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anofiflij c cornu Blacks Should Give Generously To 1975 Heart Fund Campaign—_ Every Afro American should make the financial sacrifice and! give a generous contribution to the 1975 heart fund drive. Why??? Main ly because high blood pressure (Hypertension) is black Americas number one health problem. Twice as many blacks fall victim to heart disease as do whites and others, as for it’s causes...Within or outside the black family, the most powerful source of emotional disturbance is other people. Therein may lie one important cause of excessive hypertension among black poeple. Chronic infect ion of the kidneys may also produce hypertension...But disease of a kid ney artery is one of the most common curable causes of hyperten sion. The disease may occur at any age and it may attack both major kidney arteries, although it usually affects one more than the other. Unfortun aieiy, only a small percentage of hypertensive persons have “cur able” hypertension. On the other hand...there are many lab techni ques aiidspecialized procedures^. which can uncover the curable forms. Some of the necessary tests for hypertension are expensive, and the disease is most prevelant among those who can’t afford the costs involved. Fortunatly for those who do learn in time that they are hypertensive:, there are many effect ive drugs available for treatment. Sometimes the need for drugs may be completely avoided by the use of such a basic step as simply losing excess weight. On the other hand... weight reduction efforts rank pretty high on the list of causes for frustra tion and anxiety. If salt is almost completely avoided in the diet, blood pressure is very likely to fall. Sever al studies suggest that exercise may be of value in keeping blook pressure at a normal level and in bringing about some degree of pressure re duction. One other important to a long life point is this fact: Cigarette smoking has long been associated with di seases of the heart and blood ves sels. The risk of dying from hyperten sion (coronary heart disease) is highest among smokers, because smoking causes increased tension of the heart muscle and it interferes witht he oxygen supply to the heart by interfering with funcitons of the lungs. If you don’t remember any thing else in this article...Remem ber this...If it’s not treated, high blook pressure can lead to heart attacks, strokes and kidney pro blems. However, treatment is impossible if you don’t know you have the disease. Get a check up before your heart wrecks up. Hypertension is caueu uie sueni K.mer Decause u strikes without warning. Diagnosis and treatment of the disease is easy because it’s simply a matte rof getting a check up. You owe it to yourself and those you love to take the first step now. You could be saving your life. Your financial support of the heart association will help support and speed their intensive research (now underway) into the causes of and for the doubly high incidence of high blood pressure among Afro-Ameri cans. When you make a generous contribution to the heart fund, it could well be a step towards elimin ating heart trouble forever. By the way, you’ll reduce your chances of dying like a stray dog if you start right now to eat less of that ole fat hog, a lot less pork and a little less beef could also give your overwork ed heart some much needed relief. This is just one black man’s opinion.. What’s yours? I’m Roy Wood. Give Hope To The Hopeless ..The fact that black Americans find themselves today in a major economic depression should be suff icient cause for serious reflection upon how we came to be where we ‘are. Then, too, we ought to give some deeply serious fresh thought as to where we ought to be going from here. .. During the great Depression of the 1930’s black leadership was urged repeatedly to organize for group power and to forsake, to the fullest extent possible, the dole or relief. Still, in practically every black community in America there was chanted as religiously as any sacred hymn the words: Jesus Christ will lead me; F.D.R. will feed me, What cause have wp then for fear? ..F.D.R., or President Franklin De lano Roosevelt, syitibolized "the man” who lived in the big white house and who was the keeper of “wealth untold” all we had to do was to be loving to Jesus and be more than pie in the sky by and by. We --‘——^ ' would even get a little sample right now. .. The sad fact is that, for a host of largely understandable but still un fortunate reasons, black Americans have been far too hand out conscious Even today, with the best of inten tions, many of our leaders suggest that what we need is a guaranteed annual wage, which is simply an other form of the guaranteed dole. .. Blacks today must forsake every semblance of seeking relief or the dole and should focus collective efforts upon becoming productive members of the nation’s economy. .. It takes no more organized effort to urge jobs of a public service nature with pay than it does to ask for relief. A number of recent polls have