ARREST THAT PROCRASTINATING BLACK MAN FOR HIS OWN GOOD!

The man who destroyed Jim Crow had to know the Constitution better than the Supreme Court had allowed it to be known and trust its precepts more than the framers had themselves. [See below]

Both conventional wisdom and available evidence would seem to agree that men are reluctant to visit the doctor unless absolutely necessary, and that this is especially true of black men. Reasons for this proclivity to act against self-interest vary of course, but the bottom line is that men procrastinate about taking care of their health.

So here’s a prescription: Call your father, brother, adult son, uncle, nephew, cousin, neighbor, co-worker, friend, or significant male other and tell him to go TODAY, THIS EVENING, BETWEEN 5:30 and 8:30 PM over to the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus, Glickman Tower, on Euclid Avenue at East 96 St, for the 10^th Annual Cleveland Clinic Minority Men’s Health Fair.

There he can choose among an abundance of FREE HEALTH SCREENINGS for a variety of concerns either he has or that you may have for him, including:

Blood Pressure

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Bone Density

Cholesterol

Diabetes (blood sugar)

Dental screening

Glaucoma (eye)

Heart Disease

Hepatitis C

HIV

Lung Health

Kidney Function

Oral Cancer

Prostate Cancer

Sickle Cell

Skin Cancer

Stress/Depression

Wellness

Parking is FREE and he is sure to run into some of his good buddies. Tell him that if he goes early he can get home in time to see the Browns make their first selection, or he can hang around the Fair and join in the collective cheer or groan when the pick is announced/traded bungled.

This is Minority Health Month and a Minority Men’s Health Fair, but it is open to ALL MEN.

He can register in person at the Fair or Pre-register by visiting www.clevelandclinic.org/mmhc  

For more information, visit www.clevelandclinic.org/mmhc 

• • •

GCUFF REDUX

Procrastinators of a different stripe who missed last week’s successful debut of the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Fest can get a taste of what they missed TONIGHT ONLY at an encore presentation of two of the more talked about films: The Contradictions of Fair Hope and Happy Sad. Both films will be shown at Shaker Square Cinema, at 6PM and 8PM respectively.

“Contradictions” is a documentary treatment of a little known aspect of American history, when newly freed slaves throughout the South formed “benevolent societies” to respond to the abject hunger, illness and the fear of a pauper’s grave. The documentary sets the stage in rural Alabama, prior to Emancipation, and traces the development, struggles, contributions and gradual loss of tradition of one of the last remaining African American benevolent societies, known as “The Fair Hope Benevolent Society” in Uniontown, Alabama. The film is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and co-directed by S. Epatha Merkerson of Law and Order fame.

“Happy Sad” is a tender and vibrant coming of age story. Mandy, a high school footballer from the ghettos of Trinidad is shipped off to the idyllic island of Tobago to live with her great uncle Cephas (Bill Cobbs). Fury and fear keep Mandy from seeing the beauty all around her. Soon the island itself becomes a character that helps Mandy overcome her inner demons. 2009. Directed by Dianah Wynter.

Tickets may be purchased at the box office. GCUFF passes are no longer valid.

The Festival’s three-minute promo can be seen here. It was shown before every film during the Festival and was especially well done. Check it out.

• • •

AN AMAZING STORY

There would have been no Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. without an extraordinarily important cadre of people who planned, strategized, and acted with conviction and courage for years and even decades to prepare the way for the headliners to be written into history of civil rights heroes.

Similarly, there would have been no Thurgood Marshall, A. Leon Higginbotham, or Barack Obama had it not been for a brilliant, visionary attorney named Charles Hamilton Houston, architect of Howard Law School, and the strategic legal campaign that reached its dramatic zenith in Brown vs. Board of Education.

Tonight, Rev. Zachery R. Williams, Ph.D., will lead an informed discussion about this historic episode in civil rights and American history, based on the book, Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall and the Struggle to End Segregation.

Tonight’s discussion is part of an ongoing dialogue on the Civil Rights Movement that focuses on the organizing and other skills of a quartet of leaders, including A. Phillip Randolph and Ella Baker, in addition to Houston and Marshall.

