Black Clergy Push 'Obamacare' Enrollment as Glitches Get Fixed By Hazel Trice Edney

Oct. 22, 2013

Black Clergy Push 'Obamacare' Enrollment as Glitches Get Fixed
By Hazel Trice Edney

Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner

Rev. C. T. Vivian

Rev. Al Sharpton

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A team of African-American preachers has sent a letter to President Barack Obama affirming their “commitment to the Affordable Care Act” even as the President has ordered the website overhauled.

“We believe that access to quality health care is a fundamental civil and human right in America. Historically, over seven million African-Americans have been uninsured and denied access to care with devastating consequences. The Affordable Care Act provides African-Americans, along with Americans of all nationalities, access to desperately needed quality health care,” states the letter, signed by 14 preachers, all of whom lead major clerical or civic organizations. “We affirm our support for the Affordable Care Act. We understand that over time aspects of the Act will be revised as government learns more and to-be-expected administrative glitches will be appropriately addressed but it is essential that we work aggressively with what we have right now. We cannot afford to put this off any longer. Any further delay will have catastrophic effects on the nation’s uninsured.”

The three-page letter, complete with supporting scriptures, and starting with “Dear Mr. President”, was released to the media Monday evening.

The 14 names on the letter are the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. chair, Faith Partnerships; Inc.; the Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, co-chair, National African American Clergy Network, who is heading the effort; the Reverend Dr. T. DeWitt Smith, Jr., co-chair, National African American Clergy Network; the Rev. Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, president, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.; Bishop George E. Battle, Jr., senior bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; Bishop Charles Edward Blake, Sr., presiding Bishop and Chief Apostle, Church of God In Christ, Inc.; Bishop John R. Bryant, senior bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Church; the Rev. Dr. Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook, founding president, Women In Ministry International; Bishop Paul A. G. Stewart, Sr., acting senior bishop, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Paul S. Morton, international presiding bishop, Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International; the Rev. Dr. Julius R. Scruggs, president, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.; the Rev. Al Sharpton, president, National Action Network; the Rev. Dr. Stephen Thurston, president, National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., the Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian, president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The letter was released only hours after President Obama held a Rose Garden press conference deploring the embarrassing glitches on the enrollment website, HealthCare.gov, while praising the benefits of the new plans for those who have successfully enrolled.

“…The problem has been that the website that’s supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody. And there’s no sugarcoating it,” Obama said. “The website has been too slow, people have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it’s fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am - precisely because the product is good.”

For anyone experiencing problems or needing answers to questions, he announced the toll free number, 1-800-318-2596 for help. The President has also embraced the Republican-invented nickname for the Affordable Care Act, appealing in a mass e-mail for people to “Join Team Obamacare.”

Meanwhile, amidst escalated criticism of the plan – mainly by Republicans - the pastors and their associates bolstered their support.

“We, leaders of predominantly African American denominations and other faith leaders, who lead millions of African American people of faith, believe that our devotion to God requires us to be actively involved in promoting the well-being of all people,” states the letter. “In some cases, we can best accomplish that objective by executing clearly defined, focused collaborative efforts amongst denominations and other faith based groups. We believe in those cases we can accomplish more together than we can separately. The issue of providing all Americans with access to quality health care is one of those issues.”

The letter lists their specific commitments, including to “Facilitate the critical enrollment numbers necessary to ensure the success of the Affordable Care Act” and “Seek other opportunities to work towards improving the health status of our constituencies” such as “Health and Wellness Sundays which will include thematic preaching on specified Sundays along with other related activities.”

They appealed for other pastors to sign onto the letter and the commitment: “We call on all others of like minds and empathetic hearts to join in this public affirmation by affixing your names to this historic document.”

Anti-‘Redskins’ Movement Grows as Black Press Editor Drops Name By Hazel Trice Edney

Oct. 21, 2013

Anti-‘Redskins’ Movement Grows as Black Press Editor Drops Name
By Hazel Trice Edney

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In this May 2012 photo, Richmond Free Press Editor/Publisher Raymond H. Boone walks with Free Press photographer Sandra Sellars toward the entrance of the Virginia Supreme Court where she became the first Black newspaper photographer to cover an investiture in the Court's 232-year history. The break through came after a decade-long campaign by the paper. Boone has now waged the same type of campaign for the change of the name of the Washington 'Redskins'. PHOTO: Jerome Reid/Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The editor-publisher of the award-winning Richmond Free Press has announced his paper will no longer use the name ‘Redskins’ to describe Washington, D.C.’s professional football team because he says the name is racist, harkening to the historic torture and abuse of Native Americans.

