One more article on how student loans are not a crisis, and I may start a campaign of terror against the New York Times. I'm not violent- so it would have to be a campaign of symbolic terror, but still.
What passes for journalism today is laughable. The latest report is mind boggling in it's stupidity. Pulling on numbers from 2003 (before the financial crisis and a over a decade's worth of growth in tuition which outpaced inflation) the author makes an argument irrelevant to anyone today.
Had this been an isolated incident I would have just assumed that Susan Dynarski was a low level crack addict in rehab financing her dalliances by writing articles for the NYTimes...but the trend goes beyond this author. I have watched this issue be continually distorted by the NYtimes for quite a while. Respectable reporters opine to the public that there is no real issue. All of them draw on selective outdated data. Whatever parts of the public are convinced clearly suffered from the lack of education enhanced by this pyramid scheme funding deal we call the current American educational system. If one peruses the talk-backs one will notice however that no one really seems to fall for this nonsense. Everyone knows that we are being ripped off by institutions who have gone out of control. Administrators who earn millions while sinking students into ever deeper debt before they enter a workforce they are poorly trained for...but perhaps well trained for in the sense that if nothing else they will understand that a powerful elite will make their lives miserable, and if they won't conform, even more miserable than that. One only need peruse current statistics about labor to realize that many new grads are headed into well, hell. I would like to see one of these pretentious reporters try to raise a family on the wages available to a low level hospital worker or any of the other jobs with any nuance of stability in our new economy while paying off student loans. Given the new arrangements around labor, in which so many formerly decent jobs are slowly being turned into independent contractor positions, perhaps being suckered and abused is good training.
The only real question left is how precisely such distorted views continually make the pages of the NYTimes. Does the editorial board have a number of people with financial interests in Navient? Do financial lobbies continually pay off the editorial board? Are the writers on the staff of banks as consultants? If this sounds outlandish, consider that I recently ghostwrote a "news" article for a mid-sized paper, which was directly funded by a couple private companies. That what I wrote will never be understood as the marketing copy it was is outrageous; but not quite as outrageous as the student loans I am servicing.....
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
The Left Lies: now it's Africa
I suppose I should feel relieved. Here I was thinking all the left lies about in terms of journalism is Israel. That they sort of accidentally often participated in a new form of antisemitism because they couldn't be bothered with fact checking...
But then a while back Russian Times ran an editorial about how hunkey dorey Eritrea was, and now The Real News has done the same. I have worked with Eritrean refugees. The idea that Eritrea is an African Cuba is laughable: try North Korea...
Because I myself treated refugees from Eritrea as a doctor, and their characterization as deliberately mislabeled beneficiaries of US foreign policy who are really draft dodgers is so gratingly offensive I am moved to write... whatever the US has deemed these people it hasn't helped them much. I found myself giving patients tips on how to avoid indefinite detention in Israel- a fate which happens to many such people- so it's hardly like whatever the US said has made these people in VIPs, OK?
I consider myself a reluctant leftist. I'm affiliated with Hadash, the Israeli communist party (one of the few Israeli parties in which Arabs and Jews have made a real attempt at equality withing the party), because I truly believe in the goal of equality. Obviously, given my political affiliation, even more than I believe in being logical, or conformist, I believe in striving for equality everywhere. But I could write books on the delusions of most leftists...and the press isn't helping shake these delusions. It's creating them.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Really distorting reality: the Real News
I'm giving up writing commentary on TRNN's coverage of Israel. To continually point out how they distort reality is tiring. I'm for human rights and for the rights of the Palestinians; and yet, the more I read and watch, the more I get tired of the delusions of the left.
If you were to pay attention to the leftist press you would believe that the one and only cause of Palestinian misery is Israel...and 100% of Israelis are actively oppressing Palestinians (never mind that 20% of the population IS Palestinian Arab...why let reality get in the way of fashionable political stances?). In reality the list of those screwing up the lives of Palestinians is very long it includes the PA and Hamas to the governments of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria to even the US regime...doesn't it seem odd that 100% of the attention and blame for this travesty is focused on one state when so many are playing a part? Honestly if we were to try to weight who has caused the most misery for the Palestinians, I'm not sure their own leadership class wouldn't come out as number one; although this in no way justifies anyone else's cruelty and bad policies.
