The Official Racism Thread Social • Page 49

This is bizarre, right? France is not very religious at all. I think it's about 50% of the population doesn't believe in any religion or god.

 

If it is anything like it is in Baltimore, the areas in which they're located are completely disconnected from the ability of people to get access. That aside, given the way that we treat people with addiction, it becomes a social stigma for them to actually seek out the care they need.

 

I'm just mentioning that if people are seeking help but are worried about the financial aspect of it, there are a ways to do it for free. It's actually probably worse to remind people that "if you want to get help, it's a complete pain in the ass since the treatment center isn't across the street from your house."

And from my 10 minute Google search, Baltimore seems to have a very large amount of free/low-income substance abuse centers right in downtown. I found about 15.

 

i have extremely mixed feelings about inpatient rehab, talking to people first hand who have done it. it doesn't seem very effective in many, many cases. ive only been through outpatient tho

 

More often than not, the drug treatment facilities available require insurance. There are free ones, to be sure, but the level of poverty among the addicts here is so high that it is often remains inaccessible even when they are centrally located. The point I aim to make is that it isn't as simple as there is treatment, seek it out because there are other social factors at play. There are places doing good work in actual outreach and I think there needs to be an increase in spending on those programs, so that their reach goes farther.

 

It's probably getting some resonance because of how there's an increasingly powerful and popular far right Christian party that's been rattling sabers and capitalizing on the unrest

 

People who are barely surviving day to day don't care about rehab, they care about taking care of their families. Short inpatient rehab is a minimum of 2 weeks and nothing is 100% free.

 

It isn't too bizarre. This is how liberals love to discriminate, under the guise of secularism.

Basically these people are those annoying atheists with pony tails.

 

Their worldview is on par with bill maher, which is in fact very intolerant.

 

Man’s ‘unusual fixation’ with Lebanese neighbors led to killing, Tulsa police say

 

I think it's worth taking a step back from a lot of the anecdotal evidence you're bringing up. Delve into some of the societal machinations that lead to drug addiction. That will help you stop being mad at the individual drug abuser and direct your disdain towards the system that drives people into drugs.

 

Pretty much this. It's not really a matter of opinion. Everything says that you need empathy to reach out to people. Showing judgement or anger towards a family is the one thing they tell you absolutely not to do. It doesn't work. They'll shut down, won't trust you, and never ever work with you. And for good reason. Nobody wants to reach out to someone who thinks they're above them. It kinda boils down to how to communicate effectively in all situations. Like if someone came at me demanding me to change and judging me I'd buckle down and refuse to engage them. /rant

 

I know YMMV, but I've been to inpatient two times and IOP once; the first was when I first came to America 4 years ago and I went to a free one without insurance. Then went to a paid facility that set up a very reasonable payment. plan. I currently volunteer at the second facility I went to and I've seen that substance abuse centers are extremely understanding of people's financial situations. This is because the majority of staff at facilities are recovering addicts. It's understanding to the point that both facilities I've been to have taught classes on managing your finances during sobriety and figuring out how to get back on your feet, financially. Again, this is anecdotal but I've heard this is the same at many, many facilities in different cities across the US.

 

This gets a ton harder if you have family, rent to pay, etc. Not being able to pay for in patient is one thing, but not getting paid for two weeks means you might not be able to pay for basic needs.

 

Yeah... Two weeks is a very, very long time to not have income for MOST folks - so when you're living hand to mouth, it's catastrophic. Especially if your job doesn't allow for you to get that kind of time off in the first place. Nobody trying to make ends meet is going to give up having a job for treatment, especially if they aren't sure it'll even help.

Same issues we see with limited access to reproductive health, polling places, etc. The cards are stacked against the poor getting help or benefiting from public services across the board and race has everything to do with it.

 

This is completely true but my point is that substance abuse treatment will work around any obstacles you may have. IOP helps with this and I've been to inpatient that allowed me to go to work everyday. Also, if you don't feel you need that intensive of treatment, there are a ton of organizations that have meetings everyday in various places. The actual "getting help" isn't the issue, it's people actually wanting to get help.

 

Again, this depends a ton on where you are, what rehab centers are available in that area, rehab or counseling centers that aren't out of spots, if you have kids or a parent you care for, if you have a car, where your work, if your work is hourly, if your work has a flexible schedule, if all treatment centers are as affordable and flexible as they thankfully have been for you (family and friend experience confirms they are sadly not), what your insurance offers... There's like, a ton of pieces to this beyond "if one wants to get help," and a lot of them end up correlating back to poverty and race.

Even if it WERE a question of if one wants help, we stigmatize mental health care, are overagressive with drug offenses, and make getting help an dehumanizing experience on both a societal and legal level. It's just not cut and dry.

 

"There’s a reason why the vast majority of police stops occur in the Western and the Central Districts: the Western is home to Baltimore’s poorest black neighborhoods, the Central is home to Baltimore’s business district. In effect, the city is producing and reproducing a population that has no functional purpose other than to be policed.

Seeing police violence as simply an expression of racism omits this crucial component. It overlooks that in Baltimore and elsewhere, repressive policing is animated not just by a racial dynamic, but by a class dynamic.

The race of the police officer doesn’t matter. The race of the mayor implementing the policy doesn’t matter. What matters is who enjoys a “right to the city” — and who gets thrown up against a wall and patted down."


Policing Class | Jacobin

 

This is especially true for rural areas. We have like one place for people to go here which I'm actually surprised we even have one, but it's on the outskirts of town and not accessible at all. I dont even know where the road is exactly lol but I know it's not close

And tbh a lot of these people already have dhs breathing down their necks and it's difficult to find childcare that's affordable and miss the 2 weeks off work. There's also the intersection of ethnicity and a lot of families are immigrants and won't sign up for anything because they're scared of being deported. That's always super tricky to navigate.

 

Reducing it to individual empowerment, in my mind, undermines our ability to address the issue. It is a national medical issue. We should treat it as such.

 

Hell, even in Philadelphia, my schizophrenic friend had to bus hop to get to an inpatient that accepted his lack of insurance.

 

You don't feel that telling people that getting help for addiction could be extremely difficult and discouraging them from getting help is a bad thing or making the stigma worse?

 

I don't think that's what is being said at all, but being honest about the reality behind what getting help entails has to be part of the conversation. The system needs to change, and that won't happen if we don't acknowledge why it's broken.

 

and two weeks is not NEARLY enough time for proper recovery, especially from something like opiates where you're barely even feeling normal after two weeks. the relapse rate for inpatient stays is insane.