The SeeingBlack.com 411
April 2005

Honoring the Earth: Saving African Rainforests, Living for the City, Water Rights in Detroit, More Lung Diseases Among Blacks. (And, ofcourse, WGJ–The Post Turtle)

Compiled By the Red-Eye Crew
SeeingBlack.com Contributing Writers

Talk about these issues! Click here.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo–Leaders of seven Central African countries recently signed a landmark treaty to establish cross-border partnerships to help save the world's second largest rainforest. The treaty came at the end of a two-day summit here of Central African heads of state, who gathered in the former French colony to discuss the fate of the great Congo Basin forests, a 500-million acre region that makes up the very heart of Africa.

The Congo Basin forests stretch through 10 countries and are home to more than half Africa's animal species, including the world's entire population of lowland gorillas. Nearly 20 million people depend on the forests for food and shelter. Illegal logging, poaching, ivory trafficking and a rampant bushmeat trade have been decimating the forests at an alarming rate.
Leaders from seven African countries Republic of Congo, Gabon, Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, Chad and Central African Republic — which make up the bulk of the Congo Basin — signed the agreement in February. The treaty will make it easier for countries to jointly track and combat poachers, who easily slip across Africa's remote borders. It will also help provide additional funds for training and conservation, and harmonise laws in different countries that regulate logging.

The treaty is the long-fought result of a 1999 meeting between Central African leaders in Yaounde, Cameroon, which set up the framework of the treaty.
Over 100,000 square km of land has been preserved since the Yaounde agreement, but environmental groups said more action was needed. They claim over 3.7 million acres of land in the Congo Basin is still lost each year to logging, development, poaching, mining and oil exploration.

Environmental groups attending the summit hailed the treaty as a triumphant victory.

"You're finally seeing a commonality in what people are saying that was unthinkable 10 years ago," said Claude Martin, head of the World Wildlife Fund. "The leaders here are seeing how the exploitation of their forests will not contribute to their economies, poverty reduction and future prospects."–The Associated Press

Living for the City
ATLANTA— A group of faculty at Clark Atlanta University has established an initiative aimed at supporting research and policy work on race, smart growth, and equity issues in metropolitan regions where Blacks are concentrated. Over 88 percent of Blacks live in metropolitan areas and 53.1 percent live inside central cities. About 60 percent of Blacks live in the 10 metropolitan areas.

“People of color comprise a majority of the population in nearly half of the nation’s 100 largest cities and will make up over half of the U.S. population in 2050,” says sociologist Robert D. Bullard, who also directs the Environmental Justice Resource Center. Under Bullard’s leadership, this new initiative will target Black scholars, educators, elected officials, civil rights leaders, health professional, and journalists to build a national agenda around issues of equitable development, fair growth, and livable communities.

The project will also target Historically Black Colleges and Universities for briefings, forums, lecture series, and research collaboratives. “Many of our HBCUs are located in metropolitan regions where sprawl rules the day. It makes economic and political sense that HBCUs have informed leadership on regional growth issues that directly impact them and their constituents,” Bullard said.

With a $300,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, professor Bullard and his colleagues will assemble a cadre of Black leaders, advocates, and technical experts who can provide a national voice on regional growth and metropolitan equity. The center will convene a second roundtable of African American scholars and authors from around the country to explore new themes and frameworks for understanding contemporary Black urban life in the American metropolis. The first African American scholars and authors roundtable was held at CAU in April 2004.

Race maps closely to economic geography. Race and place in urban America are deeply connected. Place affects access to jobs, education and public services, culture, shopping, level of personal security, and medical services, according to Angel O. Torres, an urban planner and geographic information specialist at the center. “We will map the impacts of regional investments and smart growth policies to provide decision tools for evaluating whether or not African Americans and other people of color are receiving their fair share of the benefits and opportunities.”

This project extends the center’s National Equity and Smart Growth Initiative that focuses on housing and residential patterns, transportation equity environmental justice, urban and regional planning, and community empowerment. One of the first products of the initiative was a policy paper entitled "Race, Equity and Smart Growth: Why People of Color Must Speak for Themselves” (1999).

