War and global epidemics are two of the most destructive forces shaping the modern world, and their relationship is far more intertwined than many realize. Each crisis magnifies the other, creating a vicious cycle that threatens human survival, weakens nations, and destabilizes entire regions.
A writer at a desk surrounded by papers and soft light, representing the worldwide targeting of journalists.
We live in a sick and shameful world, not because humanity
lacks intelligence or resources, but because the systems that govern our lives
have been corrupted by greed, selfishness, and the relentless pursuit of power.
The greatest tragedies of our time are not natural disasters
or accidents; they are deliberate actions carried out by governments,
institutions, and powerful groups who place profit above human dignity.
These actions destroy lives, create poverty, displace
families, and destabilize entire nations, yet they are rarely recognized as
crimes. Instead, they are disguised as “policies,” “strategies,” or “national
interests,” while the people who suffer are left without justice or protection.
What makes this world truly sick is hypocrisy. When leaders
make decisions that plunge millions into poverty, it is never called a crime.
When powerful nations support oppressive regimes for economic gain, it is never
labeled as wrongdoing.
Related post: Why journalism has become a profession to feed the stomach but not for the truth
When corporations destroy the environment, poison
communities, or exploit vulnerable workers, they are celebrated as engines of
economic growth. The suffering they cause is treated as collateral damage, an
unfortunate but acceptable cost of doing business. Meanwhile, the victims, the
poor, the displaced, and the silenced are expected to endure their pain quietly.
Yet the moment a writer, journalist, or truth‑teller
dares to expose these injustices, the world suddenly discovers a “threat.” The writer becomes the enemy, the
journalist becomes a danger, and the whistleblower becomes a criminal.
Instead of addressing the crimes being exposed, institutions
turn their energy toward silencing the person who speaks. This is the greatest
shame of our time: truth is punished, while deception is rewarded. Those who
destroy lives walk freely, while those who defend humanity are targeted.
There are countless problems in the world that could be
solved today, but they remain untouched because they benefit someone. Hunger
persists not because the world lacks food, but because poverty is profitable
for certain industries.
Refugee crises continue not because solutions are
impossible, but because wars and instability serve political and economic
interests. Climate change accelerates not because we lack technology, but
because powerful groups refuse to sacrifice their profits.
Human trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation thrive
because they feed global supply chains. Even access to medicine, something
that should be a basic human right, is controlled by profit-driven systems
that allow millions to die simply because they cannot pay.
These are not accidents. They are choices made by people who
value wealth more than life, and because these choices benefit the powerful,
the world refuses to confront them. Instead, it is the writer who becomes the
problem.
The writer who exposes corruption is labeled “dangerous.”
The journalist who reveals the truth is accused of “destabilizing society.” The
activist who demands justice is branded “radical.” In a world built on lies,
truth becomes a threat.
The shame of our world lies not only in the crimes
committed but also in the silence that surrounds them. Too many institutions have
lost their moral compass. Too many leaders have forgotten their responsibility
to protect the people.
Too many systems have been designed to serve the interests
of the few at the expense of the many, and too often, the people who dare to
challenge this injustice are punished instead of supported.
Yet despite all this, writers continue to speak. Journalists
continue to investigate. Ordinary people continue to resist. They are the
conscience of the world, the ones who refuse to accept lies as truth or
injustice as normal. They are medicine in a sick society. They are the light in
a shameful world.
History has always shown that those who speak truth to power
are attacked in their own time but honored in the future. The world may call
them threats, but humanity calls them heroes, and as long as even one voice
refuses to be silenced, there is still hope that this sick and shameful world
can be healed.
Anxiety disorders affected an estimated 359 million people worldwide in 2021, making them the most prevalent mental health problem.
Mental health has always been a delicate part of the human
experience, but today’s world amplifies every stressor in ways previous
generations never had to face. We live in an age of constant noise—digital,
emotional, social, and informational. As soon as we get up, we are bombarded
with notifications, news, opinions, and expectations.
Seldom do our minds get the quiet time they require to
recharge. Our neural systems are kept on high alert by this constant
stimulation, which makes it more difficult to think properly, have a good
night's sleep, or feel grounded. Simultaneously, the speed of modern life has
increased beyond the capacity of our brains.
According to productivity culture, we should constantly
strive to do more, accomplish more, and better ourselves. By showcasing
carefully chosen glimpses of other people's lives, social media creates an
additional layer of pressure that makes us feel like we're lagging behind even
when we're trying our hardest.
As a result, we have a persistent sensation of inadequacy, a
silent conviction that we are insufficient, and increasing fatigue from
attempting to keep up. This chaotic society also contains a deep sense of
loneliness. Although we are more connected than ever, it is now more difficult
to find true human connection.
