Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, October 21, 2019
Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White
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ALLISON PUJOL | COLUMN
What we can learn from the recent Ecuadorian protests
W
hile
the
Amazon’s
fires blazed on, despite
worldwide outcry and
aid efforts, hundreds of protesters in
Quito, Ecuador were setting fires of
their own.
On Oct. 3, Ecuador’s President
Lenín Moreno declared a nationwide
state of emergency after protests
erupted over the end of the country’s
40-year-long subsidy for gasoline.
Along with the decision to terminate
the
gasoline
subsidy,
Ecuador’s
government decided to depart from
the
Organization
of
Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) to avoid
committing to their guidelines on
reducing output. For a country that
is fairly reliant on oil (petroleum
constituted a third of Ecuador’s export
earnings in the year 2017), it is not
surprising that Moreno’s recent policy
has been met with a heated response.
The end of the gas subsidy also comes
on the heels of Moreno’s economic
agenda, which encompasses broader
structural reform including changes
to the country’s central bank and the
code of budget and planning.
Domestic prices of most consumer
goods have been highly responsive to
the end of the subsidy. For example,
the Ecuadorian price of diesel rose
from $1.03 to $2.30 per gallon on
Thursday, while gasoline climbed
from $1.85 to $2.39, according to NPR.
Ecuador is no stranger to drastic
economic reforms. A financial crisis
in 1999 led to systematic changes
including the shift to dollarization.
But Moreno’s latest change, some
say, is a political ploy. The decision to
end the fuel subsidy hurts Ecuador’s
marginalized
populations
much
more than the country’s economic
elites, who will still be able to afford
the spikes in prices. While Moreno
claimed the decision was intended to
help Ecuador’s economy grow and
decrease the debt, the decision to end
fuel subsidies also came with a hefty
loan from the International Monetary
Fund.
Protests have escalated well beyond
demonstrations. As of last week, an
estimated 50 police officers have
been taken hostage by demonstrators.
Carlos Pérez, the country’s minister of
energy and natural resources, noted
“oil industry installations are being
guarded against attempts to occupy
them.” Quito’s surrounding cities have
faced violence as well. Pharmacies
and supermarkets are being looted
by enraged citizens, and there are
videos of police officers beating down
protesters in the streets and using tear
gas. Outside of Ecuador’s domestic
panic, we can already see some of
the early international effects of the
protests. Several major flights have
been forced to reschedule or re-route
as the road blockades have prevented
traffic from entering or exiting the
Quito airport. The result of these
protests has been an odd private
conversation between two persons:
Moreno has accused the protesters of
attempting to destabilize Ecuador’s
government, while the protesters
allege that the president has turned
a blind eye to the effects of the policy
on the lower and middle classes in the
country.
Moreno ought to consider that
some of the residual anger many
Ecuadorians feel is a result of the
lack of returns on other economic
promises. For example, the president’s
proposed expansion of funding for
social programs in the country has not
seen follow-through yet.
Because these protests center
around the massive spike in prices for
a variety of consumer goods in the
country, and because the decision to
end the subsidies has received support
from the country’s elites, moving
forward with an aggressive reform of
the country’s social safety nets could
alleviate some of the most vulnerable
protesters’
economic
concerns.
This is especially the case given that
Moreno’s loan from the IMF was,
among other things, intended to
expand government provision of aid to
Ecuador’s poorest populations. While
the loan has been cancelled due to
the protests, the IMF has stated that
they are open to renegotiating. The
world will be watching Ecuador now
and, more importantly, watching the
renegotiation — to see if Ecuador uses
this opportunity to do its citizens right
in a time of increased social upheaval.
Much of the news frenzy around
Ecuador’s civil unrest lies in the
equally enormous levels of passion
and strategy behind the protests.
Ecuador’s central government was
forced to flee as a series of riots
descended upon the capital. This,
some policy analysts have suggested,
is in line with the way that recent
Latin American protesters have
shifted their tactics to attempt to
combat corruption. Guatemala, Peru
and Colombia have experienced
similar unrest after citizens took to
the streets to protest corrupt officials.