But let's examine some of these policies...let's compare some details of Lebanon and Israel's treatment of Palestinian '48 refugees and their descendants. In Lebanon these refugees usually do not get citizenship (unless they were upper middle class Christians and/or married locals generally), don't even get work permits (although there seem to be plenty of work permits around for foreign workers from Africa and Asia) and are legally barred from prestigious professions. They can not register property they may own. And in a most disgusting affront to human rights, they can be barred from Hospitals...don't take my word for it...go read the Palestinian and Arab press. Palestinians who fled to Lebanon have been subject to everything from day to day discrimination to out and out bombing. So much for Arab solidarity. The world turns a blind eye to these problems not just in Lebanon but all over the Levant, except for one single country. All over the Levant the '1948 displaced Arabs have suffered; and continue to suffer. Ironically Israel is one of the few countries some of such people can receive medical treatment in or from...if they can pay off the correct bribes to the Hamas or PA officials holding them hostage that is. There are UNRWA and Hamas and PA supported medical facilities, but when it comes to tertiary level care or specific care for certain diseases, Israel is probably the best hope some of these people have...but together with a budget large enough to put a doctor in every village UNRWA, the PA and Hamas have taken on a sometimes conflicted but often symbiotic corruption scheme gauranteed to fail the healthcare needs of actual normal people- but enhance the conflict causing some of those very needs.
A question I often ask pro-Palestinian activists from the US, is why Israel ONLY? If you want to target the biggest cause of armed conflict- target the USA. Most weapons in the world roll right out of or are at least sold by the USA. If you want to stop injustice, why not start at home? And if you really cared about the human rights of Palestinian people wouldn't the first target be Hamas? It's a much more defensible position to say we must fight injustice everywhere than we must fight injustice only if it's related to Jewish nationalism, and everyone everywhere else gets a pass. That attitude is precisely why plenty of otherwise reasonable Jews have just decided the world hates us, and let's just not bother explaining our side of the story. A quite reasonable line of thinking might go: If it's unjust that Palestians were displaced from The Galil or Jaffa, then how is it less unjust that Jews were displaced from Baghdad or Cairo? Why does one side get all the love of leftists?
Having known some Iraqui Jewish families, I've noticed their stories vary just like those of the Palestinians. Some may have moved somewhat "willfully"- but how much does will play a part in a time of war and chaos? One of my good female friend's families only fled after her grandfather was shot in the head. That kind of violence blurs the line between willful and forced relocation. The deeper you go into the actual personal accounts the of history of the Levant from any side, the more confusing the issue becomes in some ways. Not every story conforms to any simple narrative.
But simple narratives are precisely what the news seems to think people want. Therefore stories from co-existence cities like Haifa, which defy well worked out narratives, will never air in the Anglo world. If we sit back we will be brainwashed into the same tired narratives: ones which conveniently remove all responsibility from most people for the misery of anyone. Viewers can happily say 'I'm just an American or Brit--- I didn't do anything..it's all because of Israel, or Jews, or whoever the scapegoat is today' ( but in most cases the age-old scapegoats will do just fine. )
Ironically, almost no one seems focused on the most salient question of all: what can we do to make things better right now? How can we alleviate the unjust suffering and misery? What programs have actually been successful; why and how? One thing is for certain the world's program- mostly the sum total of UNRWA + governments in the Levant + US and UK actions- of keeping Palestinians mired in misery perhaps with the hope that the deeper this misery, the more likely it will cause a dramatic solution, has failed. Misery has only led to more misery, and some misery on top of that...so let's all try and think about how we can realistically fix this now...
I for one, in solidarity with all people like myself living under the threat of rockets (it's been only two days since Israel was last bombed...and the rate never seems to hit zero); am for boycotting the USA. At very least the world's biggest arms exporter should not be sitting on the UN security council...and anyone who can't see that is probably not living in reality...or living in a reality where they and their relatives have nothing to fear but a fall in their asset portfolios presumably well lined with arms manufacturers.
If you were to pay attention to the leftist press you would believe that the one and only cause of Palestinian misery is Israel...and 100% of Israelis are actively oppressing Palestinians (never mind that 20% of the population IS Palestinian Arab...why let reality get in the way of fashionable political stances?). In reality the list of those screwing up the lives of Palestinians is very long it includes the PA and Hamas to the governments of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria to even the US regime...doesn't it seem odd that 100% of the attention and blame for this travesty is focused on one state when so many are playing a part? Honestly if we were to try to weight who has caused the most misery for the Palestinians, I'm not sure their own leadership class wouldn't come out as number one; although this in no way justifies anyone else's cruelty and bad policies.
