Ivan Waldo, Author at puntorojo

November 3, 2020

NYPD’s Disparate Response to Protests

Earlier this month, there were protests in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn that violated COVID-19 restrictions, set fires in the streets and saw a mob attack a journalist, all while the NYPD was on the scene. The incidents were in response to restrictions imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on specific communities experiencing a resurgence in COVID-19 infections. A couple of weeks prior, a human rights organization’s report exposed the violent oppressive response the NYPD executed against protesters during a planned protest in the Bronx in June, organized in response to the continuing legacies of systemic racism and police brutality.

October 3, 2020

by Ivan Waldo

They came for us

Recent revelations by whistleblower Dawn Wooten, exposed that at ICE detention centers, doctors have been performing hysterectomies on unsuspecting patients. Her revelations, while appalling and detestable, are not surprising to me. I’ve seen this before. I know this movie well. It’s like The Ten Commandments playing on television during Good Friday, I know what happens next. I can quote this story line for line.
As a Latin American History scholar, I’ve spent many years familiarizing myself with people like Cornelius Rhoads, a former US Army doctor and hospital administrator who was oversaw racist and barbaric human experimentation projects. I have learned about forced sterilizations on colonial islands through documentaries like La Operación. I’ve combed through the published studies of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment on African American males who were injected with syphilis. I am well aware of the medical community’s penchant for using people in Africa to conduct clinical trials for prescription drugs.