While thousands of Colombians
blocked the Pan-American Highway
to highlight the systemic violence
indigenous people continue to
endure at the hands of officials who
have turned a blind eye, protesters
in Peru targeted bribed attorneys
general as well as federal judge Pedro
Chávarry, who sought to unlawfully
remove prosecutors from upcoming
controversial cases. Just this month,
Peruvian citizens took to the streets
again to protest President Martín
Vizcarra’s decision to dissolve the
country’s current congress and hold
new elections — a move that many
have labeled as a blatant attempt to
break Peru’s constitutional order
for personal political gain. In Latin
America these days, protesters’
attention
is
hyper-focused
on
the
lawmakers
responsible
for
socioeconomic problems.
In the age of Donald Trump, the
United States has seen a variety of
movements develop around the need
to address widespread socioeconomic
disparities. Those who want to see
change in the United States ought
to align with those protesting
government corruption in Ecuador.
This is especially true for the many
organizations and movements that
have roots in Ann Arbor, including the
fight for lecturer working standards
and the recent climate strike. Many
of the people in Ecuador who are
currently protesting are facing a crisis
that shares common ground with
many of the United States’s political
woes: economic policy that benefits
elites, corrupt politicians and lack of
reform. The world will be watching
to see whether Moreno will decide
to meet protesters’ demands, and
the United States should certainly be
paying close attention.
Allison Pujol can be reached at
ampmich@umich.edu.
CHERYN HONG | COLUMN
Primary care should be a grassroots movement
Z
ip code, postal code, area
code
—
whatever
you
want to call it, this five-
digit, benign figure identifies your
general location on the U.S map. In
2017, the National Center for Health
Statistics released life expectancy
across American neighborhoods
that actually proved your zip code
is a map in and of itself. Similar to
how your DNA can map out your
susceptibility to disease or death, so
can your zip code. So much so that
even the Director of the National
Institute of Health Francis Collins
is referring to zip codes as “our
ZNA.” How can a five digit number
be so powerful? In short, years of
inequality have left their mark on
American society. Where one lives
largely correlates to what has been
coined one’s social determinants of
health. These determinants refer to
factors like “access to healthy food,
good schools, affordable housing”
and income, all of which empower
individuals
to
prevent
illness,
protect against stress or access
health care.
The Detroit News found that
Michigan’s life expectancy had
a 29-year range across different
neighborhoods. It maxed out at
around 91 years in an East Grand
Rapids neighborhood, and fell to as
low as 62 in one Detroit area. Clearly,
we need to be treating disease as
not just a breakdown of the body,
but a symptom of a breakdown in
American society.
Right
now,
primary
health
care providers, local non-profits,
local health departments and
community members are working
independently
to
promote
community
health.
Combating
years of inequality will require
these
stakeholders
to
work
together in order to identify and
target a community’s social and
medical needs. In essence, we need
to revolutionize America’s reactive
health system and transform it
into a proactive one. A grassroots
movement approach to community
health can catalyze this revolution
by enhancing communication and
collaboration between those four
key stakeholders.
As powerful as the federal
government sounds, it’s the local
government that has the most
profound impact on day-to-day
well-being. All over the country,
there
are
2,800
local
health
departments, each one entrusted
with protecting community health.
These
departments
run
free
health clinics, launch heart disease
awareness campaigns and respond
to public health threats like the
Hepatitis A outbreak currently
ravaging
Washtenaw
County.
While this work is vital, it is still far
too reactive. Health departments
should be anticipating the social
and medical needs of a community
before those needs turn into the
next infectious outbreak or chronic
disease epidemic.
The best way to do this is by
communicating with the front
lines of health care: primary
care professionals. Primary care
providers include nurses, doctors,
physician assistants and allied
health professionals. Whether they
work in emergency departments or
out-patient clinics, these providers
witness the results of our different
“ZNA” firsthand. The clinical trends
observed by primary care workers
on the frontlines are powerful. If
primary health care professionals
have the ability to communicate
clinical trends to health department
officials, they can tailor public
health programs to fit the needs of
community members.
Consequently, informing health
departments of new data about
high blood pressure diagnoses in a
particular neighborhood can prevent
a decrease in life expectancy in
this area years later. A grassroots
movement
approaches
demand
meetings between all stakeholders.