But let's examine some of these policies...let's compare some details of Lebanon and Israel's treatment of Palestinian '48 refugees and their descendants. In Lebanon these refugees usually do not get citizenship (unless they were upper middle class Christians and/or married locals generally), don't even get work permits (although there seem to be plenty of work permits around for foreign workers from Africa and Asia) and are legally barred from prestigious professions. They can not register property they may own. And in a most disgusting affront to human rights, they can be barred from Hospitals...don't take my word for it...go read the Palestinian and Arab press. Palestinians who fled to Lebanon have been subject to everything from day to day discrimination to out and out bombing. So much for Arab solidarity. The world turns a blind eye to these problems not just in Lebanon but all over the Levant, except for one single country. All over the Levant the '1948 displaced Arabs have suffered; and continue to suffer. Ironically Israel is one of the few countries some of such people can receive medical treatment in or from...if they can pay off the correct bribes to the Hamas or PA officials holding them hostage that is. There are UNRWA and Hamas and PA supported medical facilities, but when it comes to tertiary level care or specific care for certain diseases, Israel is probably the best hope some of these people have...but together with a budget large enough to put a doctor in every village UNRWA, the PA and Hamas have taken on a sometimes conflicted but often symbiotic corruption scheme gauranteed to fail the healthcare needs of actual normal people- but enhance the conflict causing some of those very needs.
A question I often ask pro-Palestinian activists from the US, is why Israel ONLY? If you want to target the biggest cause of armed conflict- target the USA. Most weapons in the world roll right out of or are at least sold by the USA. If you want to stop injustice, why not start at home? And if you really cared about the human rights of Palestinian people wouldn't the first target be Hamas? It's a much more defensible position to say we must fight injustice everywhere than we must fight injustice only if it's related to Jewish nationalism, and everyone everywhere else gets a pass. That attitude is precisely why plenty of otherwise reasonable Jews have just decided the world hates us, and let's just not bother explaining our side of the story. A quite reasonable line of thinking might go: If it's unjust that Palestians were displaced from The Galil or Jaffa, then how is it less unjust that Jews were displaced from Baghdad or Cairo? Why does one side get all the love of leftists?
Having known some Iraqui Jewish families, I've noticed their stories vary just like those of the Palestinians. Some may have moved somewhat "willfully"- but how much does will play a part in a time of war and chaos? One of my good female friend's families only fled after her grandfather was shot in the head. That kind of violence blurs the line between willful and forced relocation. The deeper you go into the actual personal accounts the of history of the Levant from any side, the more confusing the issue becomes in some ways. Not every story conforms to any simple narrative.
But simple narratives are precisely what the news seems to think people want. Therefore stories from co-existence cities like Haifa, which defy well worked out narratives, will never air in the Anglo world. If we sit back we will be brainwashed into the same tired narratives: ones which conveniently remove all responsibility from most people for the misery of anyone. Viewers can happily say 'I'm just an American or Brit--- I didn't do anything..it's all because of Israel, or Jews, or whoever the scapegoat is today' ( but in most cases the age-old scapegoats will do just fine. )
Ironically, almost no one seems focused on the most salient question of all: what can we do to make things better right now? How can we alleviate the unjust suffering and misery? What programs have actually been successful; why and how? One thing is for certain the world's program- mostly the sum total of UNRWA + governments in the Levant + US and UK actions- of keeping Palestinians mired in misery perhaps with the hope that the deeper this misery, the more likely it will cause a dramatic solution, has failed. Misery has only led to more misery, and some misery on top of that...so let's all try and think about how we can realistically fix this now...
I for one, in solidarity with all people like myself living under the threat of rockets (it's been only two days since Israel was last bombed...and the rate never seems to hit zero); am for boycotting the USA. At very least the world's biggest arms exporter should not be sitting on the UN security council...and anyone who can't see that is probably not living in reality...or living in a reality where they and their relatives have nothing to fear but a fall in their asset portfolios presumably well lined with arms manufacturers.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
The Real News, Really Wrong
Well, the Real News is getting it all wrong all over again... How
they manage to interview Jewish Israelis and still get the Israeli stories
screwed up is beyond me. Just in case anyone is interested in the truth, and
few people are, not a small part of the truth is the facts.
I'm not going to try to pretend Israel
isn't a racist society. I have worked hard against this racism...but it bothers
me to see so many realities dishonestly represented. Let's be frank, the USA is
a very racist society and does a lot more damage to the middle east than any
country in the world. Yet bizarrely American and European leftists put Israel
under the strangest of magnifying glasses: ones that distorts and creates
illusions.
