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mm 5A OPINIONS/Ctarlotte 3f>ita Thursday, May 4. 2006 Difficult school year for Katrina survivors A 3-by-4-irLdi picture postcard and a small trophy are all diat remain of Montrelle’s large collection of dance and academic awards. Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters broke or twisted or scattered everything dse. “In a way I w^t to go home, but it’s not really much to go back to ri^t now,” says Montrelle, a pleasant, well-spoken 14-year-old who had just started classes at her dream school when the'hurricane struck- An excellent j student, Montrelle had won an academic j scholarship to St. Mary’s, an all-girls I Cathohc school in New Orleans. “Ever I since I was a little girl, I had wanted to go to St. Mary’s,” she recalled. “I was so happy whefi I got there. I had just made the dance team. The week the storm came, we were going to start practice.” But two days before Katrina turned on New Orleans, Montrelle, her mother, Cheryl, and little sister, Maliyah, loaded the fanuly car and drove west, Cheryl’s sister worked at a New Orleans hotel and her boss found a hotel room for the young family in Houston. Not long afterward, FEMA placed the family in a tidy modem apartment in southwest Houston, one of the city’s highest crime areas. ‘It’s aU right living here,” Montrelle said. ‘What I worry about is the school system and the cours es. They can’t tell me whether my a^edits will transfer wheni goback.-.Noonecan answer that forme.” Montrelle misses performing as a New Orleans Hornets’ basketball “Stinger,” an elite troupe that entertains fans at halftime. And she mbses her friends. “Usually, in New Orleans, your friends live frve to 10 minutes away fi'om you. Now, . they’re all in different states.” While Montrelle and her mother fr:et over the academic implications of moving from New Orleans to Houston and - they hope - back again, Cheryl expresses confidence that Montrelle, always a go-getter, will prevail. In another Houston apartment, Carolyn, another mother from New Orleans, is metre concerned about her son, Christopher In their home, they coimt on it like clockwork. Thxirsday is fight day Four days into the school week and, at Kashmere High School in Houston, the local and New Orleans kids colUde. The weekly bouts have led to suspen sion or exprilsion for several of the two dozen students who fted The Big Easy and landed at Kashmere. Christopher, 16, worries that he could be next. 'T want to get out of Kashmere,” he says, solemnly “They always fitting at Kashmere.” Each side blames the other for the tension and violence. Christopher says the Houston kids “don’t hke the way we talk” and taunt the New Orleans evacuee students about their clothes, many of them hand-me-downs since most families fled the disaster with nothing. So far, Christopher says, he has managed to avoid coming to blows, but admits it’s getting harder, not easier, and adds pointedly ‘T ain’t scared.” From the looks of it, he’s not happy either. Christopher doesn't smile. He wishes aloud that he could transfer to another school; he shrugs off qu^tions about how he’s doing, conceding only that he misses his house in New Orleans and his old friends. He is also imcertain about things getting better with time. People in position to make a difference have let him down, he says, claiming the new comers no longer feel welcome but r^ented. Carolyn, Christopher’s mother, says she is prepared to make a permanent home in Houston, mainly because there’s nothing to return to in New Orleans. She is confi dent she will find work and that life for the family wfll improve. But she hopes things settle down quickly for Christopher. He used to be a decent student and never had trouble in school, she said. Now, he’s beginning to falter. “Every week - every Thursday - I have to go up to the' school- Why? Houston kids want to fight the New Orleans kids,” Carolyn said. Then a broad smile erupts. “Tbday was a blessed day” she says, “because, guess what? It’s Thursday and we did n’t have to go to school,” Christopher and Montrelle are just two of thousands of students affected by Hurricane Katrina who are stn^ghng to fit into new schools and keep up with their studies at the same time that they try to adjust to everything else in their lives that has been uprooted. We need to ensure every child in Katrina-affected states a quality pubhe education and after-school and summer educational supports to help them make up for lost time and overcome previous and continuing educational disparities. The Children’s Defense Fund is operating emergency CDF Freedom SchooIsCtm) programs to help provide homework help, reading enrichment, and art and m'usic to children