Many people feel alone even when they are surrounded by
others because deeper conversations that promote emotional well-being are often
substituted by digital interactions. In the absence of substantial support
networks, everyday challenges feel heavier, and times of crisis become much more
overwhelming.
Lastly, there is an unavoidable background hum of anxiety
brought on by global uncertainty. There is a perception that the world is
changing more quickly than we can adjust due to political unrest, economic
volatility, ecological concerns, and rapid technological advancement. Even though
these problems don't directly impact us on a daily basis, they
Recognizing our surroundings and granting ourselves
permission to seek solitude, connection, and compassion in a world that never
provides them freely are key components of understanding this rather than
placing the blame on ourselves.
Nowadays, mental health problems affect people of all
backgrounds, and anxiety and sadness are on the rise globally. Systemic issues,
including unstable housing, stagnating earnings, and income inequality,
aggravate the crisis and directly lead to a rise in anxiety and depressive
symptoms.
Particularly in developing countries, where emotional anguish is frequently a reaction to unfavorable social circumstances rather than an inherent flaw, social determinants including poverty, unemployment, violence, and institutional corruption are potent causes of unhappiness.
The medical approach
frequently pathologizes typical emotional reactions to adversity, deflecting
focus from structural remedies like better social welfare, education, and
economic opportunity, even as mental health awareness has increased.
Reduce anxiety and manage the overwhelming mental noise
in today’s world
Experts advise combining mindfulness exercises, cognitive
techniques, and environmental changes to manage and lessen anxiety in the
excessive mental noise of today's world. Recent guidance emphasizes the
importance of grounding techniques and intentional self-care to counteract the
constant stream of thoughts and external stimuli that fuel mental distress.
To relax the nervous system, engage in mindfulness and deep
breathing exercises. Methods like a body scan meditation or a 60-second
breathing cycle (inhale for four counts, hold for four, expel for four) can
help shift attention from worried thoughts to the present.
To stop recurring or upsetting thinking patterns, employ
distraction and mental reset techniques like the five-second rule (count down
from five and change attention) or playing a straightforward mental game. By
establishing limits on screen time, social media, and notifications, which can
increase internal mental noise, you can reduce your exposure to information
overload.
Examine professional assistance, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy, or exposure therapy, which have been shown to be effective in treating anxiety associated with overthinking and noise sensitivity.
To lessen sensory overload in stressful situations, create a relaxing physical space using devices like earplugs, white noise machines, and noise-canceling headphones.
“Eugenics,” or “good genes,” was a science based on “social
Darwinism,” or “survival of the fittest,” applied to humans. It was very popular
with those who had most of the wealth and felt like they needed a scientific rationale for it to validate the great poverty and suffering that also would
occur.
After
1900, Rockefeller, along with the Harriman family, the family that gave
the Bush family its start, began to spend millions on “eugenics” research.
Some of the Rockefeller
Foundation money went to a Swiss psychiatrist named Ernst Rudin. He later went
on to head the German “Racial Hygiene Society,” a section of the new Nazi
state. Rockefeller would also hire William Lyon Mackenzie King as a “Director
of Industrial Research” for the Rockefeller Foundation shortly after he began
the racist war on opium-smoking Chinese in Canada.
“Eugenics” soon evolved
into “racial hygiene,” a term the Nazis used to scientifically justify their
genocidal policies. Hitler was called the “physician of the German people,” who were
“killing in the name of healing.”
One member of Davenport’s office would remark that Hitler “should be made (an)
honorary member” of the ERO. (191) The ERO and Ernst Rudin, ex-Rockefeller
employee and head of the German “Racial Hygiene Society,” worked together regularly.
Rockefeller’s racist
writers were a hit. By the early 1930s, thirty states had passed compulsory
sterilization laws that gave panels of “experts” the power to sterilize
individuals who fell into such undesirable social categories as “sexual
perverts,” “epileptics,” “drunkards,” and “drug fiends.” Hitler credited
eugenics in America as the most important factor influencing his policies on
racial and hereditary science.
At least half of the
world population has to die.
Rockefeller’s Council on
Foreign Relations recently published an article stating that the US population
should be reduced to “about its size in the 1940s,” in other words, cut back by at least half.
It goes without saying that similar (if not more drastic) “cuts” are called for
in the rest of the world. Most of their attention is with the “less developed”
countries. Africa, of course... and you will not believe it... blacks in
Atlanta...
Atlanta is often
affectionately called the “Black Mecca” of the South, but the city has undergone
a dramatic demographic shift over the past four decades. Black Atlanta is
shrinking, and there are 20 major reasons, a “20-Point Plan,” that account for
this depopulation. Many of them are detailed in a book entitled “The Black
Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century” (2007).
