben Barres has a unique perspective on gender discrimination in the math and science field.
An F2M transsexual who used to be Barbara Barres,
he said his experience as both a man and a woman had given him an intensely personal insight into the biases that make it harder for women to succeed in science
(
Read more... )
Unemployment on the Reservation hovers around 85% and 97% live below the Federal poverty level. Average annual family income is $3,800 as of 1999. Adolescent suicide is 4 times the National average. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewer. Many families use wood stoves to heat their homes as opposed to more modern ways to keep warm. The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and in the low 50s for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average.
This is not exactly the portrait of an empowered group of people.
We had the same abusive residential schools, the same trains filled with children.... Argh, no sense going into it or I'll be up all night researching and grumbling to myself.
But anyway, here it's the black people and the Indians who are marginalized. (I thought they were called First Nations in Canada, but you didn't mention that. Is that no longer used?)
The very first principle of the Unitarian Universalists is that we covenant to affirm and promote "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." Why can't other people agree on that?
Reply
The biggest difference is that they're a bigger proportion of the population here, and so they get more of the scapegoating. For example, in Saskatchewan, about 14% of the people are Indians. And they're almost all quite poor. As a result, there is a higher concentration of them in the prisons, and therefore according to the assholes, "Indians are criminals".
I don't know why people can't affirm and promote "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." I think it has to do with fear and ignorance. :(
Yeah, the term is First Nations Peoples. I always forget that one because it's so cumbersome.
Reply
Leave a comment