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mm 5A OPINIONS/ Cliarlotte Thursday, June 14, '^007 An appropriate celebration of Child’s Day In President George W. Bush’s May 31st National Child’s Day proclamation, he pledged to provide our children "with the care, protection and education they deserve.” He also called upon ‘’citizens to celebrate National Child’s Day with the appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Over the last six and a half years, I have heard the president make similar fine expressions of his commitment to children. However where I grew up my parents and community co parents drew distinctions between saying I and doing. j The president has talked a lot about chil dren but his record offers little to celebrate as he leaves millions of children behind in his policies and budget choices. Our children have lost ground during Mr. Bush’s time in office. The United States lags behind most industrialized democracies in infant mortality and providing health insur ance to all children. Nine million children in America are without health insurance. As Congress considers reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Mr. Bush has indicated that he does not intend to support increased funding levels that would extend health care coverage to the millions of children cur rently uninsured. In fact, his budget would result in one to two million currently insured children losing SCHIP cover age. At the Children’s Defense Fund we urge the President to go beyond support for SCHIP and embrace the provisions the All Healthy Children Act (S. 1564/H.R. 1688) that would guarantee health care for all children and pregnant women. The president should take action to protect children where he has fallen short in other areas. The Bush administration must marshal the vast resources of the government to stem the flow of tens of thousands of impoverished children through America’s cradle to prison pipeline leading to the voluminous incarceration of poor black and Latino children and teens. The prison pipeline is made up of an array of social and economic factors including the lack of access to health and mental health care, poor schools and broken child welfare and juvenile justice systems. These factors can be diminished by more effective and increased national investments in children. In addition to ensuring that all children receive health care, the president needs to back up his no child left behind legislation with resources to increase the pool of teachers and reduce class sizes. He needs to make Head Start and Early Head Start available to all eligible children so they have a chance to get ready for school. And he can order the Justice Department to eliminate racial inequities in the administration of juve nile justice. President Bush’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disas ter in 2005 was appalling. Thousands of children continue to experience unimaginable levels of loss, trauma and dislo cation. As recently as March this year, about 100,000 chil dren along the Gulf Coast still did not live where they did before the hurricane struck. Too many remain packed into “temporary,” overcrowded FEMA trailers that can be blown away in the next big storm and are not safe and healthy long term places for children to live. Thousands of children have fallen desperately behind educationally while qualified, teachers, textbooks and supplies are in drastically short sup ply. The president promised bold action in the immediate aftermath of the storm and in his own words, committed “to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast to overcome this disaster, put their lives back together, and rebuild their communi ties.” These words are a faint echo to Katrina’s children who are still waiting for their country to come to their rescue. When he took office, Mr. Bush declared himself a “com passionate conservative.” The American people are still waiting for a clear demonstration of what compassion means in that context. It seems that Mr. Bush has not yet grasped that as the president of our nation and head of the government, just and competent governance is required. We see a president who appears before backdrops of uni formed soldiers and Marines, law enforcement officers and prescreened audiences of loyalists to eliminate, the risk that his policies might be questioned. These carefully orches trated set pieces are emblematic of a president who is insu lated from some of our nation's most pressing social con cerns like the millions of children who must go without health and mental health care, proper nutrition, quality edu cation and adequate housing. He doesn’t seem to be aware of the poor children who grow up on an uneven playing field vrith scant opportunity to develop and thrive. Surely in a $2.9 trillion federal bud get, the president can find the means to make children safe from the terrors of poverty, sickness, himger and home lessness and secure America’s future. Every dollar invested in children is returned many times over in the development of productive, contributing adults who raise families and build stronger communities. If the President would practice what he preaches and provide some national leadership in that direction, we might have more to celebrate next National Child’s Day. Bennettsville, S.C., native MARIAN WRICHT EDELMAN is president of the Children's Defense Fund. We don’t live on the sunny side of economics street Personal money affairs should start and end with individual choices Today, it’s impossible to be a well-informed citizen without at least some knowledge of how governmental economic policies can affect our ability to earn a living and provide for our own future. The Federal Reserve chairman is arguably the most powerful figure in the global economy and the effects of the popularized “’trickle-down economics’* theory never reaches or benefits you or your neighborhood. His deci sions directly affect our financial lives in a way no other