Newspaper Page Text
JIVILRIGHTSJOURNALBY Bernice Powell Jackson
Asthma more deadly
to African Americans
ive million U.B. childrenduf
fer from asthma and inner
city African ‘ehil
dren are twice as {
wffer from the disease :
imes more likely to die :
Asthma is a disease caused
here is an allergic reaction §
ng passageways in in
ungs to constrict, making .
wlt for the sufferer to
While there are genetic
lents to asthma, scientists
ieve that environmental factors
are to blame for the sudden rise of
‘he disease over the past 20 or 30
sears. Whatever the reason, poor
slack children are gasping for
weath in cities across the nation.
As scientists have been study
ng the growth of this life-threat
ming disease, they have found
:hat allergies to dust, cigarette
mmoke, cockroaches, ozone and
nold are common triggers for
asthma attacks. Stress, obesity
and low birth weights are also
‘actors. Many poor African Ameri
san children are at risk for many
»f these factors, so the prevalence
of this disease in our community
should not be surprising.
Public health officials and oth
ars have been watching this trou
sling growth of asthma and now
aave begun to set up special pro
grams targeted at inner city Afri
san American children. For in
stance, in Washington, D.C.,
Howard University’s College of
Medicine has started an asthma
sounseling program. Using an
asthma counselor who works in
‘he public schools, it tries to edu
:ate the children about the im
sortance of taking their medica
dons every day, not just when
‘hey have an attack. These medi
:ations help keeptheir lungsfrein:
will avoid a full-scale 1a at
ack. But they are finding that
nany poor mothersjustdon’thave
‘he where-with-all to manage this
laily regimen of medication for
‘heir children. “Being poor cre
ates barriers to managing chronic
lisease... When you're poor, you've
ot other challenges to deal with,”
xplained Dr. Floyd Malveaux,
iean of the Howard University
College of Medicine in a recent
Salon magazine article. Or, in
‘he words of Eleanor Thornton,
in asthma counselor in that same
yrogram, “You can't afford to let
‘hat $7.50 an hour go if the kid
lin’t coughing... the reality of life
8 crisis management.”
In addition, some health main
:enance organizations do not ap
srove on-going asthma medica
ions and follow-up doctor’s vis
ts. One Los Angeles pediatri
ian, for instance, recounted his
wwn experiences of not having fol
ow-up visits or appropriate medi
:ation approved, saying that ev
wry day he receives five messages
rorc HMO reviewers question
FOCUS your business news or
personnel announcements in the
Augusta Focus. Fax your
information to (706) 724-6969.
g FYR -~
ey P ‘*,x.\
um‘ Editor
Since 1981 DetT, Ealy
A Walker Group Publication Karliagng Sirm
1143 Laney Walker Blvd. Lillian Wan
Copy Editor
Sammy Daniels
Production Assistant
Doreen Durand
w 'Editorial Assistant
Vonda Butler
Account Representative
) Tonya Evans
Office Manager
often end up in hospital emer
gency rooms with full-scale
asthma attacks. Without guid
ance, many mothers, for instance
do not know to vacuum and dust
more often or to avoid cigarette
smoking, two powerful triggers
O e i
program
Aflnnh’:fluh provide just that
kind of guidance to mothers. This
project, a community-based model
using community health workers,
is supported by a coalition of 16
public, private, academic and com
munity organizations in Atlanta.
Its focus on the Atlanta Empow
erment Zone is studying whether
changing known asthma triggers
in the home will decrease asthma
attacks. Annually some 2,000
emergency room visits and 300
hospitalizations are reported at
one hospital in the Atlanta Em
powerment Zone. In addition to
mhpmnrmet’uommu- |
nity health wo the project
also provides asthma education
materials, conducts programs to
help parents stop smoking, and
works with managed care organi
zations to help them understand
theon-going medical needs of chil
dren with asthma.
Asthma is a leading cause of
absence from school by children.
Yet many inner city schools are
unaware that as many as 10 per
cent of their children are suffer
ing from asthma. Many school
districts have rules which pro
hibit children from bringing
drugs, including medication, to
school, so it is even more impor
tant that they be aware which
. The costs of esthma are high.
In addition to time missed in
school, researchers estimate that
the annual medical cost of asthma
in children tops $1 billion. And
there is the time parents miss
from work when their children
are ill which must also be added
into the cost of asthma to our
community and our nation.
