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liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 4A EDITORIALS/ Itlie C^rhttte Thursday, April 29, 2004 Cljarlotte The Voice of the Black Community A Consolidated Media Group publication 1531 Camden Road Charlotte, N.C. 28203 Gerald O. Johnson CEO/PUBLISHER Robert L. Johnson PUBLISHER/GENERAL MANAGER Herbert L. White EDITOR IN CHIEF Support older adults, caregivers By Gayla S. Woody. SPECIAL TO THE POST Since its inception 41 years ago, Older Americans Month held each May has been a time for the entire nation to recog nize the older adults in their communities. This year’s Older Americans Month theme, “Aging Well, Living Well,” was selected to celebrate and recognize older Americans who are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives. The fact that older Americans are enjoying increased health and longevity is without a doubt something to celebrate. But there is another side to this stoiy. Many aging Americans need some assistance in order to enjoy the independence and well being that we all cherish. With the growing number of older Americans comes an increased need for local support services that allow older adults to stay in their homes and communities as they age. The older population is now much different than it was dur ing the first Older Americans Month in 1963. Then, only 17 million Americans were age 65. Today, one in six Americans, or 44 million people, is age 60 or older. This includes four million Americans 85 or older who are at risk of losing their indepen dence without critical support services. In only seven years, an age wave will hit the country when the baby boom generation begins to turn 65. It is projected that by the year 2030, one in five Americans will be over age 65 and the 85 plus population will be triple what it is today. Many older adults benefit from programs that allow them to live independently. Programs established under the Older Americans Act, enacted in 1965, have been the foimdation of services for older adults and are at the core of our national sys tem of home and community-based care. The OAAis based on the principle that older adults are entitled to spend then- retirement years in good health hving with independence and dignity, lb put this ideal into action, the OAA created a net work of nearly 900 Area Agencies on Aging and Native American aging programs in communities across the country. You may have seen a volunteer deliver a meal to an older neighbor’s door or a van take an older person to a doctor’s appointment, but have you ever wondered what makes these services available? In most cases, it starts with the OAA. With OAA funding and a variety of state and local resources, AAAs provide older adults with an incredibly wide range of services including, among others: health insurance counseling; senior centers and adult day care; home health and personal care ser vices; energy, housing, and legal assistance; and elder abuse prevention and ombudsmen programs. A recent study estimates that over 44 million Americans are serving in family caregiving roles and that number will increase rapidly as the population ages and medical science continues to extend life. AAAs and Native American aging pro grams also focus on the needs of these caregivers, whose loving and selfless acts help make it possible for their older family members to remain in their own homes and community. The National Family Caregiver Support Program, added to the OAA in 2000, provides new resources to help communities assist family members who are strugghng to care for their loved ones. As you can imagine, our growing aging population places an increased demand on local aging agencies, which too often lack sufficient resources to address everyone’s needs. Many agen cies report waiting lists for services like home-delivered meals that grow longer each day. There is an immediate need for increases in federal fiinding to assure the availability of OAA services. In 2005, Congress is scheduled to consider legislation to determine future policy and funding levels for the OAA. It is vital that all members of Congress understand the importance of services under the OAA, and the need to increase our nation’s investment in aging programs in order to meet not only current demands but also to respond to the needs gener ated by the pending aging boom. GAYLA S. WOODY is aging pmgram administrator for Centralina Council of Governments. For more information, call (704) 372-2416 or email (gnoody@centralina.org). Building bridges requires ‘Courage’ As I See It Gerald O. Johnson A circle of my ftiends spent time last weekend at the Museum of the New South touring the “Courage” exhib it. It was my second time vis iting the exhibit, but it was the first visit for the rest of the group. The all Afncan American group consisted of nine women and six men ranging in age from mid-30s to mid- 60s. Seven considered them selves transplanted north erners and eight were south erners. The “Courage” exhibit chronicles events in Clarendon county South Carolina leading to the 1954 historic Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision. This year is the fifty-year anniversary of the Supreme Corut decision. Once the tour was complet ed, we gathered to discuss the impact it had on each of us. It was a fascinating dis cussion. Immediately the northerners were nauseated, outraged and depressed to see that such hatred existed in the not so distant past. For the southerners it was a brutal reminder of what growing up in the south was all about. The experience brought tears to the eyes of the under-40 constituency. One young lady expressed now knowing why older Afncan American strangers took so much pride in her success at being a bank manager in a predominantly wliite neigh borhood. She now under stood that they knew the sacrifices and the courage was not in vain. Once the rage began to subside, the conversation turned to the examples of courage demonstrated by the people who had to Uve through this experience. The black minister who asked the school board for a bus so his kids would not have to walk 50 miles to school each day. When the school board denied his request, he determined to do something about. It was the start of school desegregation. The white Clarendon County judge who risked life and