“We want to make absolutely certain that the Free Press does not endorse or promote a totally unacceptable name. Also, it represents an opportunity to show that Washington, D.C. – the capital of the United States – is not riveted to the past and that Virginia is not riveted to the past. It’s an opportunity to move ahead and not to continue to encourage this take our nation back theme that the ultra conservatives have,” says Raymond H. Boone Sr. in an interview this week. “We should never become acclimated to the outrageous. And the Free Press is leading the expunging of this name so that it will not be a cause for people to find an unacceptable, racist unpatriotic name acceptable.”

Boone, who has a decades-long reputation as a force against racism in Virginia, announced his decision to drop the name in an editorial published in the Oct. 17-23 edition of the Free Press. He says the paper will only refer to the team as “the Washington professional football team.”

He wrote, “The Richmond Free Press is expunging the nickname of the Washington professional football team from its news and editorial columns. The reason: The nickname is insulting to Native Americans, racist and divisive. Plus, it promotes the spreading ugly Tea Party mentality that is growing in Virginia and the Nation’s Capital.”

The editorial continues, “Our use of the depraved nickname would only serve to cause people to become more acclimated to the outrageous. It would give a cause for the regeneration of the despicable N-word and other derogatory names given to other racial groups.”

Daniel Snyder, the owner of the team, has vowed not to change the name, claiming that 90 percent of Native Americans, including many Native American students, do not want to change the name and view it as a source of pride. However, the stance by the 21-year-old newspaper joins a rising chorus of voices against the name, from people and organizations that associate it with race hatred, bigotry and the “ethnic cleansing” mentality perpetuated by President Andrew Jackson and his Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830 - among others.

Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, a 69-year-old organization that promotes itself as the oldest, largest and most representative organization of American Indians and Alaska natives, also reframes from using the term, “Redskins”.

Speaking on an Aug. 26 panel, “No Lie Can Live Forever,” sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation in commemoration of the 50^th Anniversary of the March on Washington, Pata said her community calls the team, “The Local Team”.

Responding to a question from the audience on whether the team’s name will eventually change 50 years past the civil rights anniversary, she says she believes there is definitely a movement toward it.

“I am feeling very optimistic because more and more voices of the people are stepping up,” Pata said. “I think it will get down to the economics of the owner who has definitely put his line in the sand. But, as the National Football League and as other sponsors of the team have started to urge the team to reconsider action, I think there is” the possibility.

Pata added that her organization would be happy to create “a winning opportunity for the fans” by helping “to come up with a name that is heroic and honorary and that we can all stand behind. I would love to be a part of that process and have an open invitation to do so.”

National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial, also on the Kellogg panel, predicts the name change is inevitable.

“It will happen. It needs to happen. It’s time for it to happen,” he said. “When I watch the team, it goes through my mind, ‘Has the time just come for this image and for this name to be changed?’ This is the nation’s capital and its institutions – and the football team here is an institution - need to be standing with what’s best for the future of the nation. I think it’s just that simple.”

President Obama recently told the Associated Press that he would “think about changing” the team’s name if he was the owner.

Boone is emphatic and - based on his historic stances - will only escalate his campaign against the name. The Free Press has made statewide and national news on numerous occasions with its campaigns against racism, including a successful 1992 campaign to remove Confederate flag emblems from the planes and uniforms of the Virginia Air National Guard. More recently, he waged a successful campaign to open the door for photographers from Black newspapers as a part of the official press core of the Virginia Supreme Court.

The tone of his editorial hints he will not blink:

“…The football team’s current nickname is the modern-day version of the Washington football team’s white supremacist mentality,” he writes. “Most of its stars are African-Americans who hold a slave status, reporting to the team’s ultraconservative owner, Daniel Snyder. He vows he will ‘never’ change the rotten name … a name that stems from the scalping and butchering of Native Americans by bounty hunters.”

He concludes with another call for the name to be changed. “In the meantime, the Free Press, along with a growing number of opponents of the racist nickname, will not print it.”

Editor’s note: Hazel Trice Edney, the writer of this article is a former reporter for the Richmond Free Press.

Maryland HBCU Case Has Implications for America by Zenitha Prince

Oct. 21, 2013

Maryland HBCU Case Has Implications for America
By Zenitha Prince

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A federal judge’s ruling that Maryland violated the constitutional rights of the students at its historically Black college and universities by perpetuating segregation will have a significant impact both within and beyond the state’s borders, experts said.

