From 1910 into the 1930s, the black population of Detroit rose more than 600% -- double the rate of nearby Cleveland and four times faster than the increase in Chicago.
Nobody was moving here for the weather. The influx of people to Detroit -- the city tripled in size during the same period to a population of about 1.5 million -- was about jobs, mainly in the auto industry, after Henry Ford made his famous offer of $5 a day.
MORE:
• Complete coverage: Rising from the wreckage
• Chapter 8: Detroit automakers on new path; hope flickers
Among the many side effects of the assembly line was the rise of the American middle class and, in Detroit more than anywhere else, the creation of a black middle class. While segregation and racism were obstacles, Detroit became a place where good factory wages enabled African Americans to afford homes and cars; where black businesses could start up with ready customers and where succeeding generations had a measure of upward mobility. Hundreds of African-American professionals, businesspeople and academics owe their start to parents or grandparents who were able to make a decent living in Michigan's auto plants.
That avenue to the proverbial American dream has now been largely closed off by the disappearance of job opportunities at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and the many industry supplier firms.
"What is happening now to the black middle class is absolutely devastating," said Dr. Curtis Ivery, chancellor of Wayne County Community College District. "But it is also much needed. We needed to come out of our comfort zone, that sense of entitlement to those jobs."
Ivery and others said this massive economic shake-up should be a wake-up call for Detroit and indeed all Michigan to fix its schools and redirect young people toward higher education.
"The old paradigm was graduate from high school and get a good job," said Daniel Baxter, director of elections for the City of Detroit and the son of an assembly line worker. "Now, it's totally different. We have to shift the thought process, recognize the new dynamic."
Juliette Okotie-Eboh, senior vice president of public affairs for MGM Grand Detroit and the daughter of a Ford worker, recalled a time in the 1960s when the best-dressed among her classmates at Detroit Northern High School were the young men who had second-shift auto jobs.
"They had the cars, they had the clothes," she said. "The point is, I guess, they didn't need the education at that time to make the good money. But those doors have been closed for a while. Are blacks disproportionately affected? We're always disproportionately affected. ... But the lack of opportunity is more acute now."
Michael Porter, vice president for corporate communications at DTE Energy, is the son of an autoworker. His mother started out as a stenographer but worked her way up to computer systems analyst at the Army's Tank Automotive Command plant.
"I was exceedingly fortunate," Porter said. "My parents placed a high premium on education and sacrificed -- sending us to parochial schools to help prepare for college. ... But for those who couldn't or didn't want to go to college, the plants were a viable option.
"Today, those manufacturing jobs are gone. ... And even if the auto companies had the market share they enjoyed in the 1960s, the jobs our parents held would be gone. ... Today, computers and robots do many of the things that were formerly done by men and women with air wrenches and paint spray guns."
Hence the critical need, said Porter, Ivery and others, to address the ills of predominantly African-American school districts and the widespread applause for Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, who's becoming a local folk hero as he reshapes the district with an emphasis on accountability. Bobb's trying to make changes that are at least a generation beyond overdue.
"The school systems have got to do a much better job now of meeting the needs of these students," said Bart Landry, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and author of a 1987 book, "The New Black Middle Class," plus a 2006 follow-up, "Black Working Wives."
"But first, students have to understand, the good dollars-for-hours jobs are gone. 'If I'm going to make it, I must go to college' ... and if they don't get into pre-college work, that road is extremely difficult."
At WCCCD, which now has upward of 80,000 people taking credit and noncredit courses, Chancellor Ivery is more blunt about the impact of all the closed factories in southeast Michigan.
"Unfortunately, we're exactly where we need to be, and it's a painful thing," he said. "But we've got to get something out of this. There's an opportunity if we take it over the next one or two years. And if we get it right here, we can get it right for the whole country.
"We have a chance," Ivery said, "to ... turn this around."
Thursday, December 24, 2009
New Genetic Tests Find That Some African Americans Have LESS THAN 1 PERCENT Of Their Genes From AFRICA!!!
People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent -- just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry.
See Also:
Health & Medicine
* Personalized Medicine
* Genes
* Gene Therapy
Science & Society
* Racial Disparity
* Privacy Issues
* Public Health
Reference
* Ethnic group
* Human skin color
* Tropical disease
* Human Genome Project
An international research team led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University has collected and analyzed genotype data from 365 African-Americans, 203 people from 12 West African populations and 400 Europeans from 42 countries to provide a genome-wide perspective of African and African-American ancestry.
The data reveal genomic diversity among African and African-American populations far more complex than originally thought and reflect deep historical, cultural and linguistic impacts on gene flow among populations. The data also point to the ability of geneticists to reliably discern ancestry using such data. Scientists found, for example, that they could distinguish African and European ancestry at each region of the genome of self-identified-African Americans.
Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at Penn, and Carlos Bustamante, a computational biologist at Cornell, led the study to analyze 300,000 genetic markers from across the genome from West African, African-American and European-American populations to see whether they could reliably distinguish ancestry.
The team found that, while some West African populations are nearly indistinguishable, there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some groups, divided along linguistic and geographic lines.
This newly acquired genetic data revealed a number of important advances, including:
* The rich mosaic of African-American ancestry. Among the 365 African-Americans in the study, individuals had as little as 1 percent West African ancestry and as much as 99 percent. There are significant implications for pharmacogenomic studies and assessment of disease risk. It appears that the range of genetic ancestry captured under the term African-American is extremely diverse, suggesting that caution should be used in prescribing treatment based on differential guidelines for African-Americans.
* A median proportion of European ancestry in African-Americans of 18.5 percent, with large variation among individuals.
* The predominately African origin of X chromosomes of African-Americans. This is consistent with the pattern of gene flow where mothers were mostly of African ancestry while fathers were either of African or European ancestry.
* A technique which can reliably distinguish African and European ancestry for any particular region of the genome in African-Americans. This could have implications for personalized ancestry reconstructions, personalized medicine and more effective drug treatments and could aid in developing more effective methods for mapping genetic risk factors for diseases common in African-Americans, such as hypertension, diabetes and prostate cancer.
* The similarity of the West African component of African-American ancestry to the profile from non-Bantu Niger-Kordofanian speaking populations, which include the Igbo and Yoruba from Nigeria and the Brong from Ghana
* A comparison of the West African segments of African-American genomes. This is wholly in line with historical documents showing that the Igbo and Yoruba are two of the 10 most frequent ethnicities in slave trade records; however, most African-Americans also have ancestry from Bantu-speaking populations in western Africa.
* Population structure within the West African samples reflecting primarily language and secondarily geographical distance, echoing the Bantu expansion from a homeland in West Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa around 4,000 years ago.