The series is presented by The National Institute for Restorative Justice at Deuteronomy 8:3 Café and Books, 1464 Wade Park Ave, in University Circle.

Tonight’s discussion leader, Zachery Williams, is an assistant history professor at the University of Akron, assistant pastor at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church,  and the author of a fine book, In Search of The Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, about which I wrote briefly here.

  

 

The examination of Houston’s legacy will continue next week when US District Judge Solomon Oliver, chief judge of the Northern District, leads part two of the study of “the man who killed Jim Crow.”

Find further details at www.restorativejusticeinstitute.org.

 • • •

"By now they understood that they were to become social engineers —

to use the law to change the law... Learning the law and learning to think 

like a lawyer were but the elementary steps in becoming social engineers...

The third step... was the most critical: In order to give meaning to steps one and two — if they were to be anything but 'parasites' on their society — African American lawyers were obligated to know what the law should be.

They had to know the Constitution better than the Supreme Court had allowed it to be known and trust its precepts more than the framers had themselves ...

For all his Ivy League education and conservative mien, Dean Houston's

teaching law in this manner was as audacious as the arguments he and his

former students would soon begin presenting to courts across the country."

Rawn James, Jr. 

Being Green, or channeling my inner Feagler just after Earth Day

Being Green, or channeling my inner Feagler [1] just after Earth Day

[H/T to my Empire Junior High School classmate, Carolyn Carrier [née Hill], who emailed a version of this from Las Vegas, where she kicks butt and takes names as a super Obama volunteer.]

 • • •

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right — our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to protect public property — our school system-issued books. Then we  personalized our brown paper bag book covers with our art.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have throwaway disposables. We used wind and solar power to dry clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling 220-volt machine. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV and one radio, in the house, not a TV in every room, and the TV screen was the size of a handkerchief, not the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred
by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We used refillable ink pens instead of disposable ballpoints, and we replaced  the razor blades when the blade got dull instead of tossing it in the trash.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

It’s sad how the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then.

You might forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young’un. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

---

[1] Longtime Cleveland journalist Dick Feagler, the area’s Chief of Nostalgia.

Cleveland's Black Culture & Community Interconnectedness

As a reporter I am always alert to those posts and stories that seem to find a special resonance with my readers. My best gauge comes from the people who take the time to respond either via the comment feature or by sending me an offline email.

I can say with assurance that the posts striking the broadest and deepest chords have usually been rooted in either a personal narrative experience [see here and here] or a compelling local issue.

But over the last couple of days, when I have resumed posting after a lengthy hiatus [initiated by a sudden, urgent, and consuming remunerative writing assignment, followed successively by recuperation, inertia, and then a personal family loss], I have been surprised by the number of “thank you’s” I have received for posting, even with late notice, about various community events.

I think the cumulative response speaks to a number of issues, including how under-reported positive activity in the black community is, and how refreshing it is to appreciate our diversity and heterogeneity.

Of equal and perhaps greater significance is that the evolution and dispersal of both the larger and the African American communities over the years has, coupled with the communications revolution,  wrought such change to our local world that being in touch is simultaneously easier and more difficult in ways that are challenging to appreciate and difficult to adjust to.

We are going to work on this disconnect by doing a better job ourselves at timely reporting upcoming community events. Most likely that will take the form of a regular weekly post. We invite you to send notices of your civic events to us here.

Meanwhile, here are two free, family-friendly events taking place later today:

“You Decide”, “Tu Decides”

 A faith-based rally, supported by leaders from more than sixty Hispanic Evangelical churches throughout Greater Cleveland, takes place today from 5-8PM, at the Saigon Plaza, 5400 Detroit Avenue, near Gordon Square.

Rally goers will worship, reflect, network, and become educated on how to become agents of change in order to address social and economic issues affecting the Hispanic community.

The rally is a product of a group of active Hispanic community folk who have united around motivating, organizing and mobilizing faith-based community members, especially Evangelicals, to become more engaged in civic and community matters, and specifically to help narrow the gap in voter participation among Hispanics and Latinos in Northeast Ohio.

