Uptown Notes» Health

Tonight: Men’s Roundtable on helping end gender violence at CCNY

dumi — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:09:41 +0000

Tonight from 6 to 8pm at City College in the Morales/Shakur Student and Community Center (NAC 3/201) in Harlem I have the honor of facilitating a Men’s roundtable on helping to end gender violence. The program is part of CCNY’s 16 days of activism against gender violence spear-headed by three amazing sisters: Ms. Nathalie Deller, Ms. Stephanie Petit-Homme, and Ms. Asatenwaa Harris. For the past two weeks CCNY has been flooded with programming trying to heighten awareness and resources around ending issues of rape, sexual assault, harassment, and battering. While people often talk about these as women’s issues, they are not. They are issues for men and women to confront, retrain ourselves on, and help create safer environments in our communities. This is an event to engage men as allies in this ongoing struggle to end violence in our communities that women have been taking a long lead on. Please tell a loved one to attend and spread the word. We’ll have refreshments and resources! We are thankful to be joined by Quentin Walcott of Connect NYC.

Ignoring Canaries in the Mine

dumi — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:42:11 +0000

I had the honor of being invited by Holly Kearl, author of Stop Street Harassment, to be a guest male ally blogger on her blog. This was the first piece that was published in March.

In days past, a canary in a coal mine was critical for safety. Miners would keep a caged canary in a mine and as long as they heard the canary singing they knew they were safe from the noxious gases that they were exposed to. If the canary stopped singing and/or dropped dead, miners also knew the mine was no longer safe to work in. Our neighborhoods are our mines and street harassment is a noxious gas that threatens our community safety and stability but goes unacknowledged. The time has come to notice the canary is no longer singing, our communities are getting less and less safe and if we don’t take notice, no one will.

The Bell Curve & Charter Schools: The Not So Odd Couple

dumi — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:20:28 +0000

Yesterday the NYTimes ran an interesting Op-Ed piece on Charter Schools by Charles Murray entitled, “Why Charter Schools Fail the Test.” I read through it quickly and thought it to be arguing two main things: standardized tests were weak measures and that school choice was a democratic right. Both of these things meshed well with my ideology and then I arrived to the bi-line and read Charles Murray. I froze, kept reading and sure enough it was the Charles Murray. Murray’s name not ringing a bell? Well Murray was one of two authors of the uber-controversial book The Bell Curve. The Bell Curve, of course, ultimately argued that there were racial differences in intelligence, no matter how you “sliced the pie.” So this may lead one to wonder, “Why or how on earth would Murray be writing about Charter schools and supporting them?” Well to answer that you have to understand his back story.

The Bell Curve’s most controversial chapters (13 and 14) really drove home their message that intelligence (g-factor) was more prevalent among certain racial groups and lower among others. Rightfully so, many top scientists rose up to strike down the Bell Curve’s thinly veiled statements of racial superiority and inferiority. The Bell Curve was not Murray’s first set of handiwork, he is often regarded as the man who dismantled the welfare system. In Losing Ground, he essentially argued that the welfare system enabled bad behaviors and used national dollars to invest in the entrenchment of poverty. This argument, I often hear parroted by people, the catch is a great deal of research carefully demonstrates the contrary (please see any of William Julius Wilson’s or Sheldon Danziger’s bevy of books on the subject). The common sensical nature of Murray’s argument have allowed him to stay around and advance arguments that dance along and get close to idea of eugenics (the science of “bettering humans” usually by “trimming the gene pool” -this was one of Hitler’s goals during the Jewish Holocaust).

Murray in the editorial takes a step back to the question of education which he addressed in Real Education a couple of years ago. I admittedly could not stomach the whole book as he argued “four simple truths”: 1) ability varies, 2) half of america’s children are below average, 3) too many people are going to college and 4) America’s future relies on how we educate the academically gifted. They seem benign enough, right? Well put them together with his past work and you get a neat line of logic suggest (my interpretation):

Ability levels vary, so not all kids are going to do well, in fact half of kids are poor students, the other half are doing okay. So of the half that is okay, there’s really about 10 percent that should be going to college and let’s invest in those 10 percent rather than investing in the other 90 percent.