"Africa, which is the homeland of all modern humans, contains more than 2,000 ethnolinguistic groups and harbors great genetic and phenotypic diversity; however, little is known about fine-scale population structure at a genome-wide level," said Tishkoff, professor in the departments of genetics and biology at Penn. "We were able to distinguish among closely related West African populations and showed that genetically inferred ancestry correlates strongly with geography and language, reflecting historic migration events in Africa.
"We were also able to show that there is little genetic differentiation among African-Americans in the African portion of their ancestry, reflecting the fact that most African-Americans have ancestry from several regions of western Africa. The greatest variation among African-Americans is in their proportion of European ancestry, which has important implications for the design of personalized medical treatments."
The study focused primarily on the genetic structure of West African populations, as previous genetic and historical studies suggested that the region was the source for most of the ancestry of present-day African-Americans. The results suggest that there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some of the West African populations, whereas others appear to be nearly indistinguishable, even when comparing more than 300,000 genetic markers. The researchers note that a larger sample size would likely reveal further substructure and diversity between these populations.
Analyzing patterns of population structure and individual ancestry in Africans and African-Americans illuminates the history of human populations and is critical for undertaking medical genomic studies on a global scale. Understanding ancestry not only provides insight into historical migration patterns, human origins and greater understanding of evolutionary forces, but also allows researchers to examine disease susceptibility and pharmacogenic response, and to develop personalized drugs and treatments, a frontier in public health.
There is also strong reason to believe that high-density genotype data from African and African-American populations may pinpoint more precisely the geographic origin of African ancestry in African-Americans, the researchers said. The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
See Also:
Health & Medicine
* Personalized Medicine
* Genes
* Gene Therapy
Science & Society
* Racial Disparity
* Privacy Issues
* Public Health
Reference
* Ethnic group
* Human skin color
* Tropical disease
* Human Genome Project
An international research team led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University has collected and analyzed genotype data from 365 African-Americans, 203 people from 12 West African populations and 400 Europeans from 42 countries to provide a genome-wide perspective of African and African-American ancestry.
The data reveal genomic diversity among African and African-American populations far more complex than originally thought and reflect deep historical, cultural and linguistic impacts on gene flow among populations. The data also point to the ability of geneticists to reliably discern ancestry using such data. Scientists found, for example, that they could distinguish African and European ancestry at each region of the genome of self-identified-African Americans.
Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at Penn, and Carlos Bustamante, a computational biologist at Cornell, led the study to analyze 300,000 genetic markers from across the genome from West African, African-American and European-American populations to see whether they could reliably distinguish ancestry.
The team found that, while some West African populations are nearly indistinguishable, there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some groups, divided along linguistic and geographic lines.
This newly acquired genetic data revealed a number of important advances, including:
* The rich mosaic of African-American ancestry. Among the 365 African-Americans in the study, individuals had as little as 1 percent West African ancestry and as much as 99 percent. There are significant implications for pharmacogenomic studies and assessment of disease risk. It appears that the range of genetic ancestry captured under the term African-American is extremely diverse, suggesting that caution should be used in prescribing treatment based on differential guidelines for African-Americans.
* A median proportion of European ancestry in African-Americans of 18.5 percent, with large variation among individuals.
* The predominately African origin of X chromosomes of African-Americans. This is consistent with the pattern of gene flow where mothers were mostly of African ancestry while fathers were either of African or European ancestry.
* A technique which can reliably distinguish African and European ancestry for any particular region of the genome in African-Americans. This could have implications for personalized ancestry reconstructions, personalized medicine and more effective drug treatments and could aid in developing more effective methods for mapping genetic risk factors for diseases common in African-Americans, such as hypertension, diabetes and prostate cancer.
* The similarity of the West African component of African-American ancestry to the profile from non-Bantu Niger-Kordofanian speaking populations, which include the Igbo and Yoruba from Nigeria and the Brong from Ghana
* A comparison of the West African segments of African-American genomes. This is wholly in line with historical documents showing that the Igbo and Yoruba are two of the 10 most frequent ethnicities in slave trade records; however, most African-Americans also have ancestry from Bantu-speaking populations in western Africa.
* Population structure within the West African samples reflecting primarily language and secondarily geographical distance, echoing the Bantu expansion from a homeland in West Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa around 4,000 years ago.
"Africa, which is the homeland of all modern humans, contains more than 2,000 ethnolinguistic groups and harbors great genetic and phenotypic diversity; however, little is known about fine-scale population structure at a genome-wide level," said Tishkoff, professor in the departments of genetics and biology at Penn. "We were able to distinguish among closely related West African populations and showed that genetically inferred ancestry correlates strongly with geography and language, reflecting historic migration events in Africa.
"We were also able to show that there is little genetic differentiation among African-Americans in the African portion of their ancestry, reflecting the fact that most African-Americans have ancestry from several regions of western Africa. The greatest variation among African-Americans is in their proportion of European ancestry, which has important implications for the design of personalized medical treatments."
The study focused primarily on the genetic structure of West African populations, as previous genetic and historical studies suggested that the region was the source for most of the ancestry of present-day African-Americans. The results suggest that there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some of the West African populations, whereas others appear to be nearly indistinguishable, even when comparing more than 300,000 genetic markers. The researchers note that a larger sample size would likely reveal further substructure and diversity between these populations.
Analyzing patterns of population structure and individual ancestry in Africans and African-Americans illuminates the history of human populations and is critical for undertaking medical genomic studies on a global scale. Understanding ancestry not only provides insight into historical migration patterns, human origins and greater understanding of evolutionary forces, but also allows researchers to examine disease susceptibility and pharmacogenic response, and to develop personalized drugs and treatments, a frontier in public health.
There is also strong reason to believe that high-density genotype data from African and African-American populations may pinpoint more precisely the geographic origin of African ancestry in African-Americans, the researchers said. The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
President Obama DEFENDS HIMSELF From Black Lawmakers Who Keep COMING AT HIS NECK . . . Reminds Them That He CANNOT BY LAW . . . Pass Laws That ONLY HE
President Barack Obama on Monday rebutted critics who say he isn't showing enough compassion toward black America, citing his health care effort as one example he says "will be hugely important" for blacks.
Obama said another example is the billions of dollars in aid to states included in the economic stimulus bill, money that was used to save thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers from losing their jobs. He said many of those workers are black.
"So this notion, somehow, that because there wasn't a transformation overnight that we've been neglectful is just simply, factually not accurate," Obama said in an Oval Office interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.
But the president acknowledged there are limits to what a president can do for any class of people.
"The only thing I cannot do is, by law, I cannot pass laws that say 'I'm just helping black folks.' I'm the president of the entire United States," Obama said, giving his standard answer to questions about the economic and other disparities facing blacks.
