‘I had no voice’: black mental health patients on surviving a care system they say is racialised

Par :Aamna Mohdin Community affairs correspondent

13 mars 2025 à 19:00

As a report into mental health care in England finds a sharp increase in people sent for urgent care, two people tell their traumatic stories of being hospitalised

Adult mental health crisis referrals in England double in a year

It has been more than four decades since Devon Marston, a 66-year-old community organiser and musician, was taken to a psychiatric hospital where he was restrained, injected and forced to take medication. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

“Everything was said around me and about me, but no one asked me how I was doing,” he said. “I had no voice, and there was no one to say: ‘Don’t do that to him,’ or: ‘Listen to him, hear what he has to say.’”

In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978

NHS England abolition shows ‘we have to take difficult decisions’, says Starmer – UK politics live

The Guardian

Par :Andrew Sparrow

13 mars 2025 à 13:21

PM says he is ‘bringing management of the NHS back into democratic control by abolishing the arms length body NHS England’

Starmer is now talking about regulatation, and giving examples of where he thinks it has gone too far.

l give you an example. There’s a office conversion in Bingley, which, as you know, is in Yorkshire. That is an office conversion that will create 139 homes.

But now the future of that is uncertain because the regulator was not properly consulted on the power of cricket balls. That’s 139 homes. Now just think of the people, the families, the individuals who want those homes to buy, those homes to make their life and now they’re held up. Why? You’ll decide whether this is a good reason because I’m going to quote this is the reason ‘because the ball strike assessment doesn’t appear to be undertaken by a specialist, qualified consultant’. So that’s what’s holding up these 139 homes.

When we had those terrible riots … what we saw then, in response, was dynamic. It was strong, it was urgent. It was what I call active government, on the pitch, doing what was needed, acting.

But for many of us, I think the feeling is we don’t really have that everywhere all of the time at the moment.

The state employs more people than we’ve employed for decades, and yet look around the country; do you see good value everywhere? Because I don’t.

I actually think it’s weaker than it’s ever been, overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly, unable to deliver the security that people need.

‘Guess what? You don’t matter’: what Trump’s war on DEI means for every American who’s not a straight white man

The Guardian

Par :Arwa Mahdawi

13 mars 2025 à 06:00

The US government’s move to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion policies is a naked attempt to appeal to prejudice – but it may well backfire

Almost a decade ago, I started a business called Rent-A-Minority, which enabled companies to hire a minority ethnic person whenever they needed an injection of diversity to boost their image. I had a variety of inclusivity-enriching hires available, including an “ethnically ambiguous” category and a selection of smiling Muslim women (guaranteed not to support Islamic State or your money back).

Like every good startup, Rent-A-Minority posted testimonials from clients and influencers on its website. I made up all the blurbs, because that is the Silicon Valley way: fake it till you make it. One of those fake comments was from Donald Trump, who was still considered a long shot for the presidency in January 2016, when my business launched. “When I’m president, I’ll shut this site down,” Trump’s blurb read.

Islamophobic incidents in Australia have doubled over the past two years, research suggests

The Guardian

Par :Daisy Dumas

13 mars 2025 à 01:46

Islamophobia in Australia report details 309 in-person incidents between early 2023 and late 2024, with girls and women bearing the brunt of the attacks

Islamophobic incidents – including physical attacks, verbal harassment, people being spat on and rape threats – have more than doubled in the past two years, with girls and women bearing the brunt of hatred towards Muslims in Australia, new research shows.

The fifth Islamophobia in Australia report details 309 in-person incidents between January 2023 and December 2024 – a more than 2.5-fold increase from the previous reporting period. Verified online incidents more than tripled to 366.

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The US Postal Service helped build the Black middle class. Trump could end that legacy

The Guardian

Par :Gloria Oladipo

11 mars 2025 à 14:37

Trump is expected to privatize the USPS, where Black people make up 29% of the staff, and cut down on the number of jobs

In recent weeks, the fate of the United States Postal Service (USPS), a revered and vital public institution, has been uncertain. Since the start of his second presidency, Donald Trump has launched major changes to the federal government. Along with billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the president has carried out widespread layoffs at agencies such as the Small Business Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the purported goal of cutting costs and boosting efficiency. Now, Trump is turning his focus to the post office, an agency he has long been critical of and one that he may be privatizing.

In addition to delivering upwards of 343.5m pieces of mail and packages a day, the post office is responsible for administering official government forms such as passport applications, and providing banking services, such as money orders. As of 2025, it employs 640,000 people. Black people, in particular, make up 29% of its staff, while making up just 12% of the national workforce overall.

Betting markets knew Carney was a lock for Liberal leader. It’s time to start listening to them

National Post

Par :Stuart Thomson

10 mars 2025 à 21:37

OTTAWA — National Post Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson sits down with parliamentary reporter Christopher Nardi to discuss Mark Carney's election as Liberal leader and how betting markets can be used to predict Canadian politics. Read More

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