Still not seeing why it connects to the Bell Curve. If you asked Murray, what do the races of the top 10 percent look like? He’d honest respond earnestly and with his “scientific evidence” to say they’re majority White. Ah, do you see it now? The folks at the top are White and should be invested in, the folks at the bottom are non-White and shouldn’t be getting all those “hand-outs” and “special programming.”

Murray has been consistently attacked for this type of reasoning, so charter schools mark a quaint respite for his ideas. He points to the Milwaukee evidence that demonstrated that charter school and traditional public schools performed roughly equal. He suggests that home environment means a great deal for intelligence ( he doesn’t think standardized tests measure intelligence (g-factor) so they’re a weak measure) and school thus can do little to shift what students walk in. He, like many mis-readers of the Coleman Report, suggest schools CAN DO little, when Coleman actually argued schools DID DO little to affect student achievement. For Murray, choice is good because you no longer have to suggest that poor people get few options. In fact, charters are cheaper on state’s to operate and offer the basic democratic right of choice. He’d likely concede that we shouldn’t expect these schools to do anything for the children who are part of the deeply impoverished and severely unintelligent (this is his reasoning not mine).

In the end, you get a well crafted Op-Ed that says, “despite lack of success Charter schools are good.” But what operates behind the veil matters the most! His piece is animated by a lack of belief in the students within these schools and he doesn’t think schools can to move these youth towards prosperity intellectually, socially or materially. While I’m neither a fan nor hater of charter schools, I realized that who is in your camp matters. Murray’s commentary reminds me of the adage, “Everyone on the sidelines is not cheering for you.” The question is, are we savvy enough to know who is for us and against us?

Art that Heals

dumi — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:25:21 +0000

I really consider myself lucky to have such a loving circle of friends and family. I often want the love that I experience from them to be transmittable to all that I come in contact with, but for so many reasons that is impossible. Many of my greatest friends have unbelievable stories and talents that they’d rather use humbly to better society than plaster themselves over the planet. Well, I must break this quiet greatness for some of them! Last Friday, I had a glimpse into how the love, struggle, and growth that one of my friends has experienced can be transmitted to hundreds quickly, powerfully, yet intimately. At the close of the week, I darted from my campus to board a bus to go to Philadelphia to see SOARS (Story of a Rape Survivor) presented by A Long Walk Home at the University of Pennsylvania. My dear friend, sister, and scholar Salamishah Tillet is a co-founder of A Long Walk Home and the production chronicles her journey through sexual assault and the ongoing healing process. The performance, which runs two hours, features poetry, dance, visual documentary, and song. It is not just an expression of one woman’s story, but the story of many women and men.

Sexual assault remains one of the most taboo and silenced experiences globally and particularly in the Black community. Through SOARS, A Long Walk Home is not only raising awareness but also creating spaces for solutions and healing. The final portion of the 2 hour production is a “speak out” (in the tradition of Take Back the Night) where audience members can ask questions of the cast and speak out about their experiences. At first, questions were sparse and audience members sat quietly waiting for someone to break the silence, then finally it was broken. From the audience came a flood of experiences with sexual assault from childhood to adulthood. More than just a question and answer the session, it was one of mutual sharing and support. In a group so large, one shouldn’t expect such a sacred space for sharing, but it makes perfect sense once you realize the audience is taken on an painfully intimate, triumphant and bonding journey of a survivor in the production. Multiple audience members said the story on the stage was their own story. The fourth wall was shattered! The spirit that SOARS created in the audience reminded me of a proverb that one of my baba’s once gave me. He said, “Live your life as if it is an open book, for you never know from which page someone will have to learn.” I was glad to learn from the page of Salamishah, SOARS, and the audience.

In a society defined by so much difficulty and silence around crimes such as rape, the process of not only surviving but healing is opened in a powerful way. This week, a number of my friends and those who I admire were at the Men Can Stop Rape conference. I am glad that venues that conference and SOARS exist to open dialogue and continue the work of fighting sexual violence, surviving and healing.