"What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need," he said. "That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community."
Black members of Congress have begun pressing their demands that the nation's first African-American president do more for minorities hard hit by the recession, noting the billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to prop up big banks and large corporations.
Nationally, unemployment stands at 10 percent while 15.6 percent of blacks are jobless.
Obama said the grumbling was justified because the U.S. has just begun to emerge from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. At the same time, he said polls show overwhelming support among blacks for what his administration is trying to do.
The president said the health care bill the Senate is expected to pass this week will help the one in five blacks who don't have health insurance — almost double the general population — by making coverage more affordable.
"This will be hugely important for the African-American community," he said, also citing increased spending on education.
Asked to comment on the state of black America, Obama paraphrased author Charles Dickens when he said it continues to be the best of times and the worst of times. Still, he said he was optimistic about the future.
"But it's going to take work. It was never going to be done just because we elected me," he said
Obama said another example is the billions of dollars in aid to states included in the economic stimulus bill, money that was used to save thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers from losing their jobs. He said many of those workers are black.
"So this notion, somehow, that because there wasn't a transformation overnight that we've been neglectful is just simply, factually not accurate," Obama said in an Oval Office interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.
But the president acknowledged there are limits to what a president can do for any class of people.
"The only thing I cannot do is, by law, I cannot pass laws that say 'I'm just helping black folks.' I'm the president of the entire United States," Obama said, giving his standard answer to questions about the economic and other disparities facing blacks.
"What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need," he said. "That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community."
Black members of Congress have begun pressing their demands that the nation's first African-American president do more for minorities hard hit by the recession, noting the billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to prop up big banks and large corporations.
Nationally, unemployment stands at 10 percent while 15.6 percent of blacks are jobless.
Obama said the grumbling was justified because the U.S. has just begun to emerge from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. At the same time, he said polls show overwhelming support among blacks for what his administration is trying to do.
The president said the health care bill the Senate is expected to pass this week will help the one in five blacks who don't have health insurance — almost double the general population — by making coverage more affordable.
"This will be hugely important for the African-American community," he said, also citing increased spending on education.
Asked to comment on the state of black America, Obama paraphrased author Charles Dickens when he said it continues to be the best of times and the worst of times. Still, he said he was optimistic about the future.
"But it's going to take work. It was never going to be done just because we elected me," he said
MAJOR GLITCH!!! New Facial Recognition Software IS UNABLE To Recognize BLACK PEOPLE'S FACES!!!
This is awkward," Live Leak writes. "It appears that HP's new webcams, which have facial-tracking software, can't recognize black faces, as evidenced in the video below." The video features two co-workers (one white, one black) doing some testing -- see the results for yourself.
But know that HP has already responded:
"We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty "seeing" contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting."
But know that HP has already responded:
"We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty "seeing" contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting."
Monday, December 14, 2009
New Drug Combination IMPROVES The Breast Cancer SURVIVAL RATE!!!!
Some women with very advanced breast cancer may have a new treatment option. A combination of two drugs that more precisely target tumors significantly extended the lives of women who had stopped responding to other medicines, doctors reported Friday.
It was the first big test of combining Herceptin and Tykerb. In a study of 300 patients, women receiving both drugs lived nearly five months longer than those given Tykerb alone.
Doctors hope for an even bigger benefit in women with less advanced disease, and were elated at this much improvement for very sick women who were facing certain death.
"We don't see a lot that works in patients who have seen six prior therapies as they did in this trial, so that alone is exciting," said Dr. Jennifer Litton, a breast cancer specialist at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The good results are in stark contrast to two other studies that found no survival advantage from Avastin, a drug whose approval for breast cancer patients was very controversial. Two infusions of Avastin a month, as needed for this treatment, can run well more than $10,000 with fees for administering the drug. Its maker, Genentech, says the wholesale price it charges for the drug averages $7,700 a month.
Considering Avastin's potential side effects — blood clots in the lungs, poor wound healing, kidney problems — a survival benefit "would have made the cost of the drug less painful to take," Litton said.
She had no role in any of the studies, which were reported Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
Herceptin and Tykerb aim at a protein called HER-2 that is made in abnormally large quantities in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. Herceptin blocks the protein on the cell's surface; Tykerb does it inside the cell.
"It's kind of like having a double brake on your tumor. If the first one fails, the second one does the job," said the Dr. Kimberly Blackwell of Duke University. She led the combo treatment study and has consulted for its sponsor, British-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC, which makes Tykerb, and for Genentech, which makes Herceptin and Avastin.
Women in the study had already received Herceptin alone or with various chemotherapy drugs and still were getting worse. They were randomly assigned to receive only Tykerb or both drugs, to see whether the combo might help Herceptin regain its effectiveness.
Median survival was analyzed after about three-fourths of the women had died — roughly two years after the study began. It was 61 weeks in the combo group versus 41 for those taking only Tykerb.
That likely underestimates the combo's true benefit because women on Tykerb alone were allowed to add Herceptin partway through the study if they continued to worsen, and many of them did, Blackwell said.
One woman on the combo in the study suffered a fatal blood clot. The only other common, serious side effect was diarrhea, which plagued 7 to 8 percent of each group. Herceptin costs about $10,000 a month; Tykerb, $5,000 to $6,000.
Stephanie Will gets the drugs for free from the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., where her husband is based. She was only 30 years old and nursing her third child when her cancer was found in 2003. She received the combo treatment as part of the study.
"It's been three years and four months, and it's been stable," Will said of her cancer. The combo has been easy to take compared to other treatments, she said. "It's allowed me to live my life pretty normally."
Dr. Eric Winer, breast cancer chief at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, said several studies now show that Herceptin still helps women even when their cancers seem to be getting worse.
"Herceptin is like a big roadblock on a superhighway. Eventually the cancer finds a way around it by taking an off ramp. But it's much less efficient to take that off ramp, so Herceptin is still having some influence on that cancer," said Winer, who, like Litton, has no financial ties to any drugmakers.
"Herceptin is a drug that keeps on giving," he said.
Not so for Avastin, which works by crimping a tumor's blood supply. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved its use in women whose cancers had spread beyond the breast over the objections of FDA advisers who wanted more evidence of benefit for these patients.
Now, two big international studies show that Avastin modestly delayed the time breast cancer took to worsen, but had no effect on overall survival:
_A 684-patient study of Avastin with chemotherapy as a second-try treatment for women whose cancers do not respond to Herceptin.
_A 736-patient study of Avastin plus Taxotere or a dummy drug as first-time treatment for cancers that had recurred or spread beyond the breast.