public figure can match. He is a policy maker more pow erful than the President of the United States, yet infor mation about the man himself, his beliefs, and his actions inside the Federal Reserve can be hard to come by for the average read- Don’t turn full responsibility for your per sonal economic affairs over to a stranger. The Federal Reserve chairman is someone you only know from news media and sound bites that you only see when flipping through channels on your remote control. The buck must stop with YOU. African-Americans live in a nation that may be considered the world’s fastest-paced society. Many liken it to the ’“microwave” society that consumes our thoughts and redirects our focus. The populace in this society is hard-wired to be able to access every impulse and instantly satisfy every whimsical desire. It makes sense that it is this way—given that most (but not all) of us are descendants of folks who were unwillingly transported to this country and forcibly assigned to lives of complete servitude to better the lives of others at our peril. We were the "children of a lesser God” who (like so much livestock) served as "beasts of burden” to those who did not value our lives. We live with the residual remnants of the perception of us as subordinate and inferior to this day. Our problems are indeed large, but to the rest of the world, black people in the U.S. still live and work in bet ter conditions thm they do. No, this is not Darfur or the “Sunny of the Side of the Street” from an old song my grandmother used to play for me. To quote Dr. Martin Luther King: “He who starts behind in the great race of life must for ever remain behind or run faster than the man in front. The demands of history require that we be as productive, as resourceful, and as responsible as the people who never had these (our historical) disadvantages.” Sometimes we move too fast for our own good or for the good of those around us. Caught up in a foot race through life, we race past the signals that are there to tell us what we need to do for ourselves or what our spous es, children, or friends need from us. Psychologists know that manic (mentally erratic) behavior is often an avoidance tactic—a way of escaping our problems and the pain that accompanies them. To someone with manic tendencies, the stimulus of frenzied activity provides a protective shield from pain. We all know people who are like this to varying degrees, because we live in a manic society. To be more in touch with real life, we need to slow down. Some of us are beginning to do just that. Moving fast comes namrally to us. It feels good— whether we are pushing the legal speed limit down the ■ highway, racing downfield with a football, or charging up to make a three-pointer. Eugene McDaniel's song made famous by Les McCann and Eddie Harris “Trying to make it real, compared to what?” We need to slow down, and some of us are beginning to do just that. We must become our own boss! When it comes to charting your course for financial success, I also believe strongly in self-reliance. Don’t let the buck stop somewhere else. FARRAH GRAY is a bestselling author and chairman of the Farrah Cray Foundation. He can be reached via his web site at www.farrahgrayfoundation.org Our problems are indeed large, but to the rest ot the world, black people in the U.S. still live and work in better conditions than they do. No, this is not Dartur or the “Sunny Side ot the Street” from an old song my grandmother used to play for me. Imus controversy highlights need for media diversity Back in April, the controversy over racially and sex ually insensitive remarks made by radio shock jock Don Imus toward Rutgers University’s women’s bas ketball squad made all too clear the lack of sensitiv ity accorded people of color over the nation’s air waves and the lack of diversity among the broadcast media’s ranks. In a nation, where 33 percent of the population is of color that has seen the civil rights movement open doors for minorities in corporate America, govern ment and the halls of academia, the picture reflect ed on the public airwaves is far from realistic. I “Cable news remains an overwhelm- I ingly white and male preserve. The Don ' Imus controversy put a momentary dent in this pattern as a result of the increase in appearances by African Americans over that week - but only a I dent, and not a particularly large one at I that,” concludes a report by the Washington, D.C.-based media watch dog group Media Matters. “When an issue involving gender and race/ethnic ity dominates the news, the cable net works do bring on a more diverse lineup of guests than they ordinarily do. The question, then, is why their guest lists are so overwhelmingly white and male the rest of the time?’* The group, which monitored cable news network shows in April, found that even during the week of the Imus controversy, whites - especially men - tend ed to dominate. They accounted for from 54 percent (CNN) to 72 percent (Fox News Channel) of guests booked. That’s down from the week before, when whites accounted for 71 percent (CNN) to 93 percent (MSNBC). After the Imus incident, white representa tion, which fell during the controversy, made a comeback of sorts to a range of 74 percent (CNN) to 82 percent (MSNBC). What is telling is that minority representation on MSNBC, which simulcasted Imus, skyrocketed more than 700 percent to 30 percent of guest appearances during the week of the controversy- compared to the week before. After Imus, the percentage settled down to 14 percent. ' It’s not any better on the Sunday morning talk shows, either. Media Matters found in its “If It’s Sunday, It’s Still Conservative” report. The study fol lows up on research conducted by the National Urban League in our 2005 Sunday Morning Apartheid report, which found that only 8 percent of guests were black over an 18-month period in 2004 and 2005. The Media Matters report, which covered guest appearances in 2005 and 2006, foimd that