Coronavirus

A Reverend Brings Healing Approach to Domestic Violence Fight

Moore-Orbih, a United Church of Christ pastor, whose career has focused on racial justice and violence against women, hopes to bring a new paradigm to the role, focusing on the intersectionality of factors that can contribute to an abusive relationship, including race and ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender and sexual orientation, age, ability, and immigrant identity.

Published

3 years ago

April 26, 2021

Christy Price

Combating domestic violence requires a healing-centered approach which doesn’t always remove an abuser from the household nor criminalizes him, said Dr. Aleese Moore-Orbih, incoming director of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (CPEDV).

“I have never come across a woman who did not want to help her abusive partner. Leaving an abusive relationship is an old paradigm. Women of color want to stay with their partners and want agencies to help the abusive partner break out of their cycle of violence,” said Moore-Orbih in an interview with Ethnic Media Services. “For me, the call has been to help people see one another with all their shortcomings and still love them.”

Moore-Orbih will officially joined the CPEDV team April 19.

The Partnership, founded nearly 40 years ago, represents over 1,000 survivors, advocates, organizations and allied individuals across California. The organization has successfully advocated for over 200 pieces of legislation on behalf of domestic violence victims and their children, and it brings a racial justice focus to the issue.

The Partnership noted in a press release that she “will raise the visibility of the Partnership’s anti-oppression work, move the public discourse, and support policy and community advocacy toward more effective prevention and intervention solutions.”

“People of color already live in an environment that is hostile towards them. Their survival mechanisms are seen as criminal and violent,” said Moore-Orbih, noting the generational trauma of slavery and Jim Crow laws, the continuous murders of young Black men without cause, poor economic conditions and housing insecurity.

“It is a system that has traditionally tried to kill people of color, who are brought up with generations of disempowerment. When things are out of control most of the time, you attempt to control it, sometimes with violence,” she said.

For Black and Brown men, masculinity is determined by power. “They have spent a lifetime trying to prove their power to their communities and their partners,” she said, noting that Black men have traditionally been underemployed while Black women are often over-employed.

Women have had to do the delicate dance of bringing in the family’s income, raising their children, and pleasing their men.

“For a woman of color, domestic violence may be fourth or fifth on the list of things they have to deal with,” she said. “I can handle him, but this is all the stuff I cannot handle.”

COVID-19 has added an extra layer of pressure for both survivors and their abusers. “Women doing the cha cha cha all these years are quickly learning the flamenco,” said Moore-Orbih. “But this is nothing new. Our communities have been doing the survival dance for decades.”

Domestic violence has spiked alarmingly as victims are trapped at home with their abusers amid lockdown orders during the COVID pandemic. The New England Journal of Medicine reported last year that one out of every four women in the U.S. and 1 in 10 men are currently facing abuse from a spouse or intimate partner. At the same time, traditional safety nets have largely been shut down. Domestic violence hotlines have seen a drop in calls as many victims cannot find safe spaces from which to make calls.

Shelters are closed or operating at full capacity, and thereby cannot take on new clients. Black and Brown victims of domestic violence are less likely to call police because of a mistrust of law enforcement or language barriers.

“When COVID broke, we were all struggling trying to figure out how to provide services,”

said Moore-Orbih, adding that the number of people sent to hotels tripled, as survivors had to quarantine for 14 days before they could be sent to a shelter.

“COVID became another layer of pressure for people who were already drowning in anxiety, fear, and trauma. If a person is trying to save you, you can’t see that,” she said.

Getting a woman out of her home and into a shelter to build self-esteem and self-reliance is just one small piece, said the reverend. “She is not healed.”

Similarly, Moore-Orbih does not support criminalizing perpetrators who must also be healed via the same holistic approach.

An integrative holistic approach must be brought to both survivor and perpetrator, said Moore-Orbih. “If we are looking to make people whole again, we must address the psyche, the physical ailments, forced immigration, and slavery.”