Avastin also is approved to treat certain lung, brain and colon cancers, and the new studies have no bearing on its use in those patients.
It was the first big test of combining Herceptin and Tykerb. In a study of 300 patients, women receiving both drugs lived nearly five months longer than those given Tykerb alone.
Doctors hope for an even bigger benefit in women with less advanced disease, and were elated at this much improvement for very sick women who were facing certain death.
"We don't see a lot that works in patients who have seen six prior therapies as they did in this trial, so that alone is exciting," said Dr. Jennifer Litton, a breast cancer specialist at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The good results are in stark contrast to two other studies that found no survival advantage from Avastin, a drug whose approval for breast cancer patients was very controversial. Two infusions of Avastin a month, as needed for this treatment, can run well more than $10,000 with fees for administering the drug. Its maker, Genentech, says the wholesale price it charges for the drug averages $7,700 a month.
Considering Avastin's potential side effects — blood clots in the lungs, poor wound healing, kidney problems — a survival benefit "would have made the cost of the drug less painful to take," Litton said.
She had no role in any of the studies, which were reported Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
Herceptin and Tykerb aim at a protein called HER-2 that is made in abnormally large quantities in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. Herceptin blocks the protein on the cell's surface; Tykerb does it inside the cell.
"It's kind of like having a double brake on your tumor. If the first one fails, the second one does the job," said the Dr. Kimberly Blackwell of Duke University. She led the combo treatment study and has consulted for its sponsor, British-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC, which makes Tykerb, and for Genentech, which makes Herceptin and Avastin.
Women in the study had already received Herceptin alone or with various chemotherapy drugs and still were getting worse. They were randomly assigned to receive only Tykerb or both drugs, to see whether the combo might help Herceptin regain its effectiveness.
Median survival was analyzed after about three-fourths of the women had died — roughly two years after the study began. It was 61 weeks in the combo group versus 41 for those taking only Tykerb.
That likely underestimates the combo's true benefit because women on Tykerb alone were allowed to add Herceptin partway through the study if they continued to worsen, and many of them did, Blackwell said.
One woman on the combo in the study suffered a fatal blood clot. The only other common, serious side effect was diarrhea, which plagued 7 to 8 percent of each group. Herceptin costs about $10,000 a month; Tykerb, $5,000 to $6,000.
Stephanie Will gets the drugs for free from the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., where her husband is based. She was only 30 years old and nursing her third child when her cancer was found in 2003. She received the combo treatment as part of the study.
"It's been three years and four months, and it's been stable," Will said of her cancer. The combo has been easy to take compared to other treatments, she said. "It's allowed me to live my life pretty normally."
Dr. Eric Winer, breast cancer chief at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, said several studies now show that Herceptin still helps women even when their cancers seem to be getting worse.
"Herceptin is like a big roadblock on a superhighway. Eventually the cancer finds a way around it by taking an off ramp. But it's much less efficient to take that off ramp, so Herceptin is still having some influence on that cancer," said Winer, who, like Litton, has no financial ties to any drugmakers.
"Herceptin is a drug that keeps on giving," he said.
Not so for Avastin, which works by crimping a tumor's blood supply. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved its use in women whose cancers had spread beyond the breast over the objections of FDA advisers who wanted more evidence of benefit for these patients.
Now, two big international studies show that Avastin modestly delayed the time breast cancer took to worsen, but had no effect on overall survival:
_A 684-patient study of Avastin with chemotherapy as a second-try treatment for women whose cancers do not respond to Herceptin.
_A 736-patient study of Avastin plus Taxotere or a dummy drug as first-time treatment for cancers that had recurred or spread beyond the breast.
Avastin also is approved to treat certain lung, brain and colon cancers, and the new studies have no bearing on its use in those patients.
Monday, December 7, 2009
In Chicago . .. AIDS Is The Leading Cause Of DEATH For Black Women!!!!
Yvette Williams prepares for the holidays by decorating her home with Christmas lights. Her welcome mat plays "Joy to the World," and every holiday season brings more joy than the last since she was diagnosed with HIV.
Williams said that feeling sorry for herself was never an option and her diagnosis was an opportunity to learn. "It's not a death sentence. You can live with it or die from it. You only stop living when you choose to." The 42-year-old ministry assistant embraces a healthy lifestyle with exercise and a well-balanced diet.
Williams represents the changing face of HIV. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, almost 2,500 black women in Illinois are living with the virus – and the numbers continue to climb as the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 34.
While typically thought of as a “gay man’s disease,” HIV is now growing in a new demographic. Roughly 70 percent of Illinois women living with HIV are African-American, but they only make up 15 percent of the state’s population. Men who have sex with men, however, account for about 60 percent of cases in all adult men.
Cheryl Ward, spokesperson for Illinois Department of Public Health said, “The majority of HIV/AIDS cases are male, but the gender gap is closing. A large percentage of the female cases are African-American women.”
In 2000, Williams was diagnosed with HIV. Initially she said she wasn’t angry but shocked and ashamed. For the first three months, she became ill adjusting to the medication. It was difficult to tell her family, especially since they were prominent members of the church. Fortunately her family has been supportive and she admits would not be able to deal with this without their help.
Williams is candid with young people because many think they're invincible. Years ago, she had the same idea. "When you have unprotected sex, you open yourself 100 percent of the time to get infected." She encourages teens to be abstinent, but if they are sexually active, she advises them to get tested twice a year. It's hard to remember everyone she meets, but she was touched a student approached her in a grocery store to thank her for coming to her.
Many HIV-positive women suffer in silence. Williams said, “I know people have been affected and infected but they are not talking about it.” She is proactive by speaking to schools and churches to educate young people about safe sex practices. "I may be the voice of someone who can't speak," she said.
Pete Subkoviak, from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said higher poverty rate and less access to resources such as doctors, HIV tests and condoms could contribute to the alarming numbers. “Even if she is sick, she is less likely to seek treatment because she knows she cannot afford it,” he said.
Illinois has one of the highest AIDS rates in the country for African-American women, but the state is just one part of a national epidemic. Nikki Kay, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said another reason black women are infected at higher rates because they think they have low risk. Kay said HIV education is vital. Women need to know how it is transmitted and how it can be prevented to save lives.
Kay mentioned there are three essential ways for individuals to reduce their risk for infection: Don’t have sex. Only have sex if you’re in a mutually monogamous relationship with a partner you know is not infected. Use a condom every time for anal, vaginal or oral sex. Correct and consistent uses of condoms are highly effective in reducing HIV transmission.
AIDS does not discriminate. The CDC recommends everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 years get tested for HIV. Individuals should also know their HIV status, because if they know they are infected, they can begin to take steps to protect their partners. A study from July from the Chicago Department of Public Health found that 50 percent of men who have sex with men (MSM), a category that includes men who may not be out and still sleeping with women along with gay men, did not know their own status.