A Long Walk Home is beginning a preventative and healing peer-centered approach to sexual assault named Girl/Friends which will equip young women with the tools to help themselves and their community. The SOARS season for the year has closed, but when they go on tour again, I’ll make sure to post dates and tour location. In the meantime, visit their website and get a “Got Consent” tee-shirt to support their work (available in both men and women’s)!

Why do we ignore modern day slavery?

dumi — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:09:53 +0000

Slavery did not end, it’s just been updated in the form of human trafficking! Beneath you will find a video that I was recently emailed that features a song by Peter Buffet and Akon. The song is entitled, “Blood into Gold (Remix)” and was commissioned to heighten awareness of modern day slavery in the form of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a major problem throughout the globe, but flourishes in many places throughout the African Diaspora. Yesterday Buffet and Akon performed the song as a part of concert in observance of the 2009 Commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Also yesterday, during my Black Studies class exam review, students asked me to talk about human trafficking/modern day slavery. I explained the process and then asked them, “if we re-read history and ask ‘why did people tolerate or turn a blind eye to the transatlantic slave trade?’ then we must also ask ourselves, ‘was it not for the same reasons that we ignore the trafficking of humans today globally?” I am really glad this collaboration occured. The song and video (which features a great live footage compilation) and web resources provide great seeds for action. Please spread the word and also visit www.istheresomethingicando.com to find out how to move from awareness to action!

hattip to Drew Citron

Wellness Weekend

dumi — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:06:03 +0000

So yesterday I was all existential on twitter, which I rarely do, so today I’ll mesh my tweets with programming on my blog. I’m declaring this weekend ”wellness weekend” because I was passed three events happening in NYC that stimulate the psychological, spiritual, mental, and physical.

On Friday, Iyanla Vanzant will be helping folks “Tap the Power Within” with spiritual and psychological wellness work. On Saturday, Queen Afua will be helping folks by sponsoring a free cleanse day to aid in physical health. And on Sunday, The Association of Muslim Health Practitioners will be stimulating the mind by sponsoring a discussion forum on Health care access entitled, “NYC Covering the Uninsured: Universal Health care, Hope, or Hype?. Links to each of the events are below. Take the time if you can to check out each event or one event, you’ll surely come back with good things.

Friday: Iyanla Vanzant- Recession is Creation…Tapping the Power Within - 1700 Fulton @ Boys and Girls High. Brooklyn, NY – 10 dollars entry. 7:30pm

Saturday: Queen Afua- Spring Equinox one Day Cleansing Fast – 2301 5th ave @ National Black Theater. Harlem, NY – Free, registration encouraged. 9am – 5pm

Sunday: AMHP – NYC Covering the Uninsured: Universal Health care, Hype, or Hope? 413 W 46th St. @ Hartley House. Ny, NY. – Free, registration encouraged. 2-4pm.

Why the Pope needs to take a Statistics class.

dumi — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:41:47 +0000

First, let me say that I pay little attention to the Pope or his statements. I spent eight years of my life in catholic school ignoring Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI has joined that club. In a recent visit to Africa, Pope Benedict exclaimed, “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaoundé. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Okay, let’s do a little basic statistics/ research methods. I know, I’m doing the “professor thing” but trust me it’s important. We have a public health crisis and you suggest condom distribution increases the problem. To figure out if this is true, we need to look at the relationship between passing out condoms and cases of HIV/AIDS. Benedict is claiming that passing out condoms actually increases the epidemic.

Key term: correlation. Correlation essentially tells you how related two things are. In basic statistics you learn that things can be correlated with each other, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that one thing cause another.

Okay, now that we’ve got correlation down, let’s look at a classic example of why correlation doesn’t mean causation (the fancy way of saying one thing causes another).

Fact: As the number of ice cream cones sold increases, the number of homicides increases.

Not a fact: Folks who buy ice cream cones are homicidal maniacs and their lactose intolerance drives them to murder.

Reality: There are are more ice cream cones sold in the summer, homicides tend to happen in the summer. Just because they are related doesn’t mean one causes the other to occur.