The center’s research indicates that sprawl has environmental consequences, i.e., increases traffic, pollutes the air, destroys forests and greens space, worsens flooding, and wastes energy. Sprawl also has social and economic consequences, i.e., exacerbates school crowding, heightens urban-suburban schools disparities, accelerates urban infrastructure decline, concentrates poverty, creates spatial mismatch between urban workers and suburban job centers, heightens racial and disparities, and negatively impacts public health.

“We want our center to serve as a national information clearinghouse on race, smart growth, and regional equity,” says sociologist Glenn S. Johnson, who co-edited, with Bullard and Torres, Sprawl City: Race, Politics and Planning in Atlanta (2000), and Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity (2004).

For further information visit the center’s website at http://www.ejrc.cau.edu.

The Water We Drink
The global issue of water privatization was linked to Detroit recently when Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman interviewed Maureen Taylor, state chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and a candidate for a City Council seat in Detroit.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about privatization of water there?

MAUREEN TAYLOR: Yes. We're in another phase of this fight. The privatization of water concept here is being operated under the guise of shutting off water for residents of the City of Detroit. In the last 90 days of the year 2004, the Water and Sewage Department, which is a municipal-owned entity, shut off water at 6,200 additional households in just 90 days. So what's happening here, because we have such a horrible decline in the amount -- the numbers of people that are working, and we have a horrible increase in the number of people that are having to seek government assistance and welfare and what not; you're being punished because you’re poor. Here, you can have your water turned off, and at some point, the whole question of privatization, meaning an explicit company or corporation is going to be brought in by the water czar, Mr. Victor Mercado, to run the Water Department.

AMY GOODMAN: The company that wants to take it over?

MAUREEN TAYLOR: There are many. We live inside of the Great Lakes. There's no end to the amount of great water and fresh water that's available to folks here. So there are numbers of people — it's like sharks, it's like Jaws. There's a feeding frenzy going on here. So by having this entire crisis, 40,000 people shut off of water between June of 2001 and June of 2002. 40,000 in just Detroit. And along with this additional 6,000, you create this chaos and whatnaut that’s going on in this, the Motor City. Then you have folks that are standing on the periphery saying, I can run this better. And if the citizens will pay me and pick me, and the elected officials will choose me to be the water company and whatnaut, then I can make the water better. But of course I can make my pockets better, too.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds. Alan Snitow, (independent filmmaker, co-producer and director of the documentary "Thirst" with Deborah Kaufman,) how does Detroit fit into the global picture?

ALAN SNITOW: Well, a little bit we're talking about a case in Florida right now in which one woman is getting the attention of Congress about cutting off her food tube. Thousands of people are being cut off from water in Detroit and many other cities around the world right now. And this all comes together on the question of who is going to control this resource in the future? Enron was a water company. Uruguay has just voted against having any water privatization there. This is a global issue now, and we've got new Enrons on the horizon and the area is water rather than energy.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for joining us on this World Water Day. Dezaraye Bagalayos from Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton, Alan Snitow, with Deborah Kaufman, made the film Thirst. Their website is thirstthemovie.org, and Maureen Taylor, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization.

The Air We Breathe
African Americans and other people of color in the United States are disproportionately affected by lung diseases, such as asthma, according to a recent report from the American Lung Association. Below are some highlights from the report that show how lung disease and pollution impacts our communities.

Indoor and outdoor air pollution are linked to breathing problems. Children, the elderly and those with chronic lung disease are the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of air pollution. Studies have linked air pollution to heart disease, cancer, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses, even death. Culturally diverse communities are more likely to reside near industrial sources of air pollution. This report shows that communities of color have higher prevalence and death rates from the most common respiratory illnesses such as asthma and are most often located in high pollution areas.