affected by the hurricanes. For a copy of CDFs report Katrina’s Children: A Call to Conscience and Action, visit http://www.childrensdefense.org- BennettsviUe. S.C., native MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN is pres ident and Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. Wilson To live with HIV means I’m living on borrowed time By Phill Wilson NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION Here’s a shocking fact; I’m a middle-aged man. I know it soimds hke a pretty run-of-the-mill achievement. But by I the time I turn 50 this month, I will have been hv- I ing on borrowed time for a quarter century You see, I I was infected in 1981. Pve Hved with the virus so I long now that I don’t even remember what it was I like not to have HIY I The best medical knowlei^e had me on death’s I doorby 1995. My first partner crossed ove-that por tal in 1989; he’s one of literally himdreds offiiends, loved ones and colleagues who I have watched die fixim AIDS over the last 25 years. No, by all rights, I should not be here to see 50. And yet, here I am. I could fill a year’s worth of columns specu lating on what blessings have sustained me all these years — and Ill spare you that. But I know one thing that’s surely helped keep me going: My determination to beat this darned virus, not just in my own body but in the commimalbody of Black America- Like me, the AIDS epidemic has a shocking birthday this year. It was 25 years ago in June that Dr. -Michael Gottlieb diagnosed a strange illness among six of his patients at University of California Los Angeles. Since then, AIDS has become a definir^ issue of our time — particularly for black folks. The statistics, no matter how many times I speak them, bear repeating: Nearly half of the more than 1 million Americans esti mated to be hving with HTV/AIDS are black. We represent more than 56 percent of the new AIDS cases among youth. We’re near ly 70 percent ofthe new AIDS cases among women. No one expected HIV to be around this long, any more than they expected it of me. And those two facts have me thinking about the next 50 years. Some say middle-age is defined by the point in your fife when you stop seeing just possibilities and start seeir^ a rising wall of the limitations - health, finances, time left on life’s clock. Not so for me. Perhaps it’s because of where Fve been, but this birthday has me thinking about nothing more than where me and my commu nity are going. Are we headed into another 25 years of this epidemic? Another 50 years? Will I allow that to happen, or will I do my part to stop the spread of this utterly preventable disease and to ensure wide access to the sort of quality healthcare that will allow everyone already diagnosed with it to live into their middle-ages and beyond? For me, the answers are clear. I wfll continue to take care of myself I wfll continue to refuse to put the people I love at risk. I wfll continue to refuse to five in shame about my HIV status or my sexual identity as a black gay man, I wfll continue to speak my truth to pnwer. I wfll also continue to demand that my elected officials - from the school board to the White House — make tliis epidemic a priority And I wfll continue to help my community and its leaders - from family to faith to politics - to do the same. America’s ability to defeat the AIDS epidemic wfll be determined by our ability to stop it in black America. The only way to stop AIDS in Black communities is for there to be strong institutions with the infi’astructure and capacity to make it happen. And the only way to build that infi’astructure is for each and everyone of us, including you,-to do our part. Call your local black AIDS organization, volunteer and make a donation. You can also make a donation to my favorite AIDS organization—the Black AIDS Institute. Contact your member of cor^ress, your senator and the White House, TfeU them to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act and to lift the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs. Next Sunday ask your minister to start an AIDS mini’stry and sponsor HIV testii^ at the church four times a year. Tbni^t at dinner, make a list of 12 things you will do over the next year to end the AIDS epidemic. If you can’t think of any thing else to do, at least getitested and take a friend with you. I should have been dead years ago. Instead, Tm looking forward to an amazing and challenging rest of my life - and to seeing the day whai I finally out-five this epidemic. Wanna give me a great birthday gift? Help me make it happen. PHILL WILSON is CEO and founder ofthe Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. He has participated in numerous international conferences on AIDS and