The United States And The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Essay

Native Americans were colonized and forced to take on a lifestyle that was completely foreign to them. Even today, they are totally disenfranchised and forced to exist within a system that mandates their dependency on entities which actively discriminates against them. This systematic discrimination or racism, adversely affects the Native Americans in a way that causes conditions like deep depression, which leads to corruptible behavior like alcoholism, child neglect, and a high rate of suicide among young Natives. The environments of the reservations that they have been forced to exist on, in order to freely practice their natural way of life without the interference of Eurocentric mentality, have been compared to the conditions of third world countries.

The continuous trauma that they endured has negatively affected the mental health and physical health of the population. Native Americans are at higher risk for depression, physical/sexual abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health issues (McLeigh, 2010). Native American youth are three times more likely to commit suicide than the average population. Native Americans in general are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and five times more likely to have alcoholism. Colonization not damaged natives mentally, but also brought harm to their physical health as Europeans brought diseases (measles, chicken pox, smallpox, etc) to America (McLeigh, 2010). In order for this population to be served to treat their many medical and mental health issues brought on by years of trauma, policies must be implemented to help Native Americans specifically. However, the reality is that natives mental health needs are often ignored (Gone, 2004). There have been policies that have attempted to meet the needs, but much more is needed. In the most recent action towards improving mental health services for natives, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 permanently gave authorization to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (Ross, Garfield, Brown, & Raghavan, 2015). This policy will be discussed and analyzed to examine further needs for services in this

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the health status of the American Indian/ Alaskan Native (AI/AN). A comparison and contrast of AI/ANs with the national average regarding the health status such as heart disease and strokes will be presented. Multifactorial barriers limiting health, and the overall factors affecting health within this population are identified. Current health status will be presented including health promotion and disparities among this US population. Primary, secondary, and tertiary health promotions will be discussed along with one approach to promoting health offered.

It is no secret that the Native American and Alaska Native (NA/AN) population is one of the most (if not, the most) overlooked and underserved communities in America. Perhaps because of their small numbers, rural habitats, or general neglect and antagonism by the part of the United States government (or a combination of all of these), extreme disparities in health exist among NA/AN communities. The detrimental effects that colonial settling and industrialization have had on the NA/AN lifestyle are obvious and well-documented. So too, are the physical health disparities that plague NA/ANs (diabetes, tuberculosis, obesity, etc). However, less data is readily available on the mental health challenges that NA/AN populations face. Furthermore, even

As with many races and ethnicities, Native Americans have had the front row seat in social injustices related to gender and race from the social institutions in the United States. Native Americans faced much discrimination along with other groups when it came to educational institutions and businesses. In education, many young children had lower math and writing skills leading to fewer high school diplomas (Sarche & Spicer, 2008). In labor, Native Americans had high unemployment rates and a lower labor force than the rest of the demographic population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). They also have problems with poverty since more than twenty-five percent of this group live below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). Additionally, there are high rates of violent victimization and contributing factors such as childhood trauma that lead to overall high deaths. A major contributing factor to these deaths is alcoholism which exceeds the US rates by seven times (Sarche & Spicer, 2008). Many of these statistics indicate great injustice. Furthermore, according to the Indian Health Services, American Indians have lower health and life expectancy when compared to the rest of America (2015). These staggering statistics point out some prevalent inequalities in modern social institutions that exist with Native Americans.

Due to various socio-cultural factors that impede First Nations/Native Americans’ usage of mental health programs and services, their particular needs and characteristics will influence the way assessments, goal setting, and interventions will be utilized when working with a First Nations client. For example, Grayshield, et al., (2015), discuss the historical trauma that Native Americans/First Nations populations have experienced here in the United States. This includes prohibiting Native Americans/First Nation individuals from speaking their language and practicing their spiritual and cultural traditions. Historical trauma also includes the impact of Native Americans/First Nations children being sent to boarding schools and away from their families and cultural traditions. By forcing Native Americans/First Nations communities to assimilate, this caused trauma their mental health and that can also be seen in present time.