See, now you see why Pope Benedicts statement is asinine and dangerous. Pope Benedict, saying that distributing condoms increases the problem would mean that condom distribution increased the epidemic. Ridiculous! Particularly on the continent, with many countries suffering from astronomical rates of HIV/AIDS, not distributing profilatics would likely increase the transmission of the disease. While Benedict is sticking with his sect’s insistence upon the non-use of contraception, following their doctrine could lead us further down the rabbit hole. Additionally, large numbers of married and unmarried people have HIV/AIDS, which essentially means advocating against contraception within relationships will likely increase the transmission of HIV/AIDS by exposing more people to additional hazard. You know, I can’t really figure out a way that the approach he’s advocating would be good for these countries ravaged by the most devastating disease of our time.

It worries me that people will follow the Pope’s statement and align themselves without seriously interrogating the “real world” implications of his doctrine. Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox… for right now.

Watching pain/fully.

dumi — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:00:50 +0000

“I never hit a girl, but I’d shake the shit out of you.” – Bittersweet Poetry by Kanye West

The above line played on my ipod as I arrived to Grand Central. Each time I’ve heard this line and changed the “but I’d” to “nor.” This is strange practice I developed as an adolescent when I heard lyrics I didn’t want to repeat or feared repeating them in front of my parents. I’d change niggas to brothas, you know the drill. It sort of provides a psychological space for me to relate to the sentiment of the artist, but put my own spin on it. Well, when I was revising Kanye’s lyric in my head this time something rung about the danger of the line. Earlier in the day I was talking to one of my best friends about another close friend who has anger issues, particularly towards women. I concluded the topic by telling friend, “I’m gonna have to ask my boy who is a domestic violence expert, I just don’t know.” My conclusion was much less a solution than a throw away, since I’d reached that same conclusion before but never followed through. How do we truly begin to break cycles of domestic violence? I’m not sure, and listening to Kanye didn’t move me closer to figuring that painful issue out.

As I arrived to my train platform I turned the lyric over and over in my mind and then suddenly I witnessed a man leap and nearly tackle an accompanying female onto the train track which was occupied by a trash train. I, nor the 30 some odd people on the platform, could seem to believe our eyes. We all froze in confusion. The offender then fell to the ground with the woman to hug her, almost as if to make sure she was alright. As we stood on the platform, none of us spoke, none of us voiced concern, none of us queried the woman still down, we all sat there paralyzed. When she stood up to all our looking eyes it was almost as if we diverted our eyes in unison. Almost like we were ashamed to be looking. I remained locked on the couple, but said nothing. Most of the rest of the platform turned their attention to the arriving train. Old school Chicago sociologists used to write about the malaise that befell city residents. An indifference to stimuli small and large, an even keelness that may be a necessary adaptation to living in a city of millions in such close proximity. In my time in NYC, I’ve joked about the arrival of this malaise with friends, but I fully saw the veil fall before me when I boarded the train with the other witnesses.

As I rode to the next stop, a million rationalizations flashed through my head for what I saw and justifications for my silence. I thought of the million conversations I’ve had about compromising my safety and being told not to do so. I thought, “maybe he has PTSD and when he heard the clang of trash bags being thrown on the train he had a flashback.” All sorts of far out things ran through my mind, still none of these things quailed my stomach.

As we arrived at the next stop I couldn’t take my/our inaction, so I decided to return to see if they were still there. I steeled myself for my return. I had no idea if they would still be there and if they were there what I would do or say. I ran across the platform to a train to reverse my trip. I returned to the platform at Grand Central to find them boarding the train into another car than the one that I was exiting. I hopped out and as they got on, she saw me. We made eye contact and I mouthed “are you okay?” While his back was turned she nodded her head and mouthed “yeah.”

This is no tale of heroism. In fact, I don’t even know what would have happened if she said “no” or anything else. In a way, I feel like the answer she provided was for both of our comforts. I know domestic violence is often a long process fraught with personal, financial, and social issues. The disconnection that I felt fall between her and I when I watched her get tackled is still disturbing me. It only reminds me of the conversations I’ve had with close friends, women who I consider sisters, that have suffered in both emotionally and physically abusive relationships. Facing oppression in a moment often makes a person feel powerless, sadly I felt that way tonight. This post has no solutions, no conclusion, it’s just a painful reflection on the world we live in and the one we must confront if we want to make it a better place to be for all.

