CN: racism, detention camps, immigration, ableism, forced sterilization, forced adoption, cancer
When people talk about racism being a thing of the past...
With the spread of COVID-19, we're seeing prisons and ICE detention camps being sprayed down with harmful chemicals similar to those used in past delousing camps on the US and South American border and German camps.
Immigration policies still discriminate against disabled people and those without a certain level of formal education or English language proficiency, or wealth. Whiter countries' citizens have easier options for immigration. Immigration is still used by governments as a way to further invade Indigenous lands.
Indigenous folks are still being forcibly sterilized and their kids are still being ripped away from them to be adopted into white families to assimilate Indigenous populations into whiteness.
Black folks are still having medical procedures tested on them for approval for use on white folks. Black folks are still seen as having a higher pain tolerance and so are given inaccurate medication dosages or lack of pain relief entirely. White folks are centred in our study and practice of medicine, meaning everyone else's bodies are held to a white standard that can be utterly incorrect for them.
ICE camps are holding people in cages similarly to German concentration camps and the way Japanese-American people were held in camps in the US following Pearl Harbour.
Environmental racism is ongoing. Where you live can determine your life expectancy due to the high prevalence of cancer due to toxic waste from industry, or high lead concentration in water due to old plumbing.
Racism isn't something we've moved on from.