TU DECIDES is open to the general public, and will include free food, free parking, and musical performances by local Hispanic Evangelical church bands throughout Greater Cleveland. Special guests will include Reverend Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NLEC), who will speak to Hispanic and Latino political participation from a national perspective. No candidates will be allowed to speak.

 “Voting and civic involvement … traditionally is  not encouraged within the church,” according to Pastor Jesus Laboy of Cleveland’s west side La Iglesia Elim.

The US Hispanic population now numbers more than 50 million, with over 60,000 Hispanics reportedly living in Cuyahoga County. Fewer than half of the county’s 28,000 registered Hispanic voters half turned out to vote in the 2008 Presidential election.

The Tu Decides event is expected to lead to political training sessions to be scheduled later this spring.

For more information, call 216.235.1578.

• • •

Madam C. J. Walker Extravaganza

Our good friend Prester Pickett, coordinator of the Howard A. Mims  African American Cultural Center at Cleveland State University, wrote us yesterday to tell us about today’s 2012 Madam C. J. Walker Extravaganza and its special tribute to Whitney Houston, Don Cornelius, and Etta James.

The free, family-friendly program — the “signature price” for most of Bro. Pickett’s AACC events — includes a special exhibition opening in celebration of black music, courtesy of the African American Professional Network at Rockwell Automation.

The program starts at 7PM will also be a special tribute to some legendary African American Clevelanders portrayed by students from CSU’s Campus International School.

Find more information online here.

Black Culture is Alive and Well in Cleveland, Part II

Black Culture is Alive and Well in Cleveland, Part II

Among the abundant evidence of black Cleveland’s rich civic life we promised more detail about is today’s wine-tasting hosted by The President’s Council Foundation. The event, which is being held today from 6-8 PM at the Tavo Martini Loft & Restaurant, 850 Rockwell Ave, is intended to be the Foundation’s first annual salute to African-American Entrepreneurs. Tonight’s event will celebrate the life of the late John Bustamante and will include the inaugural John Bustamante Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Proceeds from the event will help support the Foundation’s Emerging Entrepreneurs Program, which has supported the growth and development of more than over 120 Northeast Ohio African American entrepreneurs over the last 12 years. Individual tickets are $50.

• • •

 Also taking place tonight is the second performance of “The Compromise”, a work of historical fiction that had its world premiere last night at Oberlin College’s Hall Auditorium.

The play is set at Tuskegee Institute in 1895 and reimagines the relationship between the two titans of black America at the dawn of twentieth century: Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois.

The cast combines Oberlin students, local residents, and professional artists, including former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones as Washington. This play helps commemorate Oberlin’s 175 years of admitting African American students, as well as the importance of continuing the discussion about the commitment to African American education in the new millennium.

The performances tonight and tomorrow begin at 8PM. Tickets range from $4-$11. The play is directed by Oberlin alumnus Justin Emeka, [‘95] who is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater there.

Jones, incidentally, is a busy actor this weekend.  Between his Oberlin stage performances he is moderating a panel discussion at the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival. He also appears in two of the films screened there today.

• • •

Case’s Social Justice Institute is host to POWER UP! -- the inauguralSocial Justice Institute Student Leadership Conference, tomorrow at the University’s Thwing Center, 11111 Euclid Ave. 

The driving force behind the conference is SJI’s passionate belief that inter-generational exchange between youth, students and practitioners is crucial for promoting social action.

Co-sponsors are Case’s Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, and the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio.

Jonathan Lykes, founder of the statewide action group Ohio Youth Voices, will be the keynote speaker.

Conference presenters will lead discussions on the how-to's of building movements [Joseph Worthy of the Children’s Defense Fund], grassroots organizing [Trevelle Harp, Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope] and legal strategies [Shakyra Diaz, Cleveland ACLU of Cleveland].

The conference is free.

• • •

The 2012 African American Philanthropy Summit will take place tomorrow at Tri-C’s Corporate College East, 4400 Richmond Rd, Warrensville Hts.