Shir Hever asserts you can see the so
called Israeli apartheid five seconds after you land, not because it's
predominantly Arab and Ethiopian workers cleaning the airport mind
you...because foreign travelers are taken aside and interrogated. As Hever
points out they are the highest risk group for political activism. Activism
usually perpetrated by young Western Europeans who take up activites like
standing on hills and screaming "1,2,3,4; Israel no more!" Not
exactly charming behavior for a people who ran a genocide against Jews less
than 100 years ago. At times activism-tourist behavior hints they are
planning more than obnoxious incitement; and in such cases it's probably better
for everyone, Israelis, Palestinians and tourists if they are found sooner as
opposed to later. Bombs have a way of not discriminating by ethnicity when they
blow up. And I should know having lived through some bombings myself...But
let's make something clear, taken to its logical end Hever is asserting that
Israel, at least in airports, is practicing apartheid against foreigners who
are by the numbers mostly Europeans....
But then Hever goes on to assert that it's
those of us with darker skin who are being targeted by apartheid. He goes on to
assert it's a racial problem. He therefore perpetrated one of the biggest lies repeated by misinformed anti-Israel activists. There is a myth of
Jewish-Israel as a homogenous white society oppressing dark skin native
peoples...Perhaps due to hundreds of years of Western history that ran
on exactly that model there are few other
models of nation building in large tracts of the world. But people like Hever
seem to conveniently forget that Israel was born out of a national liberation
movement largely against Western oppression, not a classic Western colonialist
enterprise. Ironically Jews sometimes displaced Palestinians because they wanted to do the work classically relegated to native classes- i.e. low level agricultural work. But there are many different stories of how the land and peoples came to be where they are; and reducing it to any one narrative is misleading. Calling the past and present a racial problem is however more than misleading, it is simply non-factual.
I'd like to see Shir Hever stand in
Haifa or Jerusalem and pick out who is a secular Arab versus a secular Jew. He
can't and no one can, for several reasons. Most Jews here are Mizrachi Jews- Middle
Eastern Jews who look phenotypically like the Middle Eastern societies they
come from. On top of that by all accounts whether mythological, linguistic or
even genetic we came from the same people. Many Jews call Arabs our cousins,
and that is linguistically, culturally and even genetically true. To put it
bluntly, to the extent you can call Jewish a "race" we share it with
the local Arab populations...but of course we aren't a race, now are we?...which
makes the whole racism argument absurd.
After spending some time in Jerusalem recently,
I've come to see how much more conflicted the Israel/Palestine divide is IN JERUSALEM than I
imagined. Poltics and cultural differences in this particular area can make one feel like Arabs and Jews are not just different races, but different species. The slightest gestures are politically charged. When I bought
vegetables on the old conflict line by the old city, how I was treated by the
local Arab vendors changed dramatically when I spoke in Arabic (even broken bad
Arabic) as opposed to Hebrew. These guys clearly had an allergy to even
listening to Hebrew...they had a linguistic protest going on they were going to
make me aware of...and I respect the fact that they want to hold on to their
identity. But at the same time, economic advancement of West Bank Arabs may
mean eventual changes against Palestinian nationalism. I personally think the fastest solution to alleviating the dire misery of some of the West bank might be to simply spread citizenship with complete equal rights over the whole West bank...and Israelis who say this would create a demographic problem are probably a little bit racist at least (remember the political situation in the West bank is very different from Gaza, a subtlety lost on Western leftists more concerned with stories than reality)
I would never defend segregated buses.
Such a policy is absurd. And I'm part of the Israeli public that IS
outraged...EVERY SINGLE DAY. Not just that this policy was on the table...but
at so many policies it would take years of blogging to cover...but I'm outraged
about real things, not imaginary ones like a supposed racial difference between
Arabs and Jews.
And just FYI, I've been taking my dark skinned self right by those security guards in the Jerusalem bus station and they have yet to stop me...no different than anyone who looks like Shir Hever. For comparison, I've had trouble at times even entering a cynagogue in swanky New York neighborhoods because I supposedly look "suspicious" to American police who took the opportunity to harass me.
Friday, May 29, 2015
On not updating
I wish I could claim I forgot to update my post on Ethiopian Jewish protests for ideological reasons...but actually I was just too busy. I never finished editing video I shot....and I don't think I will anytime soon.
I'm tired from many things--and I guess in part because of the free information society I'm perpetrating. Social critics have already discussed the issue that everything on the internet comes with the expectation that it's 'free.' I appreciate the free information, the free misinformation less...