Sonji Miller, HIV/AIDS supervisor for the Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) said women should insist their partner to use protection. She admits, however, that there is always the heightened risk of domestic violence for women who withhold sex or demand their partners wear a condom. The center is a big fan of the new model of the female condom as a way for women to empower themselves sexually and make the choice themselves.
Miller also wants churches to reach out to black women to fight this battle. Some churches are “blind-sided” by the HIV battle because they are stuck in traditional abstinence only messages. She said, “Abstinence should be taught as an alternative but kids need to know ways to protect themselves. “
St. John’s Baptist Church in Roseland takes a hands-on approach to safe-sex discussions. Rogers Jones, a church deacon, said St. John’s teaches children to wait until marriage. But he said, “We know people live in the real world and are having sex.”
Jones said the church is most effective by listening to the needs of the community not just the church. “We’ll talk to everybody who will listen.” The church does not distribute condoms, but they direct people to the right places to get them.
St. John’s is across the street from a branch of Chicago Family Health Centers, a clinic that offers a range of care for residents of south side neighborhoods with payment based on what the patient can afford.
On Dec. 1, St. John’s gave free HIV testing in honor of World AIDS Day. To foster knowledge and awareness about the virus, guests competed for iPods and laptops in an HIV facts trivia contest. At the end of the night, Yvette Williams spoke to the audience about living with the disease.
“The talk was moving,” Jones said. “It was an awakening for young people.” She started her talk by asking the crowd if they could tell she was HIV-positive. Everyone became silent.
Williams uses herself as an example of how HIV doesn’t discriminate. AIDS and HIV have been thought of as a problem for just the LGBT community for almost 30 years, but the challenge of protecting themselves is now a reality for African American women too.
Williams said that feeling sorry for herself was never an option and her diagnosis was an opportunity to learn. "It's not a death sentence. You can live with it or die from it. You only stop living when you choose to." The 42-year-old ministry assistant embraces a healthy lifestyle with exercise and a well-balanced diet.
Williams represents the changing face of HIV. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, almost 2,500 black women in Illinois are living with the virus – and the numbers continue to climb as the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 34.
While typically thought of as a “gay man’s disease,” HIV is now growing in a new demographic. Roughly 70 percent of Illinois women living with HIV are African-American, but they only make up 15 percent of the state’s population. Men who have sex with men, however, account for about 60 percent of cases in all adult men.
Cheryl Ward, spokesperson for Illinois Department of Public Health said, “The majority of HIV/AIDS cases are male, but the gender gap is closing. A large percentage of the female cases are African-American women.”
In 2000, Williams was diagnosed with HIV. Initially she said she wasn’t angry but shocked and ashamed. For the first three months, she became ill adjusting to the medication. It was difficult to tell her family, especially since they were prominent members of the church. Fortunately her family has been supportive and she admits would not be able to deal with this without their help.
Williams is candid with young people because many think they're invincible. Years ago, she had the same idea. "When you have unprotected sex, you open yourself 100 percent of the time to get infected." She encourages teens to be abstinent, but if they are sexually active, she advises them to get tested twice a year. It's hard to remember everyone she meets, but she was touched a student approached her in a grocery store to thank her for coming to her.
Many HIV-positive women suffer in silence. Williams said, “I know people have been affected and infected but they are not talking about it.” She is proactive by speaking to schools and churches to educate young people about safe sex practices. "I may be the voice of someone who can't speak," she said.
Pete Subkoviak, from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said higher poverty rate and less access to resources such as doctors, HIV tests and condoms could contribute to the alarming numbers. “Even if she is sick, she is less likely to seek treatment because she knows she cannot afford it,” he said.
Illinois has one of the highest AIDS rates in the country for African-American women, but the state is just one part of a national epidemic. Nikki Kay, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said another reason black women are infected at higher rates because they think they have low risk. Kay said HIV education is vital. Women need to know how it is transmitted and how it can be prevented to save lives.
Kay mentioned there are three essential ways for individuals to reduce their risk for infection: Don’t have sex. Only have sex if you’re in a mutually monogamous relationship with a partner you know is not infected. Use a condom every time for anal, vaginal or oral sex. Correct and consistent uses of condoms are highly effective in reducing HIV transmission.
AIDS does not discriminate. The CDC recommends everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 years get tested for HIV. Individuals should also know their HIV status, because if they know they are infected, they can begin to take steps to protect their partners. A study from July from the Chicago Department of Public Health found that 50 percent of men who have sex with men (MSM), a category that includes men who may not be out and still sleeping with women along with gay men, did not know their own status.
Sonji Miller, HIV/AIDS supervisor for the Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) said women should insist their partner to use protection. She admits, however, that there is always the heightened risk of domestic violence for women who withhold sex or demand their partners wear a condom. The center is a big fan of the new model of the female condom as a way for women to empower themselves sexually and make the choice themselves.
Miller also wants churches to reach out to black women to fight this battle. Some churches are “blind-sided” by the HIV battle because they are stuck in traditional abstinence only messages. She said, “Abstinence should be taught as an alternative but kids need to know ways to protect themselves. “
St. John’s Baptist Church in Roseland takes a hands-on approach to safe-sex discussions. Rogers Jones, a church deacon, said St. John’s teaches children to wait until marriage. But he said, “We know people live in the real world and are having sex.”
Jones said the church is most effective by listening to the needs of the community not just the church. “We’ll talk to everybody who will listen.” The church does not distribute condoms, but they direct people to the right places to get them.
St. John’s is across the street from a branch of Chicago Family Health Centers, a clinic that offers a range of care for residents of south side neighborhoods with payment based on what the patient can afford.
On Dec. 1, St. John’s gave free HIV testing in honor of World AIDS Day. To foster knowledge and awareness about the virus, guests competed for iPods and laptops in an HIV facts trivia contest. At the end of the night, Yvette Williams spoke to the audience about living with the disease.
“The talk was moving,” Jones said. “It was an awakening for young people.” She started her talk by asking the crowd if they could tell she was HIV-positive. Everyone became silent.
Williams uses herself as an example of how HIV doesn’t discriminate. AIDS and HIV have been thought of as a problem for just the LGBT community for almost 30 years, but the challenge of protecting themselves is now a reality for African American women too.
SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH!!! Study Finds That Black Women Who EAT DAIRY REGULARLY . . . Are LESS LIKELY To Get FIBROIDS!!!!
Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers at the Slone Epidemiology Center found that black women with high intake of dairy products have a reduced incidence of uterine leiomyomata (fibroids). This report, based on the Black Women's Health Study, appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Uterine fibroids are benign tumors of the uterus and are two to three times more common among black women than white women. They are the primary indication for hysterectomy in the U.S. and account for $2.2 billion annually in health care costs.
National surveys show that black women consume fewer servings of dairy than white women and have lower intake of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. The causes of fibroids are poorly understood, but sex steroid hormones and growth factors are thought to play a role. The Slone researchers studied dairy products because of the possibility that they have antioxidant effects and may modify endogenous sex hormones.
The study was based on data from the Black Women's Health Study. The 59,000 study participants, enrolled in 1995, completed biennial questionnaires on which they reported whether they were diagnosed with fibroids. Their diet was assessed at two points in time using a modified version of the National Cancer Institute's Block short-form food frequency questionnaire (FFQ).
Based on 5,871 incident cases of fibroids diagnosed after 10 years of follow-up, the study found that high dairy intake was inversely associated with fibroid risk after controlling for other risk factors. Fibroid incidence was reduced by 30% among women who had 4 or more dairy servings a day, relative to women who had less than 1 serving a day. Intakes of calcium, phosphorus, and calcium-to-phosphorus ratio (an indicator of calcium bioavailability) were also inversely associated with fibroid risk. Because dairy intake is lower among blacks than whites, such differences in intake may contribute to the racial discrepancy in rates of fibroids.
"Although the exact mechanisms are unclear, a protective effect of dairy consumption on uterine fibroids risk is plausible, as calcium, a major component of dairy foods, may reduce cell proliferation," said lead author Lauren A. Wise, ScD, an associate professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health and a senior epidemiologist at the Slone Epidemiology Center at BUSM. "This is the first report showing an inverse association between dairy intake and fibroid risk. If confirmed, a modifiable risk factor for fibroids, a major source of gynecologic morbidity, will have been identified," added Wise.
Uterine fibroids are benign tumors of the uterus and are two to three times more common among black women than white women. They are the primary indication for hysterectomy in the U.S. and account for $2.2 billion annually in health care costs.
National surveys show that black women consume fewer servings of dairy than white women and have lower intake of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. The causes of fibroids are poorly understood, but sex steroid hormones and growth factors are thought to play a role. The Slone researchers studied dairy products because of the possibility that they have antioxidant effects and may modify endogenous sex hormones.
The study was based on data from the Black Women's Health Study. The 59,000 study participants, enrolled in 1995, completed biennial questionnaires on which they reported whether they were diagnosed with fibroids. Their diet was assessed at two points in time using a modified version of the National Cancer Institute's Block short-form food frequency questionnaire (FFQ).
Based on 5,871 incident cases of fibroids diagnosed after 10 years of follow-up, the study found that high dairy intake was inversely associated with fibroid risk after controlling for other risk factors. Fibroid incidence was reduced by 30% among women who had 4 or more dairy servings a day, relative to women who had less than 1 serving a day. Intakes of calcium, phosphorus, and calcium-to-phosphorus ratio (an indicator of calcium bioavailability) were also inversely associated with fibroid risk. Because dairy intake is lower among blacks than whites, such differences in intake may contribute to the racial discrepancy in rates of fibroids.
"Although the exact mechanisms are unclear, a protective effect of dairy consumption on uterine fibroids risk is plausible, as calcium, a major component of dairy foods, may reduce cell proliferation," said lead author Lauren A. Wise, ScD, an associate professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health and a senior epidemiologist at the Slone Epidemiology Center at BUSM. "This is the first report showing an inverse association between dairy intake and fibroid risk. If confirmed, a modifiable risk factor for fibroids, a major source of gynecologic morbidity, will have been identified," added Wise.
REPORT: Blacks Will Be THE LAST To Recover From This Recession!!!!
While the overall unemployment rate for Americans fell in November, the jobless gap between African-Americans and all other races actually rose, continuing a disturbing trend that has many lawmakers up in arms.
The black community has suffered the hardest during the economic downturn, with an unemployment rate that currently stands at 15.6%. That's a much higher rate than for all of the other races that the Labor Department tracks, including Hispanics (12.7%), whites (9.3%) and Asians (7.3%).
The jobless rate for blacks has also grown much faster than for other races.
The difference between the unemployment rates for blacks and whites fell to an all-time low of 3.5 percentage points in August 2007. As the economy fell into a recession, that gap rapidly grew. By April 2009, the gap hit a 13-year high, doubling to a staggering 7 percentage points.
Though the separation between white and black jobless rates has narrowed slightly since the spring, it is still trending higher, rising to 6.3 percentage points in November from 6.2 points in the previous month.
Washington's solution
The trend has many in Washington heated.
"We're so focused on 'too big to fail' that we're treating this issue as 'too little to matter,'" said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus' jobs task force. "We have a serious problem, and the army of the unemployed is growing darker by the month."
Cleaver said the main reason for such a high rate of black unemployment is a lack of opportunities for proper job training in urban communities. That's an issue that the Obama administration says it is working on with stimulus money and other government-funded programs.
"Traditionally, these groups are most impacted when there's a recession," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told CNNMoney.com.
Solis said that through stimulus and Labor Department grant programs, the government has targeted job training in communities with high unemployment, particularly heavily urban communities with high concentrations of African-Americans and Latinos.
"We have had some success in doing that, but of course we have a long way to go," Solis said.
Washington's job solution
But Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., argued that many of those programs are wasted money. She said a large amount of government dollars are spent on funding private post-secondary schools that are targeted to urban communities, and she believes the schools are "rip-offs."
"They're soliciting people to sign up for training on job titles that don't widely exist like 'nurses assistants,'" said Waters, also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. "That money should be used for training for jobs that will be around in the new economy like green jobs and new technologies."
Furthermore, Rep. Cleaver noted that 50% of the nation's foreclosures are on homes owned by African-Americans, which makes the jobs situation for blacks all the more urgent.
"If you're in a training program and you have a notice that you'll be kicked out of your house if you don't make your payment in two weeks, chances are high that you're going to quit the training program," Cleaver said. "We need some immediate help from a program where the government funds municipalities and non-profits to hire individuals to do real work right now."
0:00 /03:55Magic's brand beats HIV
That theme was echoed by entrepreneur and former basketball great Magic Johnson, who attended President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday. Johnson said that training is key to narrowing the unemployment gap, but the government must create plans that are targeted to specific racial and ethnic communities that have different labor issues.
"We have to find a way to give these [African-American] people a skill to put them to work," Johnson told CNN's Larry King on Thursday. "We have to come up with a general plan, a Latino plan and an African-American plan because that general plan won't affect our community."
