The U.S. got a human rights report card from the rest of the world. They think we can do better.
The challenge to improve is coming even from some of the most repressive countries in the world.
Every four years, each one of the 134 member countries in the United Nations gets a human rights review. The U.S. just had its turn.
Images from U.N. Web TV.
At a hearing held May 11, 2015, 117 of the member nations spoke up. Each representative got only 65 seconds to speak, but it still added up to about three and a half hours of statements.
Guess what? The United States did not get a glowing review.
Nations repeatedly called out the U.S. for police violence and especially systemic racial discrimination by the police. Many of them also identified the continued use of the death penalty as a human rights concern as well as the ongoing operations at Guantánamo Bay. (In its previous review in 2010, the U.S. committed to “find a solution for all persons detained at Guantánamo Bay" — yet as of January 2015, 122 men are still kept at the facility.)
There's something deeply disturbing about countries often considered to be repressive or violent holding up a human rights mirror for the U.S. to look into.
Here's a quick paraphrasing:
Egypt: "Investigate excessive use of force by police and put an end to such practices. ... Abolish practices that target Muslim minorities at airports and that criminalize homelessness."
Chad: "Chad considers the United States of America to be a country of freedom, but recent events targeting black sectors of society have tarnished its image."
China: "Recommends addressing the root cause of racial discrimination and eliminating the frequently occurring excessive law enforcement against ... minorities. Stop massive surveillance activities both inside and outside its territories to avoid violating the right to privacy of its citizens."
Pakistan: "We have serious concerns about the human rights situation in the U.S. and make the following recommendations. ... Use armed drones within existing international legal regimes. End police brutality against African-Americans and rectify the systems that systematically discriminate against them. Prosecute all CIA operatives held responsible for torture. Combat Islamophobia and racial profiling."
North Korea: We are gravely concerned at the U.S. violations of human rights and recommend that the U.S. investigate CIA torture crimes, take measures to investigate civilian killings during the military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq ... and take measures against racial discrimination.
There's lots more. You can listen to it yourself here.
OK, so maybe it's a bit ironic to have personal freedom protections questioned by North Korea. But country after country echoed the same concerns:
- Systematic abuse of police power especially against minorities and people of color
- Continued use of the death penalty
- Failure to close the Guantánamo Bay facility
- Inadequate protections for migrant workers and indigenous people
At least 36 of the 117 nations criticized the continued use of the death penalty and especially the disproportionate number of African-Americans sentenced to die.
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.