Federal District Judge Catherine Blake ruled Oct. 7 that Maryland, by allowing traditionally White institutions to duplicate programs already offered by historically Black colleges and universities, had created de facto segregation in its higher education system.

Maryland "offered no evidence that it has made any serious effort to address continuing historic duplication. Second, and even more troubling, the State has failed to prevent additional duplication, to the detriment of the HBIs," Blake wrote in her opinion.

Clifton Conrad, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an expert in the area of segregation in higher education, said program duplication is a major indicator of the dualism that still exists in higher education despite the passage of landmark cases such as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education and the 1992 U.S. v. Fordice, which attempted to mitigate the problem.

“Brown didn’t work in higher education, did it? No,” said the professor, who worked on Fordice and was called as an expert witness in the Maryland case.
In her opinion, Blake noted that statewide, 60 percent of the noncore programs at Maryland’s HBCUs are unnecessarily duplicated, compared with only 18 percent of its TWIs’ noncore programs. And, of the unique high-demand programs that fuel enrollment, there was an average of 17 per TWI and only three per HBCU.

The lack of unique programs at HBCUs has a segregating effect since it decreases the school’s attractiveness to students of all races, said Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), mirroring Blake’s conclusions.

“When you undercut and duplicate those courses offered by HBCUs, you are not just segregating the schools and perpetuating a dual system of education, you are undermining our (Black) institutions in terms of growth,” she said.

Conrad concurred, saying, the presence of unique programs leads to increased funding.

“When you have unique, quality noncore programs the money will come,” he said.

Both Conrad and Baskerville said Judge Blake’s ruling could serve as a “wake-up” call to other jurisdictions, since Maryland is not the only state that has lingering policies traceable to the de jure or legal era of segregation.

“This (decision) is significant not only for Maryland,” Baskerville said. “We were waiting with bated breath for the ruling, hoping that this would set good precedent for at least four other states.”

NAFEO has complaints pending in at least four other states including Florida, Oklahoma and Texas. And there have been other red flags in states like Louisiana, Georgia and Ohio, she said.

For example, Baskerville said, Georgia’s Savannah State University, an HBCU, launched an acclaimed homeland security program that promised to draw students from all over. Within a matter of months, however, the state allowed a TWI in close proximity to launch a replica of that program and enrollment in the HBCU’s program petered out.

“[The Maryland ruling] gives us the leverage to go to other state legislatures, higher education systems, etc. and see if states have willingly or unknowingly perpetuated a dual system of higher education and to address the problem,” she said, later adding, “The judge went to great lengths to establish a good record for what states should look at in making good decisions about whether there are lingering effects of de jure segregation.”

In her opinion, Blake offered guidelines Maryland should consider as they developed an approach to dealing with the segregative program duplication.

Those included "expansion of mission and program uniqueness and institutional identity at the HBIs," and even "the transfer or merger of select high demand programs from TWIs to HBIs.”

Any solution will pose a difficult challenge to the state, Conrad said. Resources will have to be appropriated for faculty training, facility rehabbing and the like, which may be less tasking that trying to divvy up the programs among the institutions.

“It’s tricky because you have a lot of institutions involved. So it’s going to invite some creativity in finding the remedy to give HBCUs a useful programmatic identity,” Conrad said. “It’s challenging; it’s not going to be easy. Institutions like things to stay as they are [so] change and innovation can be painful.”

But the pain is worth it, he added.

“It is 2013. We need to get rid of the vestiges of segregation and move on,” he said.

Health Disparities Group Push for Equality in Immunizations

Oct. 21, 2013

Health Disparities Group Pushing for Equality in Immunizations
Watts, Dellums Ask CDC to Expand Meningitis Vaccine

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Former Congressman J. C. Watts

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Former Congressman Ron Dellums

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Dr. Michael LeNoir

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A working group of Black leaders is calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand the recommendations for the bacterial meningitis vaccine to include infants as young as 6 months old.

Former Congressmen J.C. Watts, Jr., and Ron Dellums along with National Medical Association President Michael A. LeNoir, M.D. are leading a newly formed Health Disparities Working Group that's asking the CDC to take action on the vaccine at its next meeting Oct. 23, according to a news release.

"We are excited about the strength of the working group and our first project which is focused on advocating for an expanded vaccinations recommendation that would help to ensure low-income and minority communities are not disadvantaged in access to quality medical care," said Dr. LeNoir in the statement.