Whites tended to outnumber minorities by 7 to 1, and that two out of every three guests were white men. At NBC’s "Meet the Press,” white men accounted for more than three quarters of guests followed by CBS News’ "Face the Nation” with 72 percent. "Fox News Sunday” had the “’best” track record with 62 percent. The picture at America’s daily newspapers is a lit tle bit brighter in terms of newsroom employment of minorities but less than stellar. Nearly 7,800 minor ity journalists - or 13.62 percent of all full-time jour nalists - worked in the nation’s newsrooms in 2006, down slightly from 13.87 percent in 2005, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editor’s annu al newsroom census. It is only the second decline to have been observed since 1978. when the organization, which helps newsrooms increase their diversity to better reflect the communities they serve, began conducting the survey. Then, minority journalists made up nearly 4 percent of the total newsroom workforce. “’Diversity isn’t just about numbers, it’s about making our news reports better,” said ASNE President Dave Zeeck in a press release accompany ing the survey. "Diverse staffs lead to better journal ism.” The number of newspapers with no minorities on their full-time staff grew by 15 - from 377 to 392 - but a majority of them had small (10,000 or less) cir culations. Of newspapers with more than 500,000 circulation, 17 percent of full-time journalists are minorities. The percentage rises to 22 percent for dailies under 500,000 but over 250,000, and 27 per cent for those over 100,000 but under 250,000. When the National Urban League released our Sunday Morning Apartheid report in 2005, we encouraged cable and network outlets to take posi tive and productive steps to provide their viewers a broader perspective of public policy issues. Since then, not a lot has been done - until after Imus. It shouldn’t take an unfortunate controversy such as the one surrounding Imus’ insensitive remarks for news executives to understand the importance of diversity to the journalism process for the con stituents it serves. MARC MORIAL is president and CEO of the National Urban League. We’re running away from blackness, or at least tiyrng to As they say in New York, “Fa-get about it!” It’s sad to see some of our brothers and sisters making every attempt to deny who and what they are. We hear it in their state ments, we see it in their actions, and we feel it in our relationships with one it’s mainly to appease white people in hope they will see a “Afferent kind of black person.” That’s how O.J. Simpson used to be charac terized, before they showed him the doorway back to his blackness - even though he still has not taken the hint. Now it’s being said about Barack Obama: "he is not black in the usual way,” said one white commentator. We have some serious psychological problems, obvious vestiges of our con ditioning and maintenance over several generations, but trying to run away from who we are is the height of madness for black people; besides, it’s rife with futility. It is also shameful consider ing the legacy left to us by our forebears. Are they lying cold in their graves now, having sacrificed themselves for our true freedom, for a cause from which we are now trying to distance ourselves? Obama's . statement, “There is no black America” is indicative of a fear that we will-be alienated from white ' people if we do not give def erence to them by suggest ing that we are really not black, but rather we are "neutral.” It seems to me they would want us to be who we are rather than pre tend and'play silly games. When it’s all said and done, they will make their deci sions about us based on their respective social para digms and parameters any way. So why are we scared? Why try to run away from your blackness? Obama tells blacks not to vote for him because he is black, which I am sure is highly appreciated by his corporate donors and the Washington status quo. It is also a very condescending statement to make and sug gest black people aren’t sophisticated enough to decide based on qualifica tions. On second thought, that may indeed be the case. We gave in to Clarence Thomas because he was black, didn’t we. But have you ever heard white candi dates tell white folks not to vote for them simply because they are white? We always have to make other people feel comfortable, don’t we? Obama knows full well that millions of blacks will vote for him sim ply because he is black, but to tell us not to do so brings credence to the contention that he really isn’t “black in the usual way.” If being black doesn’t mean anything, if there is no black America, why do black folks get excited about Bob Johnson, Tiger Woods, Serena and Venus, Oprah, Shani Davis (Olympic speed skater), Dominique Dawes, and Debbie Thomas? Why are we constantly dis cussing the possibility that Obama could be "the first” black president (John Hanson notwithstanding) if blackness means nothing in this country, or if it does not even exist? Why do we have an annual "State of Black America” report and forum?. Yes, Barack, there is a black America, and other Americas too, just as there are 50 separate states rather than one country with no internal borders. Our prob lem is that we are merely emotional about it, which is why we still place so much value on “the first black.” Some black people are just too busy embracing diversi ty rather than embracing their blackness first. Who, other than black folks, do you hear promoting "diver sity” and allowing them selves to be called “minori ties?” Trying to run away from who we are is embar rassing, unconscionable, and cowardly. It also speaks volumes about our self-hate. JAMES CUNGMAN is an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati and former newspaper editor.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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June 14, 2007, edition 1
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