The problem of racism
Training is not the only hurdle that needs to be crossed in order to narrow the jobless gap among races, Education presents another challenge. There remains a high degree of inequality in employment for blacks and whites who have received equal education.
The rate of unemployment for whites with a college degree is 4.3%, but for blacks, it is 5.8%. For those with a high school diploma but no college, the unemployment rate is 9.1% for whites and 15% for blacks.
"We don't like to talk about it, but there's still discrimination in our society," said Waters. "Black college graduates can't get professional jobs as easily as whites. We have blacks disguising their voices on the telephone or trying to hide their blackness in responding to job announcements. It's real."
Waters said that when Obama became the first African-American president, there was a great hope in the black community that some myths and stereotypes about blacks would cease. But racism isn't something that can be easily overcome, Waters said.
However, there are steps that African-Americans can take take to improve their job situation, the Congresswoman added. For example, she encourages the unemployed members of the black community who have been unable to find work in their fields to take risks in their job searches.
She suggested some people opt for less desirable jobs, even if they consider the jobs "beneath them," so they can look for work while still earning a paycheck.
For others, she urged people to interview for jobs slightly above their qualifications and offer to take less money while they are in training. Lastly, she encouraged African-Americans to consider moving if there are no jobs in their areas.
"You have to survive, you have to keep going," Waters said. "Be persistent in what you do, and take a chance. A lot of that really works."
The black community has suffered the hardest during the economic downturn, with an unemployment rate that currently stands at 15.6%. That's a much higher rate than for all of the other races that the Labor Department tracks, including Hispanics (12.7%), whites (9.3%) and Asians (7.3%).
The jobless rate for blacks has also grown much faster than for other races.
The difference between the unemployment rates for blacks and whites fell to an all-time low of 3.5 percentage points in August 2007. As the economy fell into a recession, that gap rapidly grew. By April 2009, the gap hit a 13-year high, doubling to a staggering 7 percentage points.
Though the separation between white and black jobless rates has narrowed slightly since the spring, it is still trending higher, rising to 6.3 percentage points in November from 6.2 points in the previous month.
Washington's solution
The trend has many in Washington heated.
"We're so focused on 'too big to fail' that we're treating this issue as 'too little to matter,'" said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus' jobs task force. "We have a serious problem, and the army of the unemployed is growing darker by the month."
Cleaver said the main reason for such a high rate of black unemployment is a lack of opportunities for proper job training in urban communities. That's an issue that the Obama administration says it is working on with stimulus money and other government-funded programs.
"Traditionally, these groups are most impacted when there's a recession," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told CNNMoney.com.
Solis said that through stimulus and Labor Department grant programs, the government has targeted job training in communities with high unemployment, particularly heavily urban communities with high concentrations of African-Americans and Latinos.
"We have had some success in doing that, but of course we have a long way to go," Solis said.
Washington's job solution
But Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., argued that many of those programs are wasted money. She said a large amount of government dollars are spent on funding private post-secondary schools that are targeted to urban communities, and she believes the schools are "rip-offs."
"They're soliciting people to sign up for training on job titles that don't widely exist like 'nurses assistants,'" said Waters, also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. "That money should be used for training for jobs that will be around in the new economy like green jobs and new technologies."
Furthermore, Rep. Cleaver noted that 50% of the nation's foreclosures are on homes owned by African-Americans, which makes the jobs situation for blacks all the more urgent.
"If you're in a training program and you have a notice that you'll be kicked out of your house if you don't make your payment in two weeks, chances are high that you're going to quit the training program," Cleaver said. "We need some immediate help from a program where the government funds municipalities and non-profits to hire individuals to do real work right now."
0:00 /03:55Magic's brand beats HIV
That theme was echoed by entrepreneur and former basketball great Magic Johnson, who attended President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday. Johnson said that training is key to narrowing the unemployment gap, but the government must create plans that are targeted to specific racial and ethnic communities that have different labor issues.
"We have to find a way to give these [African-American] people a skill to put them to work," Johnson told CNN's Larry King on Thursday. "We have to come up with a general plan, a Latino plan and an African-American plan because that general plan won't affect our community."
The problem of racism
Training is not the only hurdle that needs to be crossed in order to narrow the jobless gap among races, Education presents another challenge. There remains a high degree of inequality in employment for blacks and whites who have received equal education.
The rate of unemployment for whites with a college degree is 4.3%, but for blacks, it is 5.8%. For those with a high school diploma but no college, the unemployment rate is 9.1% for whites and 15% for blacks.
"We don't like to talk about it, but there's still discrimination in our society," said Waters. "Black college graduates can't get professional jobs as easily as whites. We have blacks disguising their voices on the telephone or trying to hide their blackness in responding to job announcements. It's real."
Waters said that when Obama became the first African-American president, there was a great hope in the black community that some myths and stereotypes about blacks would cease. But racism isn't something that can be easily overcome, Waters said.
However, there are steps that African-Americans can take take to improve their job situation, the Congresswoman added. For example, she encourages the unemployed members of the black community who have been unable to find work in their fields to take risks in their job searches.
She suggested some people opt for less desirable jobs, even if they consider the jobs "beneath them," so they can look for work while still earning a paycheck.
For others, she urged people to interview for jobs slightly above their qualifications and offer to take less money while they are in training. Lastly, she encouraged African-Americans to consider moving if there are no jobs in their areas.
"You have to survive, you have to keep going," Waters said. "Be persistent in what you do, and take a chance. A lot of that really works."
REPORT: Members Of The Congressional Black Congress Are SUBTLY Trying To SABOTAGE The Obama Administration!!!!!
The Black Caucus War Against Obama – by Dick Morris
Posted by Dick Morris on Dec 7th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
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Waters Bank Aid
A civil war is breaking out within the left of the Democratic Party pitting the Congressional Black Caucus against the first African-American president.
The battle began when California Congresswoman Maxine Waters complained publicly about the Administration’s failure to do more to help minority-owned businesses in the current recession. (Translation: In the new Stimulus of “Jobs” Bill making its way through Congress, they want a larger take). It continued yesterday when ten members of the Black Caucus refused to participate in a meeting of the House Banking Committee which was considering the bill to restructure financial regulations forcing Chairman Barney Frank to push the bill through by the uncomfortable margin of only 31-27.
The latest shot in the battle was fired by Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) a card carrying regular of the Black Caucus. Faced with the need to investigate the gate crashing at the White House during the recent state dinner for India, he chose to embarrass the Administration by subpoenaing White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers rather than quietly negotiating for her appearance.
That Thompson’s action was a deliberate slap in Obama’s face is obvious (even though the media has missed it). Since when does a liberal Democratic committee chairman embarrass a liberal Democratic president by forcing a liberal Democratic Social Secretary (from Chicago no less) to resist a subpoena to appear at a hearing? Since he wanted to send a message to Obama and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the Black Caucus did not like being taken for granted.
