August 01, 2005
Black Men Stepping Up
By Cheo Tyehimba
The din from the raucous applause in the standing room only Laney College lecture hall in Oakland was enough to make your teeth chatter.
At a Dec. 3 town hall conference about the state of African-American men, more than 200 people by way of a standing ovation collectively confirmed the popular phrase "Barbara Lee Speaks for Me" as they leaped to their feet to recognize her for raising serious questions about the plight of African-American men.
(from left) Congressman Danny Davis (D-Ill), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), and Bernard Tyson, KP's Senior Vice President, Brand Strategy and Management.
Questions like why are 32 percent of African-American males unemployed? Why are nearly 40 percent of African-American males connected to the criminal justice system via probation, parole or prison? Why are so many Black boys dropping out of school? Why do so many Black men die earlier than their counterparts of diseases that are treatable and curable?
But asking questions is the easy part. The hard part is answering questions like: What works? What doesn’t? What is the solution?
Since good health is a vital link to a community’s regeneration, several bay area community leaders joined a panel of community activists and politicians that included members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Supervisor Keith Carson, Sen. Don Perata, Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and Mayor Jerry Brown. They all echoed the importance of the community finding its own answers to the historical, psychological, social, and health-related challenges facing African-American men.
The conference, sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the State of the African American Male Initiative, presented a unique opportunity for concerned community members to learn what they can do to stem the tide of health disparities affecting Black men.
"The challenges facing our community are mounting and I believe we will reach a state of emergency if we don’t work together," said Congresswoman Lee. "This conference specifically focuses on the challenges facing former felons re-entering the community to address problems like record expungement, jobs, education, and health."
When a member of the panel polled the room, asking "How many people here have a family member who is now or has at some time been incarcerated?" about 90 percent of the hands in the room shot up, including the hand of a person all-too-familiar with what incarceration can do to a Black man: Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X.
Shabazz and others in the audience emphasized that the ills that affect African-American men affect the entire African-American community.
The conference also included workshops that focused on economics, education, criminal justice, and health issues, as well as free health screenings. In the health workshop, Richard Ayala, a former felon, talked about the struggle he faced after being diagnosed with cancer while incarcerated. Other health issues addressed were drug addiction, psychological disorders, HIV and AIDS, diabetes, hypertension, and the challenges of getting quality, affordable health care.
On a national level, organizations like Kaiser Permanente has introduced a new policy for tracking patient demographics by ethnicity, race, and socio-economic status, which would offer a better perspective of how we fare as an organization in the treatment of African American men and African Americans overall, as well as, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, women, and patients of lower socio-economic groups.
“Our position is we will eliminate any known health disparities within Kaiser Permanente and we will serve as a role model for the rest of the country,” said Bernard Tyson, senior vp with the organiztion. “The tracking of the demographics will help us keep score.”
By leading the pack with cutting-edge research about health disparities, Tyson believes Kaiser Permanente is in a unique position to root out possible inequities in national health care delivery.
“It is true that African Americans are living longer but the real issue is the gap [in health care] between African Americans and others," said Tyson. " We want to close this gap.”
BlogOn: What do African American men need to do to live healthier lives? Whatchulearn?
Posted at August 1, 2005 12:16 PM