Christy Price

Posts by Christy Price

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Bay Area

Authorities Warn: There’s a COVID Surge in California

According to data estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the coronavirus in California’s wastewater has spiked for eight consecutive weeks. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits have also increased since the rise of the new subvariants. Over the last month, Los Angeles County experienced an average of 389 hospital patients per day that tested positive for the coronavirus. The FLiRT subvariants such as KP.3.1.1. Made up over 2% of coronavirus samples nationwide, an increase of more than 7% last month.

Published

1 month ago

August 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo provided by California Black Media.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California is experiencing a COVID-19 surge this summer, experts warn, as numbers of infections increased for the third month this year.

State public health authorities attribute the summer COVID surge to more infectious subvariants that have emerged as the coronavirus evolves.

Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, stated that subvariants of COVID-19 called FLiRT increased in recent months, particularly one named KP.3.1.1 that has become the most common strain in the country.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said that the subvariant KP.3.1.1 seems most adept at transmission.

“The subvariant is the one that people think will continue to take over, not only in the United States, but … around the world,” Chin-Hong said.

The majority of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 complained of a sore throat and a heavy cough. Risk factors that can increase the illness include age, underlying health issues, and vaccine dosage.

Health experts stated that the demand for the COVID-19 vaccine has increased in Northern California. However, people are having a hard time getting the vaccine due to the increasing number of cases.

Oakland Post

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California Black Media

Gov. Newsom and Gov. DeSantis Go Head-to-Head in Nationally Televised Debate

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis. As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

Published

9 months ago

December 10, 2023

Oakland Post

The debate between Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov. Ron DeSantis was moderated by Fox News personality Sean Hannity. California Black Media image.

By California Black Media

In an intense, 95-minute-plus televised faceoff between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 30, the men traded jabs and putdowns, defended their respective gubernatorial records, disagreed sharply on how to solve the country’s most pressing problems, and expressed clashing views on the performance of the Biden-Harris administration.

Conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity moderated the duel, during which the TV pundit, more than once, injected his opinion, and appeared to be providing subtle assists to DeSantis.

As the debate progressed, it was clear that opinions about each topic discussed was representative of the philosophical and political chasm that divides liberal and conservative America, and a preview of campaign mudslinging that is bound to intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign ensues.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Newsom said. “I’m here to tell the truth about the Biden-Harris record and also compare and contrast Ron DeSantis’ record and the Republican Party’s record” with that of California.

DeSantis blasted Newsom’s management of the COVID-19 crisis and criticized Newsom for prevalent crime, homelessness and deteriorating social conditions in California cities.

“You have the freedom to defecate in public in California,” DeSantis said. “You have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard. You have the freedom to create a homeless encampment under a freeway and even light it on fire. They’re not the freedoms our founding fathers envisioned.”

Newsom took a jab at DeSantis’ presidential candidacy, predicting that the Florida Governor would be endorsing GOP frontrunner Donald Trump soon.

“There’s one thing we have in common,” Newsom said. “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

Oakland Post

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BayCityNews

FDA Updates Approval of Pfizer Booster Vaccine for Children Under 5

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5. Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

Published

1 year ago

March 22, 2023

Oakland Post

As of December 2022, children age 4 and younger who have not been vaccinated receive the omicron variant-specific booster vaccine as the third dose in their primary vaccine series, following two doses of the original Pfizer vaccine.

By Eli Walsh
Bay City News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5.

Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

However, children in that age range who completed their initial vaccination series before December 2022 only received three doses of the original Pfizer vaccine, and are less protected against more infectious variants of the virus as a result.

FDA officials updated the vaccine’s emergency use authorization Tuesday to allow those children who only received the original Pfizer COVID vaccine to receive one dose of the bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since they completed their initial series.

Other children under age 5 are not eligible for the booster, although everyone age 5 and up is eligible for a booster.

“Currently available data show that vaccination remains the best defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 across all age groups, and we encourage all eligible individuals to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Clinical data has found that both the original Pfizer vaccine and the booster vaccine that targets the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are safe for everyone aged 6 months and up and effective at preventing the worst outcomes of COVID infection, including serious illness and death.

COVID vaccines are available at primary care providers, retail pharmacies and some facilities operated by local health departments.

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