Eleanor Thornton, who works
in the Howard University pro
gram in Washington, seesasthma
as one of the quiet, dangerous
killers in the African American
community. It's most vulnerable
victims are the children, who suf
fer not only medically from this
dangerous disease.” “You wonder
why their attentior spans are so
short,” she said, explaining, “It's
because they’re sitting there not
buuhlng.'
(Note: For more information on
asthma, contact the American
Lung Association, 1-800-LUNG
USA or Howard University Col
m:f Medicine Asthma Coun-
Program 202-806-4006, or
ZAP Asthma Inc., 2650 Georgia
Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30312.)
Editorial
flfi:finfigfiogfifizfi must put children first
hen you make up your
household budget there
are a lot of necessities to
consider like shelter,
food, clothing, transportation, and
medical expenses. Sometimes
there’s room for a few luxuries. If
you have children, they usually
take up a large part of every cat
egory, and you probably make sure
they have shoes and school clothes
that fit before you look at the
state of your own closet, and their
nutritional needs come before
your extra cup of coffee in the
morning or the slice of pizza at
lunch.
Well, our country has children,
and some people don't hink they
should take up much room in the
budget. They're at it again, those
folks who supposedly represent
usin Congress. The Budget Reso
lution passed by the U.S. House of
Representatives calls for cutting
national spending. We all know
whatit’s liketo cut spending when
we need to, but in most families
children are the last to feel the
cuts. If this Budget Resolution
becomes law, children will be the
first to feel it. Spending will be
cut from programs for low-income
ALONG THE COLOR LINE By Dr. Manning Marable
BCYOI‘Id Integration (Part One of a Two-part series)
n Chicago this June, over two
thousand African American ac
tivists came together for sev
eral days to map strategies for
rebuilding the black freedom move
ment. The Black Radical Congress
(BRC) attracted many veterans of
Black Power, anti-apartheid and
Rainbow Coalition campaigns, as
well as hundreds of college stu
dentsand young workers who were
only becoming involved in black
activist struggles. Ideologicallyand
politically, animpressive spectrum
of viewpoints were represented at
the two dozen well-attended work
shops and at the massive plenary
rights sessions: Communists, les
bians and gay rights activists,
democraticsociologists, revolution
ary nationalists, radical feminists,
labor union activists and many oth
ers. Yet within this broad diver
sity among conference organizers,
speakers and nearly all partici
pants, there was one common de
nominator: we were black.
- There were, at best, forty whites
who were in the audience of over
1,600 at the opening plenary on
Friday night. Many of these were
journalistslike David Moberg, who
covered the conference for the Bos
ton Globe. The only racial
flashpoint of any significance that
weekend occurred when several
arrogant, white would-be revolu
tionaries briefly disrupted the
Youth Caucus. Even then, the
AN
o A \V/’ \\NES‘S‘OE
/."”’\
'\ \a‘a l‘a
“‘T
e @
AGal-
workers and their families, and
for services for children in foster
care and awaiting adoption.
We cheered last year when Con
gress passed and the President
signed into law the State
Children’s Health Insurance Pro
gram (CHIP), providing S4B bil
lion over the next 10 years to
ensure health coverage for 5 of
the 11 million uninsured children
in this country. Now the House
proposes to slash sl2 billion from
this programs. It also proposes to
jeopardize the health of the nearly
20 million low-income children
who depend upon Medicaid.
“Unspecified cuts” in income
security programs — $lO billion
worth — will jeopardize assis
tance and services for some of our
most vulnerable populations. If
they go through, we can expect to
see deep cuts in programs tar
geted for children with disabili
ties under the Supplemental Se
curity Income Program (SSI), chil
dren in the federal Foster Care
and Adoption Assistance Pro
gram, and children in single-par
ent families whose parental sup
port (usually from absent fathers)
is ensured by the Child Support
response of young African Ameri
can activists was remarkably re
strained.
One might be tempted to say
that the relative invisibility of
whites at the BRC was a good
thing. It’s true that most black
people usually have more focused,
productive discussions on serious
issues affected African Americans
when whites are not around. This
is because many white Americans,
even despite years of racial eti
quette acquired in the post-Civil
Rights period, still feel uneasy talk
ing honestly about race. What
used to be called “the Negro Prob
‘lem” is now subsumed under a
murky series of policy talking
points, such as affirmative action,
minority economic set-asides,
‘crime, welfare reform and the ur
ban “underclass.” The very con
cept of a “Black Agenda” on public
policy issues is virtually never
talked about in the national me
dia, and only rarely in integrated
‘informal settings.