Organizing consistent meetings to
discuss these trends will empower
health departments to customize
public health initiatives in order to
tackle these concerns. Furthermore,
such communication could enhance
shared infrastructure between the
two stakeholders, yet another key
component of a healthy grassroots
effort. Working together, local health
professionals and health departments
could design software that could
de-identify patient data and map out
unmet social and medical needs in
different neighborhoods.
Beyond building bridges between
health
departments
and
health
providers, a grassroots approach
would
also
foster
collaboration
between health providers and local
non-profits.
When
creating
treatment
plans, health providers are well
qualified
to
combat
chronic
disease threats like heart disease
with
prescriptions
and
diet
recommendations. However, this
type of treatment is worthless if
a patient lives in a food desert or
does not have the proper housing
to refrigerate their medication.
The
reality
is
that
many
communities have local non-
profits who can satisfy the social
needs of patients. Consequently,
these non-profits deserve to be a
part of the treatment plan.
For instance, Fresh Express
is a non-profit mobile produce
market
that
purchases
produce
“at
wholesale
and
sells it without a markup” in
food desert neighborhoods in
Arizona, or areas where it is
difficult to access affordable
produce.
Imagine
if
health
care
professionals
had
the
capability to make non-profits
such as Fresh Express a part of
their patients’ treatment plans,
rather than only prescribing a
diet recommendation. Health
providers could also connect
patients with local nonprofits
that can provide access to the
fresh produce needed to live up
to this diet recommendation.
Patients would no longer be alone
in the struggle to adhere to a
treatment plan and improve one’s
health. Through a grassroots
approach, non-profits serving
the community would have an
established
relationship
with
health practitioners. In turn,
this relationship would enable
non-profits like Fresh Express
to communicate when patients
reach out to them for support and
see if their resources are enough
to help the patient.
Perhaps you are convinced
this is the responsibility of social
workers; however, not all primary
care clinics are equipped to hire
a full-time social worker. There
is no reason that social needs
and medical concerns cannot
be integrated into the same
treatment plan.
Soneida Rodriguez can be reached
at soneida@umich.edu.
SONEIDA RODRIGUEZ | COLUMN
We need to fortify our sexual assault education
I
am
no
stranger
to
sexual
harassment.
My
developing
years
were
littered with various types of
these experiences.
The first kiss I had
was with a drunk
actor my family
had adored, I was
a victim of a game
that involved the
groping of middle
school girls and
I
had
playdates
where boys would
tie me down and
touch me. As a
result,
from
a
young age, I came to understand
how detrimental the lack of
education about sexual assault
could be.
As a survivor, I’ve noticed
in the past several weeks how
cautious and aware students
are of specific acts of sexual
harassment or assault. There
is an elemental idea of what
sexual assault is and how to
prevent it on campus, such as
making sure to travel in groups
and to not take drinks that you
have not poured yourself.
However, the biggest issue
plaguing the freshmen class
is the overall atmosphere of
indifference. After a night out,
I have heard several female
students talk about how they
were groped or forced to dance
in a sexualized manner at a
party and didn’t think twice
about it. It made me realize that
we associate college with sexual
harassment by default. Our
new experience of secondary
education comes hand-in-hand
with adverse risks.
In
our
current
political
atmosphere,
the
prevalence
of conversations about sexual
assault, harassment and rape
has
desensitized
students
toward the issue. While I
am not stating that ongoing
conversations have a negative
effect on how we deal with
sexual assault, the persistent
use of it in media has made it
seem hackneyed. It is no longer
shocking
to
many
students
in terms of cases of college
assaults, which is probably
what is most disheartening.
Consequently,
this
creates
apathy
towards
victims
of
sexual
assault,
which
can
translate to a lack of urgency
in the effort to rectify society’s
perception of sexual assault as a
“norm.”
It is crucial to clarify the
term sexual assault before
discussing
the
underlying
issues behind it. The nonprofit
organization
Rape,
Abuse
& Incest National Network
defines it as “sexual contact
or
behavior
that
occurs
without explicit consent of
the
victim.”
