Devaluation Of People Research Articles

The Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genomics and Disability: Findings from a Scoping Review and Their Human Rights Implications

ObjectivesGenomic advancements affect people with disabilities. This paper presents the findings of a scoping literature review on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomic technologies for people with disability. The human rights implications of the ELSI findings are then discussed briefly with reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).MethodsA systematic search of the ELSI literature was conducted. Via a process of abstract screening and full-text review, 288 sources of evidence were included in the review. Data extraction involved identifying the ELSI discussed in each source, which were thematically analysed to generate ELSI themes and to identify relevant linkages to the UNCRPD.ResultsTen ELSI themes were identified as having relevant UNCRPD linkages including reproductive autonomy, issues related to cost and access, the downside of knowing about one’s genetic makeup, lagging legislation in light of the rapid advancement of genomic technologies, genetic discrimination, the stigmatisation and devaluation of people with disabilities, the potential resurgence of eugenics and the medical model of disability, and the involvement of people with disabilities in conversations about genomic technologies. These themes have relevant and direct linkages to several UNCRPD rights including equality, non-discrimination, diversity, accessibility, full participation, identity, and freedom of expression.ConclusionsThe review findings highlight that there is scope for the development of a charter on human rights specific to genomic technologies in the context of disability, which could guide ethical and socially appropriate developments in the field of genomic technologies in future.

The impact of HIV-related stigma on children orphaned by AIDS or living with seropositive caregivers

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the effects of HIV-related stigma on children made orphans by AIDS and other children made vulnerable by HIV. HIV-related stigma is usually identified as the process of devaluation of people living with, affected by, or associated with HIV. The vast majority of children orphaned by AIDS or made vulnerable by HIV are ostracized, discriminated against, and isolated due to the shame associated with this disease. The authors emphasize how stigmatization makes it much more difficult to protect the basic rights of these children and add that many of them are at higher risk of being exploited by criminal gangs or becoming victims of abuse, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, the authors suggest to promote a strategy that draws orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS into social protection schemes and programmes.

Normative Ideals, “Alternative” Realities: Perceptions of Interracial Dating among Professional Latinas and Black Women

Family types continue to expand in the U.S., yet normative patterns of endogamy and the privileging of nuclear families persist. To understand how professional women of color navigate endogamy and family ideals, I draw on 40 in-depth interviews of professional Black women and Latinas to ask how they construct partner preferences. I find that professional Latinas and Black women prefer same-race, similarly educated partners but report significant barriers to satisfying these desires. Respondents’ experiences with racism, the rejection of ethno-racial and cultural assimilation, gendered racism from men of color, and the college gender gap emerge as mechanisms for endogamous preferences. These preferences resist and support hegemonic family formation, an ideological and behavioral process that privileges, white, middle class, endogamous, heteronormative ideals for families comprising courtship, marriage, and biological childbearing. By challenging the racial devaluation of people of color while preferring the normativity that endogamy offers, the women in this study underscore the fluidity embedded in endogamy.

Behavioral Health and Relational Dynamics

Work within the field of behavioral health within the United States has focused on Recovery, the process of restoring someone's life back to their previous level of functioning. Recovery does not set the expectation for continued growth or development. The western medical model is based upon disease, based upon this same premise, identification and treatment to regain what is an arbitrary pervious state of “health”. The Recovery moment began in the 1960's with the intention of deinstitutionalizing patients held in state institutions and returning them to their communities. The New Frontier of former president of John F. Kennedy intended to provide community mental health systems, where services once provided only at hospitals could be available to every citizen in need. The Recovery Model has never embraced the belief of their being value or growth within the patient's experience, but looked to a reductionist model of disease for the cause, cure and care of the mentally ill. Medication rarely resolves most mental illnesses. Instead, medications lessen or attempt to control symptoms. Recovery, based upon the western disease model, limits the possibilities of acknowledging the growth and development out of what are worldwide experiences of psychological dilemmas. The obstacles to true recovery (or health) created by the disease model have resulted in stigma and devaluation of people who are responding to universal psychological issues. In countries outside of the United States, many Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) diagnoses do not exist. Centuries ago, many DSM diagnoses were not considered permanently disabling, as they were later construed. Recovery itself denotes the need to recapture, repossess, or regain something, perhaps recovery should not be the aim of behavioral health, as much as finding a valued and meaningful role for people throughout the world. Relational Dynamics is a model that provides strategies for changing non-cooperative relationships into cooperative interactions and possible alliances. Relational Dynamics can be utilized within behavioral health to minimize the misuse of domination by others and provide a means for clients' self-determination.

The Accursed Share: Genealogy, Temporality, and the Problem of Value in Black Reparations Discourse

ABSTRACT In this article the author discusses the procedural hurdles erected by courts to limit litigation of Black reparations claims based on slavery. By examining the policy justifications that underlie the procedural doctrines, the author challenges the view that the current impasse in Black reparations litigation is a matter of doctrinal limits rather than a matter of social devaluation of the litigants. Basing his argument on a review of nineteenth-century restitution cases involving wrongful enslavement, the author posits that the continued refusal by courts to hear Black reparations claims on the merits reflects a millenarian process of subordination and social devaluation of people of African descent.

Reasonable Accommodation as Part and Parcel of the Antidiscrimination Project

Numerous commentators have characterized the ADA's accommodation mandate - which sometimes requires employers to take affirmative steps that treat an individual with a disability differently from other workers - as a departure from the fundamental precepts of antidiscrimination law. These characterizations, however, fail to appreciate either the insights offered by disability theorists regarding the sources of inequality experienced by people with disabilities or the intrinsic conceptual kinship between the ADA's accommodation requirement and disparate impact liability and hostile environment liability under Title VII. Disability theory scholarship affirms that society's historic disregard for and devaluation of people with disabilities has resulted in workplaces where conventional structures, policies, and practices commonly act as barriers to disabled persons' equal employment opportunity. Examination of the conceptual foundations of disparate impact liability and hostile environment liability demonstrates that a central purpose of established antidiscrimination law is the removal of barriers to equal employment opportunity. This Article contends that the ADA's accommodation requirement should be properly understood as a mechanism for ending discrimination against people with disabilities by requiring the removal of those workplace obstacles whose presence reflects society's disregard for and devaluation of people with disabilities. This understanding may guide courts called on to determine whether a particular requested accommodation should be deemed a reasonable accommodation in light of the ADA's antidiscrimination purpose. Ultimately, it may also prompt a broader recognition that the accommodation requirement is an integral part of our society's antidiscrimination project.

The Political Economy of Developmental Disability

Using a historical materialist approach, this paper maintains that the treatment of people with developmental disabilities is strongly related to the forces of production. While 19th century capitalism ameliorated some past abuses, early 20th century apologists for inequality advanced the idea that "defective" people were responsible for crime, poverty and urban distress. The adverse attitudes, stereotypes and policies supported by this ideology have shaped a culture that, despite reform efforts, largely defames and harms people with developmental disabilities. In the late 20th century, widespread devaluation of people with disabilities remains and continues to help legitimate social inequality.