But I don't think the internet created this problem at all. Recently I've gotten very bitter that many people around me expect free medical advice, and I'm not talking about the refugee populations I volunteer with. I mean people with perfectly good insurance and access to decent medical care. The thought process seems to be that I must enjoy medicine so much I'm willing to do them a favor because really they are doing me a favor...the favor of getting to work for free.
Of course no one would expect me to do a surgery for free- but those little unimportant things like thinking about, diagnosing, and advising on illness- that apparently has no value I'm not willing to part with, and requires no thanks.
I'm all for sharing- but dear general public , please keep in mind if you can walk up to me on the street and explain your health complaints, you can probably just as easily walk to another doctor's actual office. Offices and hospitals have equipment so that if something is really wrong, they can help you. I refuse to carry around things like an otoscope in my purse, OK? Further, thinking is hard work...so the least you can do is be appreciative. The ultimate insult is when someone asks for an opinion, then explains to me why they know better. If you don't believe in drugs, and will only use herbal 'natural' medicines, then why on earth would you even ask my opinion?
With annoyance,
One disgruntled doc...
I'm tired from many things--and I guess in part because of the free information society I'm perpetrating. Social critics have already discussed the issue that everything on the internet comes with the expectation that it's 'free.' I appreciate the free information, the free misinformation less...
But I don't think the internet created this problem at all. Recently I've gotten very bitter that many people around me expect free medical advice, and I'm not talking about the refugee populations I volunteer with. I mean people with perfectly good insurance and access to decent medical care. The thought process seems to be that I must enjoy medicine so much I'm willing to do them a favor because really they are doing me a favor...the favor of getting to work for free.
Of course no one would expect me to do a surgery for free- but those little unimportant things like thinking about, diagnosing, and advising on illness- that apparently has no value I'm not willing to part with, and requires no thanks.
I'm all for sharing- but dear general public , please keep in mind if you can walk up to me on the street and explain your health complaints, you can probably just as easily walk to another doctor's actual office. Offices and hospitals have equipment so that if something is really wrong, they can help you. I refuse to carry around things like an otoscope in my purse, OK? Further, thinking is hard work...so the least you can do is be appreciative. The ultimate insult is when someone asks for an opinion, then explains to me why they know better. If you don't believe in drugs, and will only use herbal 'natural' medicines, then why on earth would you even ask my opinion?
With annoyance,
One disgruntled doc...
Monday, May 18, 2015
Live from Tel Aviv: The New Generation
Chants from the anti-racism/ Ethiopian Israeli protest on Rehov Allenby; Tel Aviv, Israel eve of5/18/2015
Tzhu, ngmar anachnu dor hadash!זהו נגמר, אנחנו דור חדש
Am ehad, lev ehad! עם אחד לב אחד
Kolanu achim!כולנו אחים
Ha am doresh tzedek chevrati! האם דורש זדק חברתי
Shoter alim, tzarick l'hiot mifnim! שותר אלים צריק להיות מפנים
The crowd grew...and after I walked around the periphery I had counted hundreds of police...but as of yet (8:25pm Israel time) no violence.
UPDATE: (next day) will update with videos of interviews and footage later after I get off work today.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Media Lies: The real news network on my population
Lately it seems every day I read the media, I find something factually incorrect. I'm finally moved to write after I saw TRNN's (The Real News Network's) reporting on Ethiopian Jewish protests in Israel. The video had two main factual errors. As a black Israeli and a doctor, I want to respond:
There are many black populations in Israel. One of the first black populations of Israel was the Afro-Palestinians. They came before the rise of the state, and they are still around both in the old city of Jerusalem (their historic home is the close to the Temple Mount) and throughout the country. During my first Ramadan season in Haifa, I was very happy to eat with such a family in my neighborhood in Haifa. In the south of the country there are black Bedoiuns who were slaves from Sudan many generations ago. The second major group of blacks are the Black Hebrew Israelites, African Americans who migrated to the country in the 1960s. Although many identify as Jews, some do not, as they are adherents to a very particular non-halachically Jewish tradition which includes a vegan diet and afro-centrism. The third major group of black Jews in Israel is the Ethiopian Jews. The next group would be other Africana Jewry. The obvious example would be the lovely family from Ashdod who ended up in the supreme court over their right to stay in the country as conservative movement Jews. Although the family was Jewish, it seems their skin color aroused lots of suspicion. Also in the group of Africana Jews fall groups like the Lemba.
Identity is often mostly imaginary, so drawing a line around who is black in Israel is hard. Some Morrocan of even Yemenite Jews will tell you they are black. The black panthers of Israel represented Mizrachi Jews, and to this day Mizrachi popular culture draws on African diaspora culture.
