Category: Uncategorized

As we’ve discussed in class, disparities among rates of sexually transmitted diseases exist between people of different ethnicities, races, genders, levels of income, and many other factors. Data published in 2016 by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (Link) asserts that Continue reading “STD Disparities Among Racial/Ethnic Groups”

This post is in response to Sunita’s post  The Power of Social Media where she discusses seeing an article taking ethical selfies on Facebook. 

Continue reading “Response to The Power of Social Media”

Today, in my International Business class, we talked about Leon Sullivan.  Sullivan was also discussed in a podcast regarding the international principles he established. The Sullivan Principles were initially established in 1977 to prevent international companies from participating in business with South Africa if apartheid was still practiced. Continue reading “The Sullivan Principles”

In New York City, there is an African Burial Ground National Monument that represents a sacred space where both free and enslaved Africans were buried. At a point in time, this sacred space in Manhattan was lost to history due to landfill and development, but rediscovered in the 1990’s. Continue reading “The Door of No Return; Lost Ancestry”

Chronic wounds are wounds that take more than three months to heal or years to heal. Sometimes, these wounds never heal. They scab over, open while oozing fluids, exerting pain with external contact. The Family Health Team (2015) assert that “while cancer can sometimes present as a chronic wound, chronic wounds typically fall into three main categories: diabetic ulcers, venous leg ulcers and pressure ulcers”. Diabetic patients with compromised immune systems might require amputations in the cases of chronic wounds and gangrene complications. These injuries might cause infections and even tissue death which can cause life threatening complications.  However, what about wounds that are not physical but hurt all the same or even more?  In his book, Discourse on Colonialism, Aime Cesaire likens gangrene to colonialism. A wound inflicted on Africa causing the death of culture, people and civilisations. The vulnerability is in the ” the nakedness of Africa where the scythe of Death swings wide”. (Aime Cesaire,1939. )The dismantling of heritage and traditions came with the advent of religion and conquest. On one hand,  the colonial masters gave religion and, with the other hand they took the essence of a naive people. Continents brought to their knees amid the throes of vain conquistador ambitions. Albeit separated by the Atlantic sea; the Americas and Africa would never be the same. What-ifs abound and in the midst of it lies regret, pain and longing lurking in the shadows. Colonialism inflicted wounds that would never heal across populations and regret inflicts wounds that would never heal across mindsets.

Continue reading “Wounds That Never Heal: Regret”

In Molly Bawn (1878), Author Margaret Hungerford reiterates that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty is subjective? Does beauty truly depend on perception? If so, why are there beauty standards all over the world? The absurd notion that every woman needs to fit into culturally idealized/idolized looks as championed by society to be considered beautiful. In some parts of the world where women’s rights are abused,  the most important possession a woman can have is her body. Young women suffer from body shaming, body image disorders among others because they feel they are not good enough, pretty enough. We are constantly stuck in a limbo of either looking in the mirror in search of confirmations or looking in the mirror in search of freedom. Indeed, if beauty is what I make of it and what I project to the world. I hope the looking glass can confirm this.

On May 15, 2011, Satoshi Kanazawa published a controversial article on physical attractiveness in relation to race. The article titled ” A Look At the Hard Truths about Human Nature” sought to explain why black women are considered to be ugly compared to other women. The Scientific Fundamentalist shamelessly carried the article under the headline “Why Black Women Are Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women”. I read this article and was appalled by the blatant racism. Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics says that “the only thing [he] can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone” In other words, the higher levels of testosterone in black women made them appear to be more masculine and therefore less physically attractive. Unbelievable. This piece of pseudoscience empowers ignorance and can be used to reduce the self-esteem of millions of black girls all over the world.  Whereas, it exists only as another fictional narrative like the concept of race.

Continue reading “Looking in the Mirror in Want for Freedom”

“Whose house is this? /Whose night keeps out the light in here?/ Say, who owns this house?/ It’s not mine./ I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter/ with a view of lakes crossed in painted boats;/ of fields wide as arms open for me. /This house is strange. Its shadows lie. Say, tell me, why does its lock fit my key? – Toni Morrison, Home. 

The human microbiome contains vast number of micro organisms residing in our bodies in complex relationships. According to Sherwood & Woolverton (2013), the human microbiome refers specifically to the collective genomes of resident microorganisms. These relationships can take the form of symbiosis including commensalism, mutualism or even parasitism. Commensals are organisms which reside in a host body not causing harm but not adding benefit either. Rather, these organisms do all the benefiting. Mutualists organisms give us benefits while also receiving benefits. The parasitic ones are the most dangerous capable of threatening our very lives much like a brain eating Amoeba. Yikes! However, if like Michael Pollan, New York times asserts that we are made up of 10 percent human,  then the 90% of the organisms within us are the majority. We never gave our consent to these millions of microorganisms living with us yet we need some of them. The questions in the opening passage of “Home” resounds clearly in my mind, “whose house is this? Whose night keeps out the light in here?/say who owns this house”.  Even as Philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle have likened our bodies to be temporary houses that we shed as we pass away from this life, our bodies are important to us! These numbers of organisms that cohabit in our house, some paying rent like e coli that helps to break down and digest the food we eat. Some that live in the attic quiet like the commensal flora and fauna that feed on dead skin cells. While others weaken our body in a bid to become master of the house like protozoans.  Say who owns this house?

Continue reading “Superorganism: Microbes or Humans”