SeeingBlack.com Community

[Charlene Marie Muhammad]

A large part of the celebration of “Change” riding high with the election of our first Black President is the possibility of universal health care. This concept of affordable healthcare for every American Citizen holds with it the idea that the quality of life for all-especially the elderly and poor- will be a mandated guarantee. The idea that our healthcare cost is subsidized and that each of us will receive at minimum, basic health care in a timely fashion is a good one. Cutting the cost of specialty services like oncology, geriatrics, surgery and the like will no doubt ease the burden of convalescing without the stress of losing one’s entire savings or home for that matter.

But do we really need universal healthcare?

Why is it that living in western culture equates to given up our basic human right to live freely in our own bodies? Think about it, we are born into the world a near perfect being, heart beating and respiration flowing. Granted, we rely on parents to feed, cloth and shelter us as they did with their own parents before them and so on, yet the concept of survival is natural and we are free to choose life.

Back in the day, we took care of ourselves by cultivating a relationship with our natural surroundings. Being born human, we need oxygen to stimulate the flow of blood that thus carries the nutrients our physical body needs to grow and survive. We ate plants and other creatures to sustain us, drank water that also serves as a source of oxygen and basked in the sun for other essential nutrients. Now days, we hide from the sun in fear of cancer, pay to drink water out of plastic bottles and prefer processed meat and potatoes to vegetables.

Back in the day, the elders in our community taught us how to take care of our health. We were taught to eat foods that would sustain our lives and those to avoid that would cause disease and subsequently shorten our lives. We were shown activities that would lengthen our days and counseled against lifestyle choices that would lead to death.

It was the duty of the physicians- Healers- to educate their patients about physiology and well-being. We didn’t pay someone to “take care of me” giving over our power to live and relying on pharmaceuticals to re-balance our health because of our poor lifestyle choices. Back-in-the-day physicians (Healers) honored the universal tenet of brotherhood that credited Hippocrates modern health concept of first do no harm. Wanting for your brother what you want for yourself is the compassion concept that roots all Healers. It is from this foundation that Healers practice and one that should be the cornerstone of any universal healthcare program we desire to have. Not financial gain from riding the fears of the people who are spooked by the doom of diseases that can be managed for less than the cost of an undergraduate degree.

We need a universal healthcare system that not only allows every human being in our society access to medicine that supports life, yet also provides education to all citizens about the reality of lifestyle choices that effect it.

We need a universal healthcare system that teaches us what to eat, when to eat and how to properly prepare food since we know that food sustains life and that 80% of all illnesses are directly due to our diet.

We need a universal healthcare system that is not afraid to share its knowledge of the real effect of pharmaceuticals on our organ systems and be willing to allow a systematic approach to healing that begins with lifestyle and dietary changes, exercise, use of alternative healing modalities like herbal medicine, energy healing, meditation and acupuncture before the evasive practices of chemotherapy and surgery.

We need a universal healthcare system that will support real change in the quality of our lives, not one that perpetuates the downward spiral towards debilitation and death, even though supporting such a system will adversely affect the bottom line of pharmaceutical companies and certain profit-seeking hospitals.

If it is truly We the People that we are concerned about, then we need a universal healthcare system that will help raise the overall intelligence of the least of us.

Our people are dying from a lack of knowledge on how to live life fully.

We need a natural healing.
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Each of us has a duty to self and the collective consciousness.

[shawneemoon]

Do you feel the breathe of hope? I sure do. It's the first time in a decade that I've had hope for America. While I am pleased to see our president-elect as a man of color, what I really is not a black man, but the RIGHT man.
My sister Charlene's words are well spoken and well thought out. While national healthcare is the easier thing to do (as Americans we seem to get the grasp of money faster than any other concept), healthcare education is truly where we need to go. One of the rights we have seen silently slip through our fingers is that of the freedom to live in a healthy environment. Big business has brain washed us to believe that packaged food, chemically filtered water, fast growing livestock, among other things, is the norm. Children have forgotten how to play outside and must be encouraged, via TV ads, to do so.
Here is where we practice our First Amendment rights; teach your family. Educate yourself and pass that knowledge on. Learn about healthy food, healthy home and work environments, and the best forms of healthcare in your area. Read the PDR when you are prescribed a drug by your MD, then choose to take it, or not. Find the alternative healthcare professionals in your area. Participate in your right to make the best choices for yourself and your family, or you will lose them. Create a world that you will be proud to pass on to the next generations, not one you will have to apologize for.
I have hope. It was only with everyone's efforts that we got to a place of significant change this year. I applaud you all for making a difference.
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"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." MK Gandhi