The half-day event, hosted by African American Philanthropy Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, is designed to provide valuable information and resources regarding giving circles made up of individuals, member organizations, churches, and businesses.

The opening session will be presented by leading professionals in black philanthropy.

Honorary chairpersons for the program are Inajo Chappell, Esq., partner, Ulmer & Berne LLP; Margot Copeland, executive vice president, KeyBank, and Steven Minter, former CEO at the Cleveland Foundation and currently executive in residence, Cleveland State University.

Register for the 8am-1pm program here.

• • •

Finally, the Cleveland Chapter of Top Ladies of Distinction will honor Debra Adams Simmons, Plain Dealer editor, and Randell McShepard, RPM International, Inc. vice president of community affairs for outstanding community service and we are pleased to salute them. 

Wayne Dawson of Fox 8 News will serve as m.c. for the 11am luncheon at Landerhaven.

Tickets for the luncheon are $40; proceeds support our programs.  Contact Cheryl Williams for further information at 216.295-0107 or ecw20608@hotmail.com.

• • •

And don't forget to check out the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Fest or the Tri-C Jazz Fest.

Black Culture is Alive and Well in Cleveland

Black Culture is Alive and Well in Cleveland

The concept of black culture can be an elusive one. Exactly what is it?

For some people, it is dismissed by reference to song and dance, or young black males with sagging pants, oversized shirts and hoodies. This portrait is used to justify black underachievement, unemployment, crime statistics, incarceration, and just about any societal pathology commonly projected as black-related through the daily newspaper, or nightly news, or right-wing cable shows.

But of course, these images are far from encapsulating the African American community, or even the dominant portion of it. Cleveland this week is phenomenally alive with expressions of what black culture is about. Consider what’s happening around town just this evening:

Starting at 5PM, Successnet and 100 Black Men are presenting a program at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall on “Who’s Mentoring Black Children?” The program will honor four active Clevelanders as 2012 Mentors: Ted Ginn, Kwa David Whitaker, Yvonne Pointer, Ilinda Reese.

• • •

A quick ride away on the Healthline, at Case Western Reserve University, Karamu Theater will be presenting a play April 19 about foster care experience in Strosacker Auditorium. The free, public performance of Michael Oatman’s “Sometimes Hope is Enough” will be followed by a discussion about foster care. The event is a collaboration among Karamu,  Case’s Schubert Center for Child Studies, and the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services.

The program aims to bring to light the situations of the more than 2,000 foster children in Cuyahoga County without permanent homes. Each year, roughly 200 youth turn 18 and “age out” of the foster care system, many with few connections or resources to begin living on their own.

The panelists — Gregory Ashe, executive director, Karamu House; David Crampton, associate professor, CWRU Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences; Jessica Horne, executive director, Cleveland Urban Minority Alcoholism Drug Abuse Outreach Project (UMADOP); Gregory Kapcar, legislative director, Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO); Jacqueline McCray, deputy director, Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, Resources and Placement; and Melinda Sykes, director of children’s initiatives, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine — will discuss the research and policy implications of the realities portrayed in the play.

For information, visit Schubert.case.edu/SometimesHopeIsEnough2012.aspx or call Kate Lodge at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services at 216.881.4343 or Gabriella Celeste at the Schubert Center at 216.368.5314.

• • •

Also on Case’s campus this afternoon will be Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, courtesy of the Case’s active Social Justice Institute, which is led by Professor Rhonda Williams. Coleman, a M.I.T.-trained social scientist and Ph.D., is the author of No Fear: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA.

The program, which will include a book signing, starts at 6:15 PM in the University’s Biomedical Research Building [Biomedical Research Building • BRB 105 • http://www.case.edu/maps/]

• • •

Meanwhile, starting at 6PM in at North Broadway Methodist Church in Slavic Village, the second of a of the 4 part series of 2012 Voter Education Forums will be offering important information on voter education. A panel of prominent Greater Clevelanders, including Dennis Anderson of the Cuyahoga Board of Elections, Shakyra Diaz of the Cleveland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Hiram College political science professor Jason Johnson, and Will Tarter III, president of the Cleveland Young Professional Senate, will address important issues as voter disenfranchisement, how to be a more informed voter, and the voting rights of formerly incarcerated persons.

