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These fires will continue to stay ablaze as long as we continue to add flammable fuel them with our malicious behaviors, intent to harm attitudes, negative thought processes, and lack of social and emotional intelligence.
Recorded by Ricky Smiley.
Today this song continues to instill in most, the meaning of what it means to be one, one world, and one nation.
As they lay the down to sleep, we pray the lord his soul to keep….
Today we people of all colors, shapes, and sizes continue to walk the streets in protest for equality and the elimination of racial, opportunity, and freedom disparities. Mr. George Floyd was laid to rest on June 4, 2020, as thousands of onlookers line the streets to witness his burial as they did his tragic death. Millions of people continue to mourn and grieve, but what does this mean for us, all of us, all men and women as a unity?
Is the lines of racial inequality to remain in solidarity? Or are we going to continue the fight or go back inside and pull the shades where everything will go back to normal? Ordinary meaning police still killing our black men for no potential reason. To blacks be being considered not only a target, but a threat and a danger to society. To black men and women being denied equal employment and academic opportunities, promotions, and salary increases. Will the glass ceiling and pay discrimination be removed not only for blacks but for women as a whole.
People are now using the term bad apples when it comes to police brutality, but this ties into something much more profound. This ties into organization, industrial, governmental, and institution structures. This ties into all aspects of life on individualistic and collectivistic manners. Blacks are not asking for superiority, they are asking, NO, they are demanding that blacks and all people of color be treated fairly and are given the same opportunity as their white counterparts. Blacks are not evil; they are not a threat but will protect their virtue and stand for what they believe in. Blacks are not seeking handouts as they will work just as hard as anyone else or harder. Blacks do not lack intellecutal ability; its that, they are not afforded the same educational opportunities of entry into specific colleges or universities as others. Even when blacks are accepted into prestigious schools, they are not offered the same assistance and attention as those who possess as caucasian descent. In most cases, they are ignored and not provided with the same level of attention as nonblacks and others; and they are not provided with resrouces that would aid in a successful completion.
There are some scholars/teacher/instructors that possess distasteful attitudes toward nonwhite/nonindigenous persons. If all persons, professional or not, possess an ethnically and culturally sensitive and diversified disposition, it would add value and substance to so many lives. It would allow people to approach situations differently. It is not just about black verses white, as there are whites vs. white, blacks vs. blacks, others vs. others, and so forth. No one…no one should be afraid to walk down any street in this place we call American, the land of the free, and a place we call home. These streets were built by the hands of man. These roads are public property, and anyone and everyone have to legal right to use them as they see fit. For business and organizations who have put out comments related to the Black Lives Matter movement and to support inequites in all facets of life, are they merely following a movement to make their business practices look better or will they take a stand and take action to implement equality in their hiring and promotion processes. What about the business that have not released statement, will they continue business as usually, will those that do not promote racial equality continue to engage in discriminatory action and go against any Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Act that has been set in place to protect all person based on their physical and nonphysical characteristics. The unempllyment rates continue to rise for black, Asian, and Latin Americans, and others, but has started to decline for white Americans, why is that? Why is it conducive for white Americans to return to work but not black and Latin Americans? This is simply and illumation of employment disparities that has existed for so long and if America as a whole don’t take a stand together, then situation will remain the same and essentially worsen.
Touching on the subject of cultural and ethnic sensitive demeanor and attitude. The year 2020 has put people in position that they never thought possible. Middle-class people are suffering just as much as the lower class people. People mental capacity is being challenged and their social enrichment has shifted to computer-mediated communication. People will may need therapy to regain a sense of self-efficacy, self-actualization, and to increase their self-esteem and reduce ill-feelings related to future endeavors.
I say all this to say that given that therapy continues to face backlash and stigmatization. Most people who wish to engage in therapeutic practices, refuse to do so, but not solely on the stigma that is associated with its practices. But on the bases of the clinicians and therapists that are providing the services. Researchers Meyer and Zane (2003) found that because most clinicians and therapists are not culturally or ethnically senstive, some people find the services to be a disservice and dissatisfying, particularly blacks. Blacks who engage in therapy felt that the service providers only made the situation worse which resulted in them not following a specific treatment plan appropriately or not following it at all (Meyer & Zane, 2013). It is true that black people have suffer the most this year, 2020, according to what is being reported, and that they are most susceptible to contract the Coronavirus, to being laid off of work, racial dispair, medical maltreatment and malpractice, redlining, and higher loan rates. It is not that most black Americans suffer from higher rates of heart disease than any other race or are more likely to die from poor health. Its that they understand and they have always been the victim of medical malpractice that most black people don’t trust physicians to provide them with the same quality care as they would a white person.
To end this, the battle continue. People who are consider minority, less privileged, and a treat to society will have to continue to fit their way through so many doors, even those that are opened and unlocked. They will continue to be looked upon based on physical characteristics and not by the content of their character. Let no one force or coerce you into going against your true values and beliefs. You are your own person.
I love you all and lets please stay safe during these multifaceted and systemic trying times. We are America. We are ONE. No one can win this fight alone, as it WILL takes us as a nation to fight off these bullies we call racists and facisms and the coronavirus.
