Home Page – Healthy Conversations for Vibrant Nations
A web blog discussing current health and public policy issues in the US and globally
In 2002 a University of Colorado Psychology Professor Joshua Correll undertook a study using a first person shooter video game to study police officer decision making with regards to the use of deadly force. In this game police officers were exposed to different individuals holding weapons and innocuous items. The object of this game was […]
Right after the elections of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, I heard lots of people including some TV analysts declare that America has entered a “post-racial” era where one’s skin colour did not determine his destiny! With my usual shithole sceptism; I could not help but wonder how such declarations […]
In today’s America where white nationalist match in the streets with tiki torches and scream “Jews will not replace us”, immigrant Americans like myself who happen to be non-white can sometimes wonder if we made the right choice. More and more it appears America is still struggling with its identity as the multi-cultural global melting […]
Over the past decade the availability of commercial gene sequencing products that claim to provide information on our genetic origins have increased significantly. These products are offered by companies like ancestry.com, National Geographic and 23andMe to name just a few of the many businesses dealing in that market. This very new and rapidly evolving sector […]
In Election year 2016, forty-two percent of Americans did not vote, a significant proportion of them like myself were recent immigrants from “shithole” countries! I guess most of them believed their votes won’t matter or sway anything here in the United States of America! Before they make any such fatal decisions not to vote on […]
I have been very lucky when it come to religious education. I grew up in the Anglican Church; actually my elementary education was in a school affiliated with the Church. In those days we would all march to the church on Ash Wednesday to get the grey black crosses on our foreheads after school assembly. […]
It has become abundantly clear to me that black people in America belong to a different subspecies of Homo sapiens! I have grouped them into a subspecies Homo sapiens blackus, and in my case Sub Subspecies Homo sapiens blackus shitus! How else can anyone explain the spate of calls that are made to cops about […]
In the past few years there have been many protests and struggles across this country surrounding the fate of several monuments depicting confederate leaders. One such protest which occurred in the Summer of 2017 was the Unite the Right Protest in Charlottesville, VA. Unfortunately this protest cost 3 lives including that of 32 year old […]
Living in the great multi-cultural society, which is today’s America is an opportunity that I have grown to love and cherish. I love the fact that when I step out on the streets I could be interacting with individuals whose gene pool could easily span the whole global realm known to man. This in itself […]
I rarely have dreams! And on the rare occasions that I have dreamt, I barely remember the contents of my dream! I guess I am not prone to hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations! If I were the Martin Luther King of the 1960’s, my speech would be titled ”I don’t have a dream.” And it would […]
Before I came to America I was made to believe that America was this “melting pot” of people from all over the world. A huge successful experiment where people from all walks of life and continents who value American culture and ethos emigrate to and become American, whilst at the same time maintaining their unique […]
After more than 2 centuries of slavery progress towards equity and equality has always been challenging for African Americans, progress always seems to be followed by significant periods or retrogression. This situation can sometimes leave most black people wondering if progress towards racial equality was really worth the effort. The election of President Trump in-spite […]
Over the years laws on cannabis use have changed. Most of these changes were not based on any strong levels of evidence but were based on social perception. In this article I seek to highlight some of the issues associated with these changes and address the potential benefits of more liberal legislation on cannabis.
Growing up in Ghana towards the end of the 20th century, Africa to most Americans and “sh*thole” as Trump would say the environment under which we lived was one of that was very much carved by the impact of European imperialist culture. Most Africans irrespective of religious persuasion have a non-African name which identifies them with […]
Race has been a defining characteristic in America over the years due to historical elements of American society. In the 1600s European settlers in the New World transitioned a system of slavery and indentured servitude into an economic system that enabled them to provide resources such as sugar and cotton to the Old world. This […]
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin introduced the Dream Act in Congress in 2001 due to a story told him by a music teacher about the life of Tereza Lee a Korean girl whose parents had come to the US from Korea through Brazil. This bill unfortunately fell victim to what happens to all of us; life. […]
For those who do not know my heritage I am Ghanaian by birth and moved to the United States about 16 yrs ago. In the US I have never been able to escape being mistaken for a Nigerian, Caribbean American or African American among a whole host of origins and associations. I have no problem […]
After watching the dash-cam video of the shooting of Philando Castile by police officer Geronimo Yanez, I was extremely shocked at the composure and calmness of the late Castile and his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds whilst the trained police officer sounded and acted very much uncontrolled and panicked. This one incident, which has been watched many […]
Special Order No. 40; I heard of this policy on one of the podcasts that I listen to, and thought that was really smart thinking so I decided to look into its origins. After reading about this I gained a lot of respect and admiration for the late Darryl F Gates, Los Angeles Police Chief 1978 […]
On a flight back home from Seattle, Washington last month I had a conversation with the lady seated next to me about the political situation in America today. She happens to be white and since I am black man and happened to live in Baltimore I believe it was only natural that issues related to […]