Dellums adds, "We are concerned about the 'vaccine gap' in this country, which allows more affluent communities to receive important immunizations that are largely inaccessible to low-income and minority communities, and contributes to the growing health disparities," Congressman Watts said. "We believe adding the bacterial meningitis vaccine to the recommended list for infants will help ensure that low-income and minority communities that rely on federal and state vaccination programs will have access to this life-saving medication."

Current Working Group members include Millicent Gorham, executive director for the National Office of the National Black Nurses Association; Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund; Dr. Gary Puckrein, president and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum; Daraka Satcher, president of the Satcher Group and Hilary Shelton, executive director of Government Affairs for the NAACP.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet this week to consider recommending the bacterial meningitis vaccine for children as young as 6 months old. Adding the vaccine to the routine immunization schedule will ensure that it will be included in the federal Vaccines for Children program, which provides approximately 82 million vaccines to 40 million low-income children each year. The recommendation will also improve vaccine coverage among private insurers and devote resources to education about the disease.

"A failure by ACIP to recommend the bacterial meningitis vaccine for children will perpetuate the disproportionately high rates of amenable morbidity and mortality associated with this disease in underserved populations throughout the country. We urge ACIP to be decisive and proactive in protecting the health and futures of all of America's children," said Dr. Puckrein.

Bacterial meningitis, while rare, is a deadly disease that kills approximately 500 people each year. The first symptoms are often similar to a cold or flu, but in hours the bacteria can attack the body, leaving those who survive with lost limbs, learning disabilities and hearing loss. The African-American community is at greater risk for bacterial meningitis because many low-income black families face key risk factors, including over-crowding, underlying illnesses and tobacco use.

One of the Working Group's projects is to raise awareness about the growing disparity in health for low-income and minority families in the United States, which the National Institute of Health recently labeled as one of the nation's greatest challenges. A recent CDC report found large racial, ethnic and income disparities in preventable hospitalizations, where blacks experience a rate more than double that of whites. Preventable incidents account for more than 1 million hospitalizations each year, at a cost of more than $6.7 billion annually.

The Working Group will work on a myriad of issues facing low-income and minority communities, including the so-called "vaccine gap." The NIH has identified access to vaccines as a major factor in curbing health disparities. Studies have found that minorities are more likely to not receive immunizations because of limited access to preventative healthcare and lack of education on the importance of regular vaccinations.

According to the release, Watts, Dellums and LeNoir will serve as co-chairs of the Working Group. During his time in Congress, Watts was a strong advocate for health disparities, working closely with Congresswoman Donna Christensen to make April National Minority Health Month. Dellums was a staunch supporter of programs to end infectious diseases during his more than four-decade career in public service. President Clinton appointed Dellums to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in 1999. LeNoiris has been an active member of the NMA for 30 years. His other leadership roles with NMA include speaker of the House of Delegates, trustee, and chair of Region VI and chair of the Pediatric, Community Medicine and Allergy sections.

Pres. Obama Signs Bill, Reopens Government by Frederick H. Lowe

Oct. 17, 2013

Pres. Obama Signs Bill, Reopens Government
By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Barack Obama signed congressional legislation early Thursday morning to reopen the federal government, which had been closed for 16 days.

Sylvia Mathews Burell, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said federal employees could return to work today.

The legislation, which the president signed after midnight, also reopened federal parks and monuments.

President Obama signed the legislation, which funded government operations, after it passed both houses of Congress. He said he would act quickly.

"Once this agreement arrives at my desk, I will sign it immediately," he said in a statement. "We 'll begin reopening our government immediately, and we can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty from our businesses and from the American people." (see today's video)

The U.S. Senate voted 81 to 18 Wednesday night to reopen the federal government and to raise the nation's borrowing limit. The House followed the Senate, voting 285 to 144.

The Senate bill will fund the government through Jan. 15, 2014, and it will extend the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling through February 7, 2014.

Observers praised the president for his tough stand against Republicans.

"Credit for this victory belongs entirely to President Obama," wrote Chris Bowers, senior campaign director for the Daily Kos, a newspaper. "Two years ago he vowed never again negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit, and his refusal to negotiate is why we have emerged victorious."

The legislation does affect the Affordable Care Act, which Republican/Tea Party members shutdown the government to defund. The legislation puts tighter restrictions on income-verification standards for individuals receiving subsidies in the Affordable Care Act's new insurance marketplaces.