‘I wasn’t sentenced to be cooked’
Texas prisons were denied air conditioning again this past May, reports Prism. This leaves people like Kwaneta Harris, a woman who has spent the last seven summers in solitary confinement, living in unbearable conditions. She once fainted in her cell during a brutal heat wave reaching 129 degrees Fahrenheit. Experiencing symptoms of perimenopause and taking aspirin at higher doses than recommended, Harris also writes that cold water is hard to come by, and this year the price of bottled water increased by 10 cents. “I saturate my sheet with tap water and roll myself in it like a burrito, then I lay still while my fan blows on me,” writes Harris. “I have to wake up every hour to repeat this cycle.”
New drug ‘Tranq’ impacts Indian Country
The number of fatal opioid overdoses where the drug xylazine, or tranq, was detected almost quadrupled between 2019 and 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The drug — a powerful animal tranquilizer not meant for human consumption — has now reached members of Lummi Nation, which is the third largest Indigenous tribe in Washington state. Evelyn Jefferson (Lummi), who is a crisis outreach supervisor for Lummi Nation, has seen first hand how prolonged use of the drug — often mixed with other substances — can cause open, festering wounds on users’ bodies and result in rapid tissue loss. “It’s the worst part of my job,” she told Native News Online.
A visual archive of rice in African American history and culture
As part of Black Voice News' "Still I Rice!" series, photojournalist Aryana Noroozi interviewed Natasha McPherson, professor of history at the University of California Riverside, about the history of rice cultivation within formerly enslaved communities, and how cultivating the crop helped shape these communities' identities. McPherson also discussed how rice is still prominent in African American culture. “Processing of rice was mostly done by Black women in the [S]outh, [including] basket shaking where they’re separating the rice from the whole. […] Rice is still a very popular dish and in the Black [S]outh, Black women are also still passing that down as cooks.”
Read the full interview here → WATCH: Regenerative Farming: Tackling racism with rice (The Laura Flanders Show)
Meet the Game Changers
Highlighting the innovators transforming health outcomes in our communities
Dr. Darlene Sorrell, DMD, is co-founder of the Society for American Indian Dentists. Serving Native American communities for 38 years, Dr. Sorrell was named a 2023 Health Equity Hero