April 19, 2014

A Disease of Denial
Dr. Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - I’m tired, my sisterfriend says.  I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.  As I hear her I have a couple of choices.  One is to tell her to get with her pastor and pray; the other is to tell her to get real with her illness.  Running her to her pastor takes her to a familiar place. Pushing her to help takes her out of her comfort zone.  When my beloved brothers and sisters share that they are stymied in the way they live their lives, I don’t mind praying and encouraging spiritual counsel, but I do mind ignoring the medicinal help that could assist my sisterfriend.

So my sister is sighing her pain, and I am wondering what to do.  There are few that will hear a black woman in a black community, strumming her pain, questioning her faith.  According to the National Associations of Mental Health more than four percent of African Americans have considered suicide.  Most of them are African American women.

Mental health is our nation’s dirty little secret, and if it is whispered in the nation at large, it is a silent scream in the African American community.  We are afraid, ashamed, frightened to own up to it, using our own lingo (s’kerd, shamed) to wrap ourselves around the fear that goes with “coming out” on mental illness.

So we are silent, even when we loose a warrior. Karyn Washington was a 22-year-old Morgan State University sister who committed suicide, last week. This young and brilliant one turned her pain into power when she created a website, "for brown girls" (forbrowngirls.com) that lifted up and affirmed our brown skinned girls. Karyn was a colored girl whose mental issues were apparently so severe that she chose to take her own life while affirming those of others.  From all accounts Karyn experienced depression. How many feel it and don’t say it; how many nod and just don’t mean it. How many exhale, inhale and really reach out to a brother or a sister to listen, have a cup of tea, take a walk, or just "reach out and touch".

The poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote, “We wear the mask that grins and lies that hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.”  For many in our nation, and especially for African Americans, we wear the mask.  When we peek/speak/tweet from behind the mask we realize, yet if we were real we would have to acknowledge in the words of Paul Lawrence Dunbar that to make a poet black and bid her sing is to challenge her and her two realities so that in the words of Dr. Maya, “I know why the caged bird sings”.

I chose to focus on this because in one scant week I have spoken to African American women who have experienced depression or feel shackled by other mental health issues.   They walk like they hold the world in their hands; sway like they are hearing drums from another continent, and cry behind closed doors, like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders.   They are sad, ground down, depressed, and we play off their pain, trivialize it, instead of responding to it.  We are losing too much genius when we play off the scourge of metal illness. We decide that it is their problem, not the problem of a nation that would inflict, rather than attempt to fix, mental illness. For all the care the Affordable Care Act has offered, we must ask if it has offered enough to combat mental illness,

We in the African American community have paid more and received less to be perceived as “normal” members of society.  Despite injustices in Scottsboro, Groveland and other vile places in our nation, we have been expected to show up, with amazing dignity, ignoring the massacre of our sons or daughters with well-modulated emotion.   Too many of us fear or fail to speak our pain.  Poverty and mental health are correlated, yet the poorest of us see our pain as “par for the course” and we don’t speak about it.   Whether African Americans are wealthy or financially challenged, mental health is elusive for some.  And faith without works is dead, which means fall on those knees if it comforts you, then run to the doctor who may help you with medication and therapy.

Baby girl Karyn Washington motivated this column, and as I thought of her, others kept reminding me of their own pain and the ways it has been ignored.  If you don’t get it read from Terrie Williams’ Black Pain.  And if you get it/read it, remind folks that this is not a sympathy issue, this is a public policy issue.  So weep sister soldier, brother warrior.  Those who bear the scars of mental illness have often fought longer, harder, and with the chemical imbalance that makes them feel it all so much more intensely.

Mental health is not an embarrassment; it is a national health issue.   It is a silent killer that we have yet to acknowledge.

Dr. Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author, and President Emerita of Bennett College for Women.

April 15, 2014

President Obama At Easter Prayer Breakfast: ‘We’re All Children of God’
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com)- As stories of racial and ethnic violence continue to rock America – even during Holy Week - President Barack Obama stressed the need for unity against racism and hatred, saying, “We’re All Children of God”.

“We have to keep coming together across faiths to combat the ignorance and intolerance, including anti-Semitism that can lead to hatred and to violence, because we’re all children of God. We’re all made in His image, all worthy of his love and dignity. And we see what happens around the world when this kind of religious-based or tinged violence can rear its ugly head.  It’s got no place in our society,” he said at an Easter prayer breakfast this week.

President Obama was specifically addressing the Kansas City incident in which documented White supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller (also used last name Cross) shot and killed three people at a community center and retirement home on Sunday. Shouting “Hail, Hitler!” Miller, who reportedly has a long history of involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, apparently thought the people were Jewish. Therefore, authorities say he will be charged with a hate crime.

The dead are high school freshman Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, an Eagle Scout and singer; his grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, a medical doctor; and Terri LaManno, shot while caring for her mother at a nearby nursing home.