The Center for the Study
of Racism, Social Justice, and Health
The Center for the Study
of Racism, Social Justice, and Health is dedicated to examining how and when
racism affects health, providing tools to improve the rigor with which
researchers study racism and health, and evaluating intervention strategies
that most effectively address racism’s contributions to health inequities.
The Center is
distinguished from other disparities-related research units at UCLA by its
primary focus on the health implications of racism for diverse populations.
Public health is both an academic and an applied discipline.
Therefore, the Center encourages the translation of research findings for use
by public health professionals, community organizations, and policymakers in
their ongoing health equity efforts.
Many Center affiliates
are working to identify, investigate, and explain the specific mechanisms by
which various forms of racism may produce local, national, or global health
inequities.
Others are advancing critical racial theories or building community
partnerships to guide their anti-racism and health equity work.
How does racism affect
the physical and mental health of diverse populations? What tools are available
to improve the rigor with which researchers study racism and its relationship
to health inequities?
Which intervention strategies most effectively address racism’s contribution to
specific health inequities? What are effective ways to teach public health
students about racism?
As a journal writer
for UCL of FSPH, Professor Chandra Ford writes about how study results may
be influenced by conscious or unconscious assumptions.
How can public health researchers address racism? That’s the focus of a
supplement to the latest issue of the journal Ethnicity & Disease, for which UCLA professor Chandra Ford served as a guest editor.
“Race is a social
construct and not a biological attribute, but scientists continue to design
studies that reinforce the notion that race and ethnicity are causes of health
outcomes,” said Ford, an associate professor of community health sciences and
the founding director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social
Justice & Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
The journal supplement
includes a collection of papers based on critical race theory, a concept
developed more than three decades ago by legal scholars that illuminates the
subtle ways racism matters in any situation.
“Critical race theory
helps public health researchers avoid common pitfalls that pervade the field
and limit the capacity to achieve equity,” Ford said.
These pitfalls include erroneously targeting biological or cultural characteristics of minorities as the root cause of the disease, thus missing the true cause and conflating the effects of racism with those of race or ethnicity and reinforcing racial or ethnic stereotypes.
For example,” Ford said, “a researcher might incorrectly jump to a conclusion
that differences between white and Black people observed in a study are due to
genetic factors, even if that researcher did not actually analyze their genetic
backgrounds.
A paper by Ford and
colleagues in the supplement examines the public health version of critical
race theory, called “public health critical race praxis,” which she and Collins
Airhihenbuwa, a professor of health management and policy at Georgia State University,
coined in 2010. Scientists can use the praxis to minimize the risk of inserting
racial bias into their research.
A team led by Ford
applied the praxis to an ongoing study in which they are analyzing the type of
care received by a group of people who were diagnosed with HIV between 2008 and
2012. All of the authors of the HIV research completed brief, confidential
questionnaires asking what they believed the outcomes would be for the research
questions they plan to answer, including any racial or ethnic patterns they
expect to find.
The study of possible
bias in HIV research is not complete, but Ford and her colleagues will
compare the authors’ assumptions with the actual data the study produces to
determine whether the authors’ biases could have affected the results.
For the ongoing study, Ford and her colleagues also plan to analyze whether the
services HIV patients receive are affected by the race and ethnicity of the
health care workers who are caring for them.
“These are just two
examples of how public health critical race praxis can be applied to research,”
Ford said. “This is not a formula, but a broad, standardized approach that
researchers can use to draw attention to how racism can influence the empirical
work that they do.”
Chandra Ford, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences. Her areas
of expertise include HIV/AIDS prevention and care; HIV testing among older
adults; the social determinants of health/social epidemiology; conceptualizing
and measuring racism, race, and ethnicity; Public Health Critical Race Praxis
(PHCRP)/Critical Race Theory; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
health disparities.
Dr. Ford earned her Ph.D. from the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in the
Department of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina and the
Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University, where she was a W. K.
Kellogg Foundation Kellogg Health Scholar. Ford has received several
competitive awards. She currently is a Kaiser Permanente Chris Burch Leadership
Awardee.
Suicide rates per 100,000 people
|
|
Austria
|
13.8
|
Belgium
|
18.4
|
Britain
|
6
|
Canada
|
10.2
|
Czech Republic
|
12.7
|
Denmark
|
11.3
|
Finland
|
16.5
|
France
|
14.6
|
Germany
|
10.3
|
Greece
|
2.9
|
Hungary
|
21.0
|
Iceland
|
10.4
|
Italy
|
5.5
|
Japan
|
19.4
|
Luxembourg
|
9.5
|
Mexico
|
4.4
|
Netherlands
|
7.9
|
New Zealand
|
11.9
|
Norway
|
10.9
|
Poland
|
13.8
|
Portugal
|
8.7
|
Slovak Republic
|
10.9
|
South Korea
|
24.7
|
Spain
|
6.3
|
Sweden
|
11.1
|
United States
|
10.1
|