References
Meyer, O. L., & Zane, N. (2013). The influence of race and ethnicity in clients’ experiences of mental health treatment. Journal of Community Psychology, 41(7), 884-901. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21580
Social isolation has transpired into a new norm due to the CoronaVirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but when we analyze the playing fields, technology itself has been the byproduct of social isolation since its existence. Researchers of Pew Research Center, Hampton, Sessions, and Her (2009) found that before the release of this viral plague, technology, particularly smartphones and the internet, has pulled people away from traditional (physical) gatherings and social interactions. Hunt et al. (2018) further this notion speculating that most people, specifically adolescents and young adults, those born into the digital era, preferred communication and socialization through computer-assisted aid, thus avoiding physical encounters. So, given the current nature of the unprecedented circumstance, this is without consequence to this populations but can be detrimentally stressful and conflict-inducing for parents, couples, and others.
Being forced to say indoors for weeks to months at a time and being unable to engage in outdoor social proclivities can be stressful for anyone. However, depending on the people or persons that are locked inside with you it can produce significant benefits and implications. Advantages are related to no travel time for some, and being afforded the ability to multitask and conduct business as usual from the privacy of your own home. People are learning and working from home, some in their pajamas, or while sitting in front of a television. People can engage in online communities and social networking sites. As people still have access to various technologies, the internet, mobile devices, that provides permanently online and permanently connected (POPC) capacity (Parry, 2019), which keeps them virtually interlocked with peers, colleagues, and family members. Modernized tech trends like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Zoom, Google, the internet, and online communities generally receive more traffic than ever before, which has mandated speedy modifications and renovations. According to Anderson and Vogels (2020), it would be detrimental if technical outages or digital disruption were to occur amid this pandemic. This is particularly true for the most vulnerable groups, elderly persons whose preferred method of communication is face-to-face interaction, but given this worst-case scenario, they have succumbed to rely on technology for social richness. Relative to such, research has found that when older adults use technology, it can proliferate their sense of connectedness and health while systematically reducing feelings of loneliness (Chopik, 2016), henceforth, social isolation. Though technology has dimmed and weakened person-to-person interactions and people have substituted virtual interactions for real-time happening, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania also found that excessive use technology is linked to increased levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness, particularly among young adults. They have too found that reactive loneliness, as people who live alone, have relocated to a new area where they do not know anyone, are recently divorce or experienced the lost of their loved one can also experience increased levels of lonesomeness (Novotney, 2019). However, the resolve for the youger generations as a way to ameliorate these adverse feelings, emotions, and enhance their psychological well-being is through the diminution of time consciously embedded in virtual worlds and being more mentally involved in physical environments and interactions (Hunt, Marx, Lipson, & Young, 2018).
Technology has been proven to provide users with a sense of connectedness, belongingness, autonomy, authenticity, reduced lonesomeness, as well as the wherewithal of self-representations and management, and to step out of their actual self and into their desired self (Triberti, Durosini, Aschieri, Villani, & Riva, 2017). Digital communication infrastructures offer digital dexterities for persons to engage in corroborative and collaborative undertakings. Technically-based communications, during physical, social isolation does not mean mental isolation as people can use this time to reevaluate the life significances and strengthen family bonds. Millions of Americans were unfortunately terminated from their jobs, forcing them into financial and psychological turmoil. However, as a significant advantage is that some people have shown profound resilience and compassion for others, those affected and unaffected.
Conversely, people have started to release their inner creativity and constructed a diversified worldwide. Futuristically, people are conducting critical research on their future endeavors and navigating methods to sustain self-efficacy, self-actualization, and personification, and have started to employ self-care into their daily activity. Furthermore, this current run of the mill experience has caused people to pay more attention to their health and combat life complexities.
The lack of physical accessibility to others due to the risks of exposure and transmission of this ghostly and inherently deadly disease has remarkably increased anxiety and concern. No one knows what the results would entail. No one knows when this will end. Nevertheless, being forced into social isolation is not necessarily a bad thing and can be quite proliferating. The use of technology for socialization, when monitored and used appropriately, can add substance to an individual’s life, increase their life satisfaction, psychological and subjective well-being, produce social richness, and reduce adverse feelings and emotions.
References
Anderson, M., & Vogels, E. A. (2020, March 31). Americans turn to technology during COVID-9 outbreak, say an outage would be a problem. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/31/americans-turn-to-technology-during-covid-19-outbreak-say-an-outage-would-be-a-problem/
Chopik, W. J. (2016). The benefits of social technology use among older adults are mediated by reduced loneliness. Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(9), https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2016.0151
Hampton, K. N., Sessions, L. F., & Her, E. J. (2009, November 4). Social isolation and new technology. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2009/11/04/social-isolation-and-new-technology/
Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media decrease loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751-768. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751
Novotney, A. (2019, May). The risks of social isolation: Psychologists are studying how to combat loneliness in those most at risk, such as older adults. American Psychological Association, 50(5), 32. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation
Parry, D. A. (2019). Permanently online, permanently connected: living and communicating in a POPC world. Information, Communication & Society, 22(12), 1841-1844. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1590441
Triberti, S., Durosini, I., Aschieri, F., Villani, D., & Riva, G. (2017). Changing avatars, changing selves? The influence of social and contextual expectations on digital rendition of identity. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20(8), 501-507. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2016.0424
Au'Pearce 