The incident happened just as President Obama was preparing his remarks for the White House’s annual Easter Prayer Breakfast. Speaking before members of the administration, staffers, ministers and faith leaders, he gave “brief reflections as we start this Easter season.”

He parlayed the latest story of pain into a message of hope.

“My main message is just to say thank you to all of you, because you don’t remain on the sidelines.  I want to thank you for your ministries, for your good works, for the marching you do for justice and dignity and inclusion, for the ministries that all of you attend to and have helped organize throughout your communities each and every day to feed the hungry and house the homeless and educate children who so desperately need an education,” he said. “You have made a difference in so many different ways, not only here in the United States but overseas as well.  And that includes a cause close to my heart, My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative that we recently launched to make sure that more boys and young men of color can overcome the odds and achieve their dreams.”

Recent stories of racial division in America has predominately included attacks on unarmed young men of color, such as the Trayvon Martin, 17, shot and killed while walking from a neighborhood store; Jonathan Ferrell, 24, shot and killed while seeking help after a car accident and Jordan Davis, 17, shot and killed by a man who thought his music was too loud. However, President Obama stressed the need to equally deal with social issues that cause self-destructive behavior in Black neighborhoods.

He praised people in the audience who have mentored and worked with “young men in tough neighborhoods…We’re also joined by some of these young men who are working hard and trying to be good students and good sons and good citizens.  And I want to say to each of those young men here, we’re proud of you, and we expect a lot of you.  And we’re going to make sure that we’re there for you so that you then in turn will be there for the next generation of young men.”

Turning back to the Easter season and the meaning of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the President concluded his message, sounding almost like a preacher.

“So this Easter Week, of course we recognize that there’s a lot of pain and a lot of sin and a lot of tragedy in this world, but we’re also overwhelmed by the grace of an awesome God.  We’re reminded how He loves us, so deeply, that He gave his only begotten Son so that we might live through Him.  And in these Holy Days, we recall all that Jesus endured for us - the scorn of the crowds and the pain of the crucifixion, in our Christian religious tradition we celebrate the glory of the Resurrection - all so that we might be forgiven of our sins and granted everlasting life.”

The President concluded, “And more than 2,000 years later, it inspires us still.  We are drawn to His timeless teachings, challenged to be worthy of His sacrifice, to emulate as best we can His eternal example to love one another just as He loves us.  And of course, we’re always reminded each and every day that we fall short of that example.  And none of us are free from sin, but we look to His life and strive, knowing that “if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us.”

April 19, 2014
Makes You Wanna Holla!
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneywire.com) – The world, or more accurately, events of the world are moving at an ever increasing rate of speed.  If I had to describe it in terms consistent with the general hyperbole of the typical television news reports, I’d say that events of the world are cascading in ever increasing and more bizarre terms than anyone would have expected ten years ago.

I can only wonder if the "average" American can consume the volume of shocking news we receive every day without feeling overwhelmed and questioning 'what' or 'where' their place is in the total world.  War going on in the Middle East, turmoil and health crisis in many parts of Africa, Eastern Europe teetering on the brink of war are all part of the emotional dis-ease experienced by many of us.

Add the "crisis" in the United States to those other considerations and it's almost enough to drive one to the brink of emotional instability.  Our President and Attorney General are victimized by never-ending politically motivated verbal assaults.  The progress of governance is brought to a stand-still by those motivated by political loyalties or racial animus.  Women's reproductive rights suffer under on-going gender warfare while policy-makers debate the efficacy and "fairness" of providing women pay equity.

We see the hatred and vitriol of the public discourse spilling over into what’s essentially armed revolt and assault against the government and the welfare of our fellow citizens.  The armed standoff against the government in Nevada by Cliven Bundy and his supporters or the unprovoked attack against individuals based upon their perceived ethnicity are clear examples of how low some are willing to take our nation.

On the economic front, we see the Supreme Court of the U. S., once known as the last hope for social justice in the U.S., selling the birthright of the nation to the highest bidder by allowing unfettered contributions by the wealthy.  In his written decision, Chief Justice Roberts asserts there’s no evidence that suggests that an influencing quid pro quo would be created by removing the amount of money that could be donated by a single source!

While they diddle in session voting over 50 times to repeal Obamacare, we also see Congressional Republicans continuing their war on the Middle Class by refusing to extend long-term unemployment benefits or refusing to vote on an employment bill that would bring thousands into the workforce, while refurbishing our crumbling infrastructure,.  Republican Paul Ryan continues to press his Ayn Rand influenced budget that would GUT programs designed to provide a pathway to upward mobility for the ambitious or maintain a safety net to prevent the most needy from falling to the depths of societal deprivation.

To those watching with an open eye, these efforts seem brutally vicious while multi-national corporations, billionaires and millionaires are allowed to hoard wealth and resources while paying little or no taxes in repayment for their bounty.