shown that the overwhelming majority of the nation’s unemployed persons today would rather have a public service job than receive an unemployment check. Ways We Can Help Ourselves REPORT FROM “ JjaAmW°shington 1975 Questionnaire Results This year, over 20,000 residents of the Ninth Congressional District responded to my questionnaire. They were asked to give their opin ions on nineteen sensitive and cru cial issues. There was very little hesitation on the part of constituents to speak out. After reading the results of the questionnaires, I want to make a couple of observations. It reflects a consituency fed up to the gills with the size and cost of government, fearful of its further intruding into the private lives of individuals, and becoming quite dis enchanted with programs of income redistribution by taxing and spend ing I found that a sizable majority (78 percent) of the people responding demand a lid on federal spending of all types. They want at least at 10 percent “cap” on agency budget requests, and cuts both in Defense and non-Defense spending. By al most three-to-one, they call for cuts of $10 billion or more on the social spending side, and a bare majority calling for similar cuts even in the Defense budget. In contrast with the people, the majority of the House of Representatives just ovted approval of an 18 percent budget increase, and defeated an amendment which would have held the spending level to 12 percent increase. The solid block of Republicans and some con servative Democrats did not have quite enough votes to hold back these spending excesses, which wil add $70 billion to the national debt. The questionnaire drew 58 percent support for the recent tax cut bill. Significantly, as I watched the “re turns” come in, a near-majority of those arrving during the debate, and in the first few days thereafter, opposed the tax cut. The size of that majority, 58 percent supporting the tax cut is interestingly small in light of the assumption made by most that nobody, but nobody would vote money out of his or her own wallet. The five-to-one vote against amending the Constitution to prohi bit all abortions should be noted not only by those who wish to impose absolute moral values through the force of government. I detect a strong sentiment among those “No” respondents against government barging in where even philosophers and theologians are unsure of their footing. I am a little surprised by the size of the minority which reacted again st Social Security benefits. A 64 percent majority does favor the current law providing cost-of-living increases in Social Security, so that includes a probable majority of those not retired. But a 30 percent level of opposition must be taken into account. Surely, this reflects the growing tax burden on the working people. This “vote” points to grow ing trouble not just for Social Secur ity, but for all programs of pay ments to individuals. In the future maybe we should ask about school lunch, food stamps, housing subsid ies, and other support programs for individuals. We are rapidly ap proaching the day when there will be more people riding in the wagon than there are taxpayers left to pull it - and then the wagon will stall. In asking about National Health Insurance, I purposely tied it to the raising of money to pay for it, since there is no escaping the cost. TO BE EQUAL Bind Of The Line In Vietnam The end of the American presence in Vietnam was a humiliating scene of helicopters flying Americans and refugees out of the country while the masses of South Vietnamese expressed their feelings of “good riddance” by sacking our embassy. Had we not been captives of an overreaching desire to be the world’s policeman the war might have ended a dozen years ago, when the neutralist forces in the South were winning popular support. We have to face the sad fact that the war that ravaged that small nation continued only because of American support, arms shipments and combat troops. As devastating as the war was to the Vietna mese, it caused irreparable damage to ourselves as well. Just look at some of the results of that misguided adventure: 56,000 Americans died and over 300,000 were wounded, a disproportionate number of them, black. ITofimotoc nf fVin Hironf onH inHlPrtctc nf the war range up to $400 billion, or more than enough on an annual basis to have wiped out American poverty starting back in 1961, and still have most of it left over. Our country’s international prestige was heav ily damaged by its persistence in squandering its arms and resources in a civil war of no vital strategic importance to us. A prime victim of the war was the Second Reconstruction - the reforms aimed at extend ing social and economic progress to black people. Once Washington realized it could not afford both guns and butter it chose guns, escalating the Vietnam adventure and calling a halt to domestic programs. Many economists trace the current Depression to the economic imbalances caused by the expensive, unproductive war in Vietnam. The war divided the country, diverted