African Americans have the highest asthma prevalence. Asthma is found in all populations but culturally diverse groups experience it at higher rates, particularly the inner-city African-American and Puerto Rican communities. Presently, African Americans have the highest asthma prevalence of any racial/ethnic group while Puerto Ricans may higher death rates from the disease.

Although African Americans are less likely to develop or die from COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, they have more emergency room visits and similar disease severity as whites who have smoked cigarettes over a longer period of time and are heavy smokers.

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Smoking is the main cause of the disease, but other risk factors including air pollution, occupational exposures and secondhand smoke can worsen the condition. White Americans in the United States are more likely to develop the disease than other racial/ethnic groups.

Native Americans have the second highest incidence rate of cystic fibrosis behind Whites. Cystic fibrosis is a life-long hereditary disease that is more common among White babies.

African Americans represent over half of all HIV diagnoses and HIV-AIDS is the leading cause of death among African-American women age 25 to 34. Since the beginning of the epidemic, diverse communities constituted 61 percent of AIDS cases. Hispanics with HIV were more likely than Whites and African Americans to have their condition turn into AIDS within 12 months of diagnosis. Because the lung is the major target of infection in HIV-AIDS patients, some persons infected with HIV are in danger of contracting various forms of lung disease, such as pneumonia or tuberculosis.

Recently, former NFL player, Reggie White described by his teammates as a vibrant and energetic man, died at the age of 43 of a fatal cardiac arrhythmia caused by his ongoing battle with sarcoidosis. Sleep apnea may have also been a complicating factor in his death.
Lung cancer kills more African Americans and American Indians/Alaskan Natives than any other cancer.

In 2004, an estimated 173,770 new cases of lung cancer and an estimated 160,400 deaths from lung cancer will occur in the United States, with the greatest effect on culturally diverse communities. African Americans are more likely to develop and die from lung cancer although they have lower overall exposure to tobacco smoke.

African American children were more than three times as likely as children of other races to develop sleep-disordered breathing. Sleep apnea or sleep-disordered breathing occurs in all age groups and both sexes but is most common in males and those over the age of 40. It is also more common among people who are moderately overweight to obese. Strong evidence suggests that obesity may increase the risk of obstructed breathing during sleep. Data indicate the prevalence of childhood obesity among African-American children increased by 120 percent between 1986 and 1998. Lack of awareness by the public and healthcare professionals have resulted in the vast majority of people with the illness remaining undiagnosed and, therefore, untreated.

Hispanics are more likely to be employed in high-risk occupations than any other race or ethnic group. Traditionally, certain racial and ethnic groups are overexposed to occupational respiratory hazards because they are more likely to be employed in industries that have been associated with lung disease. Occupational asthma is the most prevalent occupational lung disease in the United States, with approximately 15 percent of asthma cases due to occupational exposure.

African Americans along with Swedes and Danes have the highest prevalence rate in the world for sarcoidosis. In 2001, 510 African Americans died from sarcoidosis compared with 315 Whites. The mortality rate was 16 times higher among African Americans than Whites. The cause of the disease is still a mystery but researchers have several theories. It occasionally runs in families and appears to occur more commonly in non-smokers than smokers. Findings rom a recent study indicate that the disease may be associated with a geographically based risk factor for African Americans.

American Indians/Alaskan Natives have SIDS rates at two times higher than the U.S. population. SIDS is the third leading cause of death among infants under one year of age. African- American infants are 2.5 times more likely to die from SIDS than White infants. The cause of the disease remains unknown but research has found that maternal smoking during pregnancy possibly doubles the risk of an infant developing the disease.

To view the full PDF of Lung Disease Data in Culturally Diverse Communities: 2005, click here.


We Got Jokes–The Post Turtle
While suturing a laceration on the hand of a 70-year-old Texas rancher (his hand had been caught in a gate while working cattle), a doctor and the old man were talking about George W. Bush being in the White House. The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'."

Not knowing what the old man meant, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old man said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor stupid bastard get down."
—(Sent from Tanisha at DC Sista Girls)

— April 1, 2005

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