wtzr selected by the Ford Foundation in 2001 as one of "Twenty Leaders for a Changing World." Wilson has been living with HIV for more than 25years and with AIDS for 15 years. He can be reached at Phillw®BlackAIDSorg. Connect with $0tit Send letters to The Charlotte Post, P.O. Box 30144 Charlotte, NC 28230 or e-mafl editoriaK^thecharlottepost.com. We edit for grammar, clarity and space. Include your name and daytime phone number. Letters and photos wfll not be returned by mail unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped aive- lope. * Who’U be North Carolina’s next BiU Friday? ‘Who is goirg to be the next Bill Friday?” At an event to celebrate 35 years of UNC-TVs weekly program “North Carolina People,” someone looked me in the eye and asked that question. Although we know Nfr-, Friday best as the president emeritus of the University of North Carolina and the host of “North Carolina People,” the questioner was worried about some thing else that I^. Friday means to our state. ‘Who is going to stand above poli tics, get the attention ofthe decision makers, and always push for the thir^ to make North Carolina bet ter?” he continued. The simple answer to his question' is that there is not going to be another William Friday Some people will teU you that the center of momen tum for action in North Carolina is not in the state capitol in Raleigh or the business metropolis of Charlotte. Instead, they say it is a small office over looking the old campus in Chapel Hfll where Wflliam Friday spends much of his time. Streams of visitors come to seek his advice and blessir^ on their pro jects. But he does not wait for visitors. Most days he wfll spend several hours on the telephone “with old friends” finding out about their families and what they are doing for North Carolina. He could be calling the governor, or the leaders of the legislature, or the state’s education leaders, or the editorial writers of the state’s large newspapers, or any one of himdreds of his long time fiiends who can make things happen. By keeping in touch with such people, he knows which ones of them to call when a good project needs help or a good idea needs a little push. Friday has been building and working this network of people all his fife-aU 85 years of it. The network of trusted fiiends grew during his 30-year presidency of the University of North Carolina and was an impor tant reason for his success. Now, 20 years after his retirement as university president, Friday and his network keep on serving Noiih Carolina. So my friend who is worried about “the next Bfll Friday” ought to remember that even if we could replace Mr. Friday his network of trusted fiiends took many years to build. Understanding that there is not going to be a “next Bfll Friday” and that his network cannot be trans ferred to anyone else, is there anybody who comes close? Are tha:e others who know the state well, have a keen sense of politics, have a large group of trusted fiiends and contacts who can make things happen- and have the time, energy and commitment to work full time for the interest of North Carolina? What about our former governors? They'have had to build statewide groups of fiiends, and they cer tainly have to study the state’s problems and oppor tunities. All our living former governors have built additional areas of expertise. Robert Scott served as president of the community college system. Jim Holshouser is the senior member of the university’s board of governors. Jim Martin serves in the health care policy and research area. Jim Himt practices law, farms, and keeps his hands busyin educational policy issues. He has his own net work of “key” people he can call for advice and help. He may not be the “next Bfll Friday” but the two men share a continuing commitment to make the state better. And, it should be noted that some people already ask a similar “who is going to be the next...” question about Jim Hunt. Another person we should expect to play a “Bfll Friday-type” role is the new univei'sity presidait, Erskdne Bowles. Over a lifetime of business, political, and public service activities, Bowles has built his own network of friends who trust him, and who, like Friday’s fiiends, have a haid. time saying no to a request for help, Bowles may not be “the next Bill Friday” But I wfll be surprised if, a few years fi’om now, somebody does n’t come up to me with a worried look on his face and ask, “Who is going to be the next Erskine Bowles?” D.G. MARTIN is host of UNC-IY’s "North Carolina Bookwatch,” which airs on Sundays at 5 pm.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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May 4, 2006, edition 1
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