our energies and weakened national self-confidence. Already we see the beginnings of a national debate ov6r “who lost Vietnam?” as if it was ours to hold or to lose. Even those who call for natioanl reconciliation and for putting the whole dismal thing behind us don’t seem to realize the need to admit past mistakes and understand why they were made, so that they’ll never be made again. TKa DrAci/lont lirQo ocl/inrf Z"1 An rt roc c f nr o • —w . . ---o ~ w —O” ~ billion dollars in military aid for Saigon just a couple of weeks before the city fell, indicating that the lessons of the past have not penetrated. We could have shipped a hundred billion to Saigon, and the same result would have occur red. South Vietnam did not fall because Ameri can support was not forthcoming. It fell because its leadership was corrupt to the core, its army both corrupt and incompetent, and its people unwilling to make further sacrifices for a cause that meant little to them. We are now about to embark on a far-ranging reappraisal of foreign policy, and this is some thing that should not just be the province of State v Department officials, but should be something the country and the Congress can participate in. The lesson of a war entered into in secret and expanded in stages of deception should teach us never to get into such a predicament again. A new foreign policy need not be a total retreat from world leadership. Imagery Of Black TV Shows By Gerald Johnson Would you believe it? Two black television shows have made it to the top and blacks are balking. Black ministers are complaining that Flip Wilson is stereotyping them. His Rev. Leroy character is thought by many to be damaging to the imagery of black people. A Ms. Justine Rector recently blasted all of my favorite TV shows by contending that they were dam aging to the image™ of blacks. The shows were Good Times, Sanford and Son, The Jefferson’s and That’s Mv Mama. Ms. Rector who is the director of the exchange program rft the Uni versity of Pennsylvania further con tends that the shows are Holly wood’s misconceptions of black life styles. Other blacks have made similar complaints about these shows. Such I criticisms as the shows are unrea listic, fail to and portrays black people wrongly to white audiences, are becoming common. Well, from my personal point of view, I thought television was for entertainment and not for reflect ions. When I come home and cut on the bube tube I am not interested in documentaries but rather I am in terested in a few laughs. How many situation comedies with whites in leading roles actual ly portray white lifestyles? The Archie Bunker’s have been exagg erated to help people laugh at them selves. All comedies are done in precisely this way to make people laugh. It is quite unfortunate that some people take a laugh as a personal insult. I think the major problem in cases like this is that the criticizers are overly conscious of how white audi ences will perceive us as a people. Any person who would draw conclu sions about an entire race of people from one or two television shows is an idiot. Television does not influence, so ciety does. Only a criminal would be capable of watching TV and using that to perpetuate a crime. Only a bigot would be capable of watching TV and using that to perpetuate bigotry. Only a fool would be cap able of watching TV and using that to perpetuate foolishness. Hence, before Good Times, even before blacks were on TV, whites had preconceptions of black people. The fault is not television shows but that of societies. There are white people who avoid coming in contact with black people purposely to keep from having stereo typed concep tions destroyed. We as black people will have to continue to ignore this segment in hopes that they will go away. Meanwhile, we as black people will have to stop trying to snuggle up to the white people. We are spending to much time worrying about how whites perceive us. If we spent this much time trying to per ceive ourselves then these criticism* of my favorite shows wouldn’t have been made. In conclusion I don’t think Esther Rolles, Redd Foxx, John Amos, Jimmy Walker, Clifton Davis, and Theresa Merritt would participate in anything that would prove damaging to the image ft, THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 By A.M. Houston Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 9139 Trinity Road - Charlotte, N.C. 28216 Telephones (704 ) 392-1306 - 392-1307 Circulation 11,000 Bill Johnson.Editor - Publisher Gerald O. Johnson.Business Manager Robert L. Johnson.Circulation Manager Second Class Postage Paid at Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March 3,1878 Member National Newspaoer Publisher! Association National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. 45 W. 5th, Suite 1403 2400 S. Michigan Ave New York, N.Y. 10036 Chicago. III. G0616 489-1220 Calumet 5-0200 ' VERNON E. JORDAN JR. AFRICA
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May 15, 1975, edition 1
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