• • •

On the entertainment tip, non-procrastinators will be attending yet another campus event, as part of the 2012 Tri-C Jazz Fest, where Esperanza Spalding will be performing before a sold-out crowd at Metro Auditorium.

• • • 

But lovers of culture need not go starving tonight. They merely have to head to Shaker Square, for the opening night of Cleveland’s first-ever Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival. Tonight’s schedule will feature “The Contradictions of Fair Hope” starting at 7:15PM, followed by a post-film reception next door at Zanzibar Restaurant. More details on the Festival, which runs through Sunday, can be found here: http://www.gcuff.org/

• • •

Either the film or the reception is likely to attract early attendees from the Cleveland Realtists Association’s monthly business networking event, which takes place down the street and around the corner at Jezebel’s Café on Larchmere Blvd.

Consider this is just one day in the life of Cleveland’s African Community. There is positive activity everywhere for those who care to look. We will do a better job going forward in bringing timely information concerning these kinds of activities. 

Tomorrow we will tell you about this weekend’s events, including Friday’s wine-tasting hosted by The President’s Council, a session of African American philanthropy offered by The Cleveland Foundation Saturday, the annual luncheon of the Top Ladies of Distinction, and an all day Saturday student leadership conference at Case Western Reserve.

A Personal Look Behind the County's Cancer Rate

I received the following email today from Brenda Malone a friend of long standing and publish it here with her permission.

I was just incensed after looking at the Cancer data rates as graphed by the Plain Dealer today. I am equally amazed at all of the ignorant, uninformed comments that are being made by the readers who are marveling that the more affluent suburbs of Chagrin Falls and Moreland Hills have such “high” cancer rates in comparison to the rest of Cuyahoga County.

What they don’t understand is that the data is actually confirming Environmental/Class/Race bias bestowed on the “rest of” the County.

What they don't understand is that the rates of Cancer in the inner city is actually equally high, if not, logically, much much higher than the rates of suburban people, but the since the inner city, poorer people DO NOT RECEIVE EQUAL LEVELS OF MEDICAL CARE AND CONCERN, their cancer levels are GROSSLY understated.

There should be an immediate investigation to discover WHY the inner city rates are lower than national trends. They celebrate when they should be crying out for equality and justice in the health system in Cuyahoga County, which incidentally, boasts the best hospitals in the country.

The affluent can afford doctor's visits and tests. The struggling inner city resident chooses between food and medicine.

The physicians who care for the affluent leave no test undone to diagnose and prevent any malaise in their patients.

The physicians who are charged with caring for the rest of us, do the barest, passable amount of testing and diagnosing because the insurers have assumed the role of physician to them and are concerned only with the bottom line, not the bottom feeders.

And the Plain Dealer will never tell its majority, uneducated, sheep/readers what the data TRULY reveals.

Will there EVER be equity for us?

This scenario hits especially close to home for me. For two years before my mother's painful death from multiple cancers of unknown origins, we took her to doctors at University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic, and several private physicians with symptoms of massive headaches, dizziness and wasting away. They literally gave her no hope, NO MRI TESTS, NOTHING, except to tell her that she was probably suffering from, and I swear to God I am quoting: ". . . .old  person's symptoms."

It was not until 9 months before she died that an Indian doctor in the Cleveland Clinic ER demanded that an MRI be performed because my mother could not hold her head up without vomiting. MRI results showed massive brain tumors, bone cancer and colon cancer. A far cry from "old person's disease."

So, when I see that data, I become incensed. I know the truth behind the data.

Can you write about this data in The Real Deal? I would write a letter to the pathetic editorial board of the Plain Dealer, but come on, you know that would be as useful as a tit on a bull. 

Jesus help us,

Brenda

• • •

Editor’s Notes:

1.    Brenda’s  mother was 63 years old when diagnosed with "old people's dizziness". She died seven months after her 64th birthday.

2.    The Cuyahoga County Board of Health Comprehensive Cancer Report of 2011 can be found here.