Are you salty?

dumi — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:29:00 +0000

No I don’t mean are you mad, I meant do you have a lot of salt in your body. Last week CNN’s Black in America allowed Roland Fryer to open up the “salt sensitivity theory” of Black health again (see 31 minutes in on the first video below). If you followed my previous link to Blacksmythe’s blog on Black in America you probably got a sense of why folks are so cynical of this theory and Fryer’s fame for unsubstantiated or non-peer reviewed theories, but the responses below really speak to the power of popular perception.
(If you have two hours (that you’ll never get back), here is Pt 1 of Black in America – The Black Woman & Family … don’t get me started on how Black women didn’t get a full program)

First a press release from Dr. Thomas LaViest at John Hopkins.

MEDIA RELEASE
July 28, 2008

Johns Hopkins Health Disparities Expert Criticizes CNN Report

Baltimore – Promoting unproven theories as a key cause of the
enormous health gap between African Americans and other ethnic
groups will likely widen the gap further, said a leading researcher
working to close the gap.

Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Director of the Center for Health Disparities
Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was
alarmed when he saw the health care segment of CNN’s “Black In
America” series and heard the salt-sensitivity theory being promoted
as a key reason to explain why blacks are unhealthy compared to
whites and other groups.

“I commend CNN and Soledad O’Brien for tackling this very important
topic, but to expose an audience to this theory is very troubling and
disappointing,” LaVeist said.

During the segment, O’Brien interviewed Harvard economist Roland
Fryer who said he believes the salt-sensitive theory may be key to
unlocking why blacks on average have poor health. The salt-
sensitivity theory claims that during the transatlantic slave trade,
African slaves whose bodies held higher levels of salt were better
able to survive the long brutal voyage to the Americas. Their
descendants are now genetically disposed to hypertension and other
diseases that are tied to salt.

“This bogus theory just won’t seem to die,” LaVeist said. “Even
though public health researchers have discredited the theory it
continues to be promoted by people who are not knowledgeable about
the field. THE AVERAGE HEALTH CONSUMER WATCHING CNN COULD TAKE THIS
AS THE GOSPEL AND RUN WITH IT TO THEIR OWN DETRIMENT.”

Most research scientists who work on this public health problem would
agree that some of the key health disparity causes are:

• Blacks are exposed to more environmental toxins because of
residential segregation
• Blacks have less access to quality healthcare
• Higher levels of poverty among African Americans
• Higher levels of use of harmful products such as cigarettes
• Less healthy diets
• Less healthy foods in African American communities
• Residing in more stressful environments

“To suggest that health disparities are caused by a gene that exists
in African Americans and does not exist in others is ridiculous.
There are no genes found in only one race group,” LaVeist
said. “Hypertension and all other major causes of death are caused by
a complex set of factors. They are not single gene diseases. If race
disparities were primarily caused by a gene, that gene would have to
cause hypertension and cancer and diabetes and glaucoma, and Crohn’s
disease and asthma and HIV-AIDS and every other condition that is
more prevalent in blacks and we know no one gene does that.”

“I respect professor Fryer, but quoting an economist as an expert on
health disparities is like interviewing me for a story about why gas
prices have spiked,” LaVeist said. “Not only are researchers at
Hopkins working on this problem, but people are working on this issue
right there in Atlanta where CNN is headquartered. The problem of
health disparities is complex. By trying to reduce it to a simplistic
explanation we risk having health care providers, policymakers and
patients feel there is nothing they can do to address the issue.”

About Thomas LaVeist:
As the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy,
and Director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. LaVeist has
studied the major healthcare gaps in America, the trends causing them
and the problems they create. His work is enabling healthcare
organizations and individuals to prepare for a new America—a minority
majority.

Second, an editorial by Osagie Obasogie penned a little over a year ago in response to Oprah’s show advancing the same bogus salty theory.

Both commentaries I received via the Spirit of 1848 listserv, thanks for sharing Shak-G.