The history of the American Indians after the European invasion of the New World is not a pleasant topic. Everyone wants to believe the stories that are told about Squanto, the Pilgrims and the harmony of the first Thanksgiving and then skip the next three hundred years of oppression and racism. Unfortunately, the next three hundred years happened and by the 20th century most Indian tribes as well as their traditional ways of life, had been extinguished. Despite the widespread destruction of the American Indian, many still survive. In an attempt to provide some sort of compensation the federal government of the United States has a special health care system set up for American Indian descendants.

The societal factors that may have contributed to the health of Native Americans today are the discrimination, isolation, and poor quality of life that they experienced not only in the past but still experience today. Although we might not hear about the discrimination or poor living conditions Native Americans experience in the news, it doesn't mean that it doesn’t exist. Native Americans experience discrimination everyday where even something as simple as getting or maintaining a job can be difficult. Employers seem to only want to hire White/Caucasian applicants and only hire Native Americans when they're the only option. In today’s poor economy where it’s hard in general to get a job, it seems Native Americans have one more thing stacked

Though the Indian Reservations were created so long ago, the quality of life has barely changed. It is extremely poor. So poor, in fact, that they are likened to developing countries. 60% of children are born out of wedlock and Native Americans are the third highest group in the country for teenage pregnancy. The suicide rate of Native American teenagers is three times that of the rest of America.

There is a high amount of Co-occurring issues when it comes to Native Americans, they want the treatment they need and are seeking the treatment out, however some of the natives are failing with treatment due to the facilities lack of knowledge of cultural and spiritual preferences. For a native their beliefs and life style is the most important thing

I agree that Native Americans should deserve much better. Not only did the U.S government took away their lands, they also took away their sources of food. In return, the U.S government award them with processed food, which made their health deteriorate. However, poor health is the only risk factor for their increase rate of diseases , poverty also plays a big role. Low income individuals are twice as likely to be diabetic than high income individuals.

I am advocating for ending the “One Person, One Vote” method of voting on referendums and for candidates that is currently employed in the United States of America. The One Person, One Vote strategy, henceforth referred to as 1p1v, has several key flaws that have made it an unfair and often inefficient method of deciding what the best decision with the largest net social product, or who the candidate most intensely supported by constituents, truly is. Making collective decisions based on majority rule is an idea as old as democracy, and in theory, it seems like the right idea. The idea of proportional and equal voting just seems, fair, doesn’t it? However, the issue with majority rule is that the majority can completely disregard the justifiable and well-founded interests of the minority. This problem is known as “Tyranny of the majority”. The current 1p1v system that we have in place has proven to allow the tyranny of the majority to take place from issues as petty as marijuana legalization, to incredibly important issues like same-sex marriage. The 1p1v system fails to give proportional weight to those with greater interest in an issue, leading to inequality. But if the 1p1v system does not work, and the entire voting system must be restructured to ensure fairness and equality, where do we go from here? It is well known that the most important issue to Americans is the economy , so I believe we should model our government and method of voting after the one institution that

The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands as the current gold standard for every individual’s rights. Focusing on culture, one may see that cultural rights are not clearly defined and are oftentimes in conflict with other types of rights. In this paper, I will first discuss the United Nations’ use of ‘cultural’ in its universal human rights in relation to the concept of cultural relativism. Then, using South African and American practices, such as virginity testing and discriminatory criminal justice system respectively, I will describe and analyze practices violate the UN’s universal human rights in addition to the practices’ use for the community or society as a whole. Lastly, I will compare the American Anthropological Association’s rights to culture to the UN’s universal human rights by analyzing the limitations of each.

The Native Americans and the United States have not always seen eye to eye on things since the beginning. The approach of the people of the white civilization has brought extreme agony and torture to the Native Americans. This was as a result of race playing a humongous part in humanity during this time, for this reason the Native Americans were looked down on and poorly treated by the white population. This was a strenuous point in time for the American Indians to adapt to society since their culture, attitudes, values, and beliefs were slowly being abandoned and the federal government wanting them to assimilate to the white culture. Since then the Native Americans have struggled to persevere on reservation lands, deprived of support, and for the most part hopelessness. There are many social problems that contribute to the delinquency of Native-American youth on the reservation. The community dilemmas that contribute to the failure of the Native-Americans younger generation are poor academic achievement, alcoholism, domestic violence, mental health issues, and unemployment. These horrendous matters will hopefully disappear in the time and Native-Americans will become successful in today’s society.