TRNN went beyond overlooking many populations to distorting reality. Ethiopian women were mistreated when it came to contraception; however they were given depo- not sterilized. Depo is reversible contraception. Sterilization is what happened to many black and hispanic women in the United States through the 1970s. Poor black women in the USA would have their tubes tied so they would never be able to conceive again. Interestingly, I am black, and I had to fight to get on birth control when I was in Israel. One of the main important differences, in my opinion, was language. I spoke in languages the doctors understood. There are not enough Amharic translators in the hospital system. I'm acutely aware of this as a doctor. And as a doctor, I'm often subject to many special 'privledges', including my colleagues questioning whether I should get birth control given that I'm part of the "positive population" as one put it. These words positive population highlight the real essence of the problem. Becuase of the way Ehtiopian Jews were integrated into the Israeli society, they suffer high amounts of poverty and live other poor populations except the Haredim they have been incredibly marginalized. But TRNN further marginalizes blacks by getting our story wrong, and prescribing how we should protest.
Lia Tarachansky reports that there were good and bad elements of the recent protests. She speaks about how supposedly bad it was for Ethiopian Jews to wrap themselves in the flag. Like all Jews Ethiopian Jews are a people of many different opinions and identities: leftist and right wing, gay and straight, femenist and familist, and so on...together Ethiopian Jews are fighting for their rights. I think it is important that the full rainbow of identity is on display; and further those who utilize Zionist symbols point out the obvious. This is supposedly our state too. I see no problems waving an Israeli flag. I'm not trying to be politically avante gaurde...I'm trying to help my community advance.
There are many black populations in Israel. One of the first black populations of Israel was the Afro-Palestinians. They came before the rise of the state, and they are still around both in the old city of Jerusalem (their historic home is the close to the Temple Mount) and throughout the country. During my first Ramadan season in Haifa, I was very happy to eat with such a family in my neighborhood in Haifa. In the south of the country there are black Bedoiuns who were slaves from Sudan many generations ago. The second major group of blacks are the Black Hebrew Israelites, African Americans who migrated to the country in the 1960s. Although many identify as Jews, some do not, as they are adherents to a very particular non-halachically Jewish tradition which includes a vegan diet and afro-centrism. The third major group of black Jews in Israel is the Ethiopian Jews. The next group would be other Africana Jewry. The obvious example would be the lovely family from Ashdod who ended up in the supreme court over their right to stay in the country as conservative movement Jews. Although the family was Jewish, it seems their skin color aroused lots of suspicion. Also in the group of Africana Jews fall groups like the Lemba.
Identity is often mostly imaginary, so drawing a line around who is black in Israel is hard. Some Morrocan of even Yemenite Jews will tell you they are black. The black panthers of Israel represented Mizrachi Jews, and to this day Mizrachi popular culture draws on African diaspora culture.
TRNN went beyond overlooking many populations to distorting reality. Ethiopian women were mistreated when it came to contraception; however they were given depo- not sterilized. Depo is reversible contraception. Sterilization is what happened to many black and hispanic women in the United States through the 1970s. Poor black women in the USA would have their tubes tied so they would never be able to conceive again. Interestingly, I am black, and I had to fight to get on birth control when I was in Israel. One of the main important differences, in my opinion, was language. I spoke in languages the doctors understood. There are not enough Amharic translators in the hospital system. I'm acutely aware of this as a doctor. And as a doctor, I'm often subject to many special 'privledges', including my colleagues questioning whether I should get birth control given that I'm part of the "positive population" as one put it. These words positive population highlight the real essence of the problem. Becuase of the way Ehtiopian Jews were integrated into the Israeli society, they suffer high amounts of poverty and live other poor populations except the Haredim they have been incredibly marginalized. But TRNN further marginalizes blacks by getting our story wrong, and prescribing how we should protest.
Lia Tarachansky reports that there were good and bad elements of the recent protests. She speaks about how supposedly bad it was for Ethiopian Jews to wrap themselves in the flag. Like all Jews Ethiopian Jews are a people of many different opinions and identities: leftist and right wing, gay and straight, femenist and familist, and so on...together Ethiopian Jews are fighting for their rights. I think it is important that the full rainbow of identity is on display; and further those who utilize Zionist symbols point out the obvious. This is supposedly our state too. I see no problems waving an Israeli flag. I'm not trying to be politically avante gaurde...I'm trying to help my community advance.
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