For most white Americans, “race”
becomes something tobe overcome,
or perhaps even ignored, rather
than used as a central starting
point for interrogating the dynam
icsof structural inequality through
out society.
This does not mean, of course,
that black radicalism must be “an
tiwhite.” The overwhelmning ma
jority of black organizers and co
Enforcement program. Also cut
out of our national budget by this
proposal is $2.7 billion for the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
for working families and $2.4 bil
lion in funding for the Social Ser
vices Block Grant.
More than three-quartersofthe
mandatory cuts in this proposed
House budget hits programs for
the poor and near poor, even
though these programs constitute
loss, than en-quartey of all man-,
datory program expenditures.
That is unfair and unjust.
In these times of budget sur
pluses, we should not be taking
funds away from our children and
most vulnerable citizens. We
should be providing health care
coverage for every uninsured
child, ensuring high-quality, af
fordable child care for working
families, increasing training and
employment opportunities for
parents who want and need to
work, and increasing support for
children with disabilities and
those at risk of or already in foster
care.
The Senate and the House will
be appointing a committee to look
at theirbudget proposals and vote
conveners at the BRC were them
selves members of multiracial po
litical organizations. Among the
speakers at the Saturday morning
plenary werelesbian activist Cathy
Cohen, Communist Party Vice
Chair Jarvis Tyner, welfare rights
organizer Marian Kramer, and
multiracial labor organizer Tyee
Scott. Bill Fletcher, the activist
most responsible for initiating the
BRC project, is the director of the
AFL-ClO’s education department.
Angela Davis, a prominent speaker
on Friday evening, is a leader of
the multiracial socialist group, the
Committees of Correspondence.
The paradox each of us, as activ
ists and theorists of color, must
_confront is the inescapable reality
that race-based organizing must
be used to dismantle institutional
racism. To eradicate race as an
oppressed social force, as a pivotal
element within the political
economy of inequality, requires the
development of race-conscious for
mations which advocate the intag
“rityand empowerment of the black
community.
Many of my white liberal col
leagues, especially in academia,
think about “racial progress” in
terms of traditional racial integra
tion. In other words, hypersegre
gated, racialized inner-city com
munities aresymbols ofthe nation’s
failure to overcome institutional
racism. The more racially inte
on a final budget that will be sent
to the President for signature.
It’s not too late to stop their unfair
treatment of children and work
ing families.
Write or call your Representa
tive and Senators and tell them
that you don’t balance your bud
get by cutting out things your
children need, and youdon’t want
them to do that either. Remind
them that an election is coming
up in November, and that you
‘vote for people who put children
first. Contact them at the U. S.
Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510,
and the U. S. House of Represen
tatives, Washington, D.C. 20515,
or call (202)224-3121 and ask for
the office of your Representative
or Senators. Make them listen
and make them understand that
you Stand for Children.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s Defense
Fund and a working committee
member of the Black Community
Crusade for Children (BCCC). In
1998, CDF celebrates 25 years of
advocacy, service, and leadership
to build a new movement to Leave
No Child Behind.
grated neighborhoods are, the less
likely that poverty, unemployment
and other social problems will be
as heavily concentrated in brown
and black areas. While this basic
approach is true, it in some re
spects ignores the historical fact
that the vast majority of white,
middle class Americans have only
rarely taken mass, collective ac
tions to end the socioeconomic con
sequences of racism.
All-black or all-Latino neighbor
hoods, in themselves, aren’t the
problem: the destruction of jobs,
substandard housing, inadequate
public healthcare, deteriorating
schools and public transportation
systems are. Racial integration
shouldn’t be the “goal” of the black
freedom movement. “Equality” -
the dismantling of all institutional
barriers to human development
and the redefinition of the social
contract to be fully democratic and
egalitarian -- is the goal. If inte-.
gration helps us get their, fine. If
not, other tools must be employed.
Integration must be viewed as a
means, not the end, in the struggle
for black liberation.
Dr. Manning Marable is Profes
sor of History and Director of the
Institute for Research in African
American Studies at Columbia.
University, New York City. “Along -
the Color Line” appears in over 325
publicationsthroughout the United
States and internationally.