Consequently,
anything from an unwanted
touch
to
penetration
falls
under the umbrella of sexual
assault. However, it seems as
if in college, when we think of
sexual assault we automatically
think of rape. Sexual assault
takes numerous forms and no
one should feel the need to
dismiss their story, regardless
of where it is on the spectrum.
There is also a stigma around
who predators can be.
When
conversations
of
rapists
and
attackers arise, people
automatically turn to
extreme
instances.
Rapists
such
as
Brock
Turner
and
Ted Bundy are the
archetypes
people
believe to be predators,
which
creates
a
one-dimensional
perception. It creates
the idea that a predator is an
abstract
monster,
because
no
one
they
know
could
potentially
harm
someone
else. It makes rapists and
assaulters
a
borderline
intangible characters, when,
in reality, anyone who violates
the rules of consent by failing
to
receive
an
enthusiastic
“yes” or “no” from a person in
a sober mindset can become
a
predator.
According
to
Planned Parenthood, consent
is composed of the factors that
it is freely given, informed,
enthusiastic,
specific
and
reversible. It is integral to note
that someone can give consent
but then change their mind,
and the other party needs
to respect that. The more
we
remove
ourselves
from
the idea that we could hurt
someone else, regardless of our
intention, the more we create a
bigger risk for ambiguity and
harmful relationships.
While I acknowledge that
there is no simple solution
to the shallow mindset of
the forms of sexual assault,
and how it occurs, there are
still steps the University and
students can take to promote
healthy relationships. I must
note that the University does
take actions to address this
concept through Relationship
Remix, a two-hour discussion
all freshmen are required to
take a month into their first
semester. The session consists
of discussion over personal
values, identity, how to identify
consent and proper use of
contraception. And while it
is a very comprehensive and
thoughtful session, there needs
to be further incentive for
students to take the course to
heart rather than with a grain
of salt. Such as approaching
these
programs
seriously,
rather than advertising it like
a bullet point to check off the
school year checklist.
This is a pressing issue that
needs to be addressed in the
community because, while
many
misconceptions
may
exist about sexual assault,
many students have personal
experience, either of their
own or someone close to
them, which can make it a
difficult topic to tackle. In
fact, Making Caring Common,
a report lead by the Harvard
Graduate School of Education,
revealed in a national survey
that 87 percent of 18 to 25 year
old women reported they had
been a victim of at least one
form of sexual harassment.
While it may seem futile
to discuss basic ideas such
as consent and definitions of
assault, these changes could
be incredibly useful to a wide
variety of students. Due to
the large student population
at the University, there is
a plethora of diversity in
regard
to
socio-economic
backgrounds, ethnicity, race,
nationality and sexuality. It
is dangerous to assume that
every student holds the same
definition of sexual assault
and understanding of consent.
Unifying the student body
on a baseline of the same
definitions of assault, safe
relationships
and
consent
during their first year of
college will create student
accountability.
Preventative actions would
rectify a blurry understanding
of the various forms of sexual
assault and, while it may not
solve the issue of sexual assault
altogether, it is a giant step
toward a safer community. The
Washington Post published
an article stating the major
cause of sexual assault is
not alcohol abuse, but rather
the aggressors. They argue
that a major combatant to
sexual assault is to implement
education
programs
that
teach bystander intervention,
healthy masculinity, how to
set boundaries and how to
protect oneself from attacks.
Education
of
bystander
intervention and definition of
consent was also mentioned
in the Huffington Post as
mediums
to
combat
the
numerous mishandled college
sexual assault cases.
The education we receive
now is the most recent lesson
we will be taught as we go
on with our lives. We are in a
special position where this is
likely the last time we will be
sat down and prepared to build
healthy relationships in order
to avoid sexual assault, rape
and harassment.
Lastly, if you know anyone
that is struggling with sexual
violence in any form, please
call 800-656-HOPE (4673) to
be connected with a trained
staff member from a sexual
assault service provider in your
area.
Cheryn Hong can be reached at
cherynh@umich.edu.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
There are still steps
the University and
students can take
to promote healthy
relationships.
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CHERYN
HONG