career declaring segre gated schools unconstitu tional. There were many, many more who sacrificed considerably to get a fair share of this country we call the United States of America. As a consequence of “Courage,” I found recent comments by School Board member Larry Gavreau to the Tuesday Morning Breakfast club eye-opening. Mr. Gavreau stated accord ing to Educate! [“It’s too far.” He declined to address the 1954 Brown vs. Board ruling ordering desegregation “Brown was too far.” Tbday he said, schools are not practicing segregation. And the claim of haves and have nots “doesn’t add up.” Mr. Gavreau like many moving into a fast growing area like Charlotte, fail to understand how the history of an area helps explain the. current pofitical, social, and economical environmMit a area finds itself in. As a result, factions are formed and processes become divi sive instead of progressive. It would be wise if aU of us visit the “Courage” exhibit at the Museum of the New South. If nothing more, it gives a baseline for dialogue. Even if people fail to totally agree, it would allow for a better understanding of posi tions being taken by the var ious factions. As I see it, once we stop talking at each other and start talking to each other, we will begin to build bridges that will make a difference. GERALD O. JOHNSON is publisher of The Post. A labor of betrayal to civil rights George E. Curry A conference last week at Columbia University was one the most important ones I’ve ever attended. It was organized to develop strate gies to counter the Right- wing’s slick and well- financed campaign to distort the truth about affirmative action and other social issues. Scheduled to speak was a Who’s Who of the Civil Rights Movement and acad emia: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chair Mary Frances Berry; Tfed Shaw, the new head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Wade Henderson, executive direc tor of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Derrick Bell, author and pro fessor of law at New York University; Columbia University President Lee Bollinger; Claude Steele, chair of the psychology department at Stanford University and Tim Wise, director of the Association for White Anti-Racist Education , among others. Workshops were organized to develop a better commimi- cations strategy, to improve research, to find ways to defend affirmative action at . the state level and to help universities maintain diver sity programs. The conference was orga nized by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of approximately 180 civil and human rights . groups; Americans for a Fair Chance, a pro-affirmative action group and the African-American Policy Forum, headed by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia University, and Luke Charles Harris, a professor of political science at Vassar College. On Thursday, the day before the conference was to begin, a group of teaching and research assistants interested in forming a union at Columbia University, informed confer ence organizers that if they went forward with the two- day session, they would pick et the conference site. The group. Graduate Student Employees United, is affih- . ated with Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers. Although best known for organizing auto workers, the UAW also represents white collar technical and profes sional workers, state employees, teachers and daycare workers. For the next 24 hours, Wade Henderson, Kim Crenshaw and Luke Charles Harris were frantically tiy- ing to negotiate a settlement with UAW local leaders. They pointed out that UAW had known about the confer ence for six months and had raised no objections. More important, there were numerous activities being held on campus that were not being picketed. Several proposals were made to accommodate the teaching assistants movement, including aUowing them to state their grievances as part of the conference. However, those overtures were rejected. When appeals were made to national UAW leaders, they refused to reverse the decision. Presented with the choice of crossing a picket line or attending the conference, Wade Henderson’s LCRR and Americans for a Fair Chance pulled out of the con ference, as did several other participants. When Crenshaw and I spoke on Thursday, she asked whether I was still .willing to serve as a panelist and my reply was, “I don’t care if they put up a picket line around the podium. I’ll be there.” It’s not that I am anti labor. Rather, I am pro-any- thing that benefits my peo ple. In this instance, I wasn’t the one who crossed the line. It was organized labor - and some of our leaders who caved in to their outrageous demand — that crossed the line. They crossed the fine by showing that when the inter ests of people of color are pit ted against the interests of largely White graduate assistants who earn the equivalent of $40,000 in stipends and tuition bene fits, organized labor will betray us. This is also a test for civil rights leaders. I imderstand the need for compromise, especially if you’re part of a coahtion in which a member has grievances. But when it comes to doing something as important as trying to counter the Far Right, noth ing should take precedence over our agenda. The dirty little secret is that organized labor provides substantial funding for civil rights orga nizations and in exchange for money, they exercise veto power over any major deci sion made by civil rights leaders. Labor exercised that clout at Columbia and peo ple of color were the losers. Tb their credit, professors Crenshaw and Harris did not cancel the conference. And many respected figures in our commimify, including Ted Shaw and Derrick BeU, did not buckle under pres sure. More than anything else, the Columbia fiasco under scores the need for people of color to finance our own movements and not be over ly rehant on aUies who wfll betray us when it suits their needs. GEORGE E. CURRY Is editor- in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is “The Best of Emerge Magazine, ” an antholo gy published by Ballantine Books. He can be reached through his Web site, georgecur-
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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April 29, 2004, edition 1
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