Those of us who’re listening hear the reverberation of cries from those ever-present NEOCONS who wish to squander the human capital and financial wealth of the nation on a never ending series of wars against any who would demonstrate the temerity to challenge or question a position taken by the United States.  At the same time, we've seen these same NEOCONS and their allies in Congress denigrate the current administration to the extent that our opponents in the world feel it safe to challenge any effort to negotiate greater balance in the relations of nations.

As Marvin used to say, "It makes you wanna holla and throw up both your hands."  As the President said, and I concur, "Don't holla!  Organize and vote!"  Our vote is the only weapon we have to overcome the life-impacting challenges confronting us.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women, 202/678-6788, www.nationalcongressbw.org)

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April 14, 2014

Photo coming momentarily.

NBA President: Blacks Should Be ‘Almost Religious’ About Supporting Black Businesses
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - National Bankers Association (NBA) President/CEO Michael Grant says mutual support among Black businesses and consumers must become an “almost religious” culture in America if the Black community is to ever to attain significant economic strength.

“We are aware that our community was hardest hit by this recession. We’re aware that the historical and structural barriers against us remain. But, here is the real deal: We have enough wealth within our family to go toe to toe with anybody in America,” Grant told dozens during a legislative regulatory conference reception, sponsored by the NBA in Downtown DC. “If we are going to succeed as a people, we have got to learn – I mean with a burning passion – to commit to supporting each other in business.”

He continued, “We have got to be almost religious about this my friends. Nobody is going to save us but us.”

Grant seized the moment amidst a room full of bankers, regulators, media and small business owners, April 2. His remarks came on the heels of wide spread news reports that the number of grants and loans from the U. S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to Black-owned businesses has been abysmal, underscoring the need for internal community support as well as advocacy.

For those involved with Black business advocacy the SBA revelation is unacceptable.

“That is really a tragedy for an organization like ours that represents a quarter of a million Black-owned businesses. We have to address that,” said Ron Busby, president of the U. S. Black Chambers, Inc., who spoke briefly after Grant.

Busby noted the less than 2.5 percent of loans the SBA reportedly awards to Black-owned businesses. “We can talk about ‘My Brothers’ Keeper’. We can talk about ‘My Sisters’ Keeper’. But, at the end of the day, this is truly about Black businesses being in business making sure that they can employ these young adults as they get through the system if it works.”

Reactions around the room brought strong agreement with Grant as some speculated on the reasons that African-Americans fall short when it comes to supporting each other’s businesses.

“I think psychologically as a people we’ve had some circumstances that other groups have not had in this country,” said Industrial Bank President/CEO Doyle Mitchell, also NBA chairman. Mitchell was alluding to the bond between Blacks during Jim Crow segregation when their patronage of White-owned businesses was limited verses post segregation which opened up the markets to choices African-Americans never had.

“Asians have not had the kinds of circumstances and situations that we’ve gone through. Hispanics have not had that. And I think when we were forced to support each other we did it. But, for some reason when we weren’t forced and we got options; then we got away from it,” Mitchell said. “And I think we just have some psychological issues as a people.”

Mitchell speculated that perhaps African-Americans don’t so readily support each other because having been enslaved for centuries, Blacks were conditioned to think lowly of themselves and each other. “We don’t believe we can do things as good as other people do. That’s the only thing that I can come up with because every other race on the face of the planet supports each other, except us. And I think our very survival is going to depend on it.”

Constant reminding and advocacy may turn that mindset around, says Barbra Lang, former president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, who now owns Lang Strategies, LLC, a business consulting company.

“Many times we don’t even have it as a part of our consciousness of how we go and do that,” said Lang who led the Chamber for more than a decade. She pointed out that she has quickly discovered that most of her new business contracts, have “come from White executives; not from African-Americans… I think we all have a responsibility to lift a hand and bring somebody with us. That means individually also as minority businesses.”

According to the SBA, there is an estimated 1.9 million Black-owned businesses in the U. S. During the early part of this century (2002-2007), Black business ownership tripled the national rate. Simultaneously, the U. S. Census estimated an annual sales increase of 55 percent to $137.5 billion.

In addition, the buying power of African-Americans is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to a "State of the African-American Consumer" report by Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Despite past efforts to pool Black dollars and launch movements to support Black owned businesses, how often African-Americans actually spend with Black businesses has not been documented.

Donna Gambrell, retired director of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, said it will take great passion in order for such a movement to succeed.

“That was an important message that [Grant] gave tonight, that we have to figure out a way to come together to support one another. There’s strength in numbers,” she said. “We have to come together and support one another and pursue new strategies and keep our voices raised.”

Grant has begun a campaign to support the more than 37 mostly Black-owned banks of the NBA. Pushing for major deposits in those banks, he recently convinced the USBC and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundations to make significant deposits in Black-owned banks.

“There are no more messiahs coming alone. Every man and woman in this room has to recognize that we can make it big in America,” Grant concluded. “But, we have got to start looking at people who look like us and say I am going to support you. I love you. I’m going to stop being jealous of you. I’m going to stop criticizing you. I want you to be successful. If we do that, I promise you this silver rights movement will equal in success the civil rights movement.”