The merits of the controversy are obvious. What possible reason would a Social Secretary, for goodness sakes, have for the assertion of executive privilege that is usually reserved for issues of national security? Obviously, none. But Thompson chose his target well. He struck at the social core of the Chicago Mafia that runs the White House, probably striking within the Obama family as well.
You don’t do that to a president of your own party, your own ideology, and even your own race unless you want to make a point.
The friction between the Black Caucus and Obama escalated when Waters berated the Administration for failing to rework a business loan from Goldman Sachs to the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. Inner City is run by Pierre Sutton, son of Percy Sutton, the long time media giant in the African-American community. Two weeks after she raised the issue in a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Emanuel, Goldman saw the light and restructured the loan.
Coming on top of liberal angst with the decision by the “peace” president to escalate the war in Afghanistan, this split with the black caucus comes at an awkward time.
But you pay a price when you mess with the African American Caucus and the Suttons. The Obama Administration is feeling it.
Posted by Dick Morris on Dec 7th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Print This Post Print This Post
Waters Bank Aid
A civil war is breaking out within the left of the Democratic Party pitting the Congressional Black Caucus against the first African-American president.
The battle began when California Congresswoman Maxine Waters complained publicly about the Administration’s failure to do more to help minority-owned businesses in the current recession. (Translation: In the new Stimulus of “Jobs” Bill making its way through Congress, they want a larger take). It continued yesterday when ten members of the Black Caucus refused to participate in a meeting of the House Banking Committee which was considering the bill to restructure financial regulations forcing Chairman Barney Frank to push the bill through by the uncomfortable margin of only 31-27.
The latest shot in the battle was fired by Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) a card carrying regular of the Black Caucus. Faced with the need to investigate the gate crashing at the White House during the recent state dinner for India, he chose to embarrass the Administration by subpoenaing White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers rather than quietly negotiating for her appearance.
That Thompson’s action was a deliberate slap in Obama’s face is obvious (even though the media has missed it). Since when does a liberal Democratic committee chairman embarrass a liberal Democratic president by forcing a liberal Democratic Social Secretary (from Chicago no less) to resist a subpoena to appear at a hearing? Since he wanted to send a message to Obama and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the Black Caucus did not like being taken for granted.
The merits of the controversy are obvious. What possible reason would a Social Secretary, for goodness sakes, have for the assertion of executive privilege that is usually reserved for issues of national security? Obviously, none. But Thompson chose his target well. He struck at the social core of the Chicago Mafia that runs the White House, probably striking within the Obama family as well.
You don’t do that to a president of your own party, your own ideology, and even your own race unless you want to make a point.
The friction between the Black Caucus and Obama escalated when Waters berated the Administration for failing to rework a business loan from Goldman Sachs to the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. Inner City is run by Pierre Sutton, son of Percy Sutton, the long time media giant in the African-American community. Two weeks after she raised the issue in a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Emanuel, Goldman saw the light and restructured the loan.
Coming on top of liberal angst with the decision by the “peace” president to escalate the war in Afghanistan, this split with the black caucus comes at an awkward time.
But you pay a price when you mess with the African American Caucus and the Suttons. The Obama Administration is feeling it.
Health Report: Black Women Are Stricken With Breast Cancer EARLIER IN LIFE Than Women Of Other Races!!!!
Many African-American women don't fit the profile of the average American woman who gets breast cancer. For them, putting off the first mammogram until 50 — as recommended by a government task force — could put their life in danger.
"One size doesn't fit all," says Lovell Jones, director of the Center for Research on Minority health at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Jones says the guidelines recently put out by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force covered a broad segment of American women based on the data available. "Unfortunately," he says, "the data on African-Americans, Hispanics and to some extent Asian-Americans is limited."
So while the recommendations may be appropriate for the general population, he says, it could have a deleterious affect on African-American women who appear to have a higher risk of developing very deadly breast cancers at early in life.
When you look at the death statistics for breast cancer in African-American women and compare them to white women, it's stunning. Beginning in their 20s, into their 50s, black women are twice as likely to die of breast cancer as white women who have breast cancer. In older black women, cases of breast cancer decline, but the high death rates persist.
Overall, breast cancer deaths have been declining for nearly a decade (by 2 percent annually), yet deaths of African-American women have been dropping at a much slower pace. In 2009, an estimated 40,170 women will die from breast cancer. Nearly 6,000 will be African-American women.
Dr. Vanessa Sheppard, a behavioral scientist at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, has been conducting a study to understand the response of African-American women to treatment for breast cancer, so she's seen this up close.
"We've lost eight African-American women," she says. "That's a pretty high mortality rate in about 200 women."
Personally, Sheppard says, she's lost friends who were 32, 36 and 40 from breast cancer. Studies estimate that 20 to 30 percent of breast cancers in African-American women are triple-negative breast cancers. This means the cancers lack estrogen and progesterone receptors and won't respond to drugs that work by preventing the hormones from reaching the cancer cells. Triple-negative cancers also are HER-2 negative, another hormone, and therefore don't respond to any of the treatments known to block the cancer's growth.
"The breast cancer is more aggressive," says Sheppard, "The tumors are harder to treat. They're larger."
Similar types of aggressive breast cancers have been found in other ethnic groups — including Africans — suggesting perhaps a genetic link. But no one knows exactly why this is happening. And there's probably no one explanation. There are known risk factors for breast cancer and combinations of risk factors — a family history of the disease, age at which menstruation and menopause start. But scientists have found it difficult to come up with a satisfactory model that predicts breast cancer in black women.
Causes Unknown
The deadly breast cancers in black women remind Jones of the higher infant mortality rate in the African-American community, which has yet to be fully explained. Researchers have the same difficulty determining what combination of factors causes low birth weights and infant deaths in African-Americans. For example, the age of child birth with the lowest infant mortality rate in white women is about 30. In black women it's around the ages of 16 to 19. Jones suspects the stress that African-Americans experience in this society is contributing to premature aging. It's not a popular theory, but even after adjustments are made for education, poverty and other factors, infant mortality remains high.
"It could be induced by discrimination or perceived discrimination," says Jones. "It could be due to living in an environment that produces stress." He offers the example of recent stories about the many young kids being killed in Chicago and says. "Well, that adds stress — community stress."
More Routine Screening Could Help
Studies suggest, in addition to higher risks factors, African-American women aren't getting screened for breast cancer as often as white women and when they do it is later in life. Often the mammograms are not routine screening mammograms, but rather they're done because the woman or her doctor felt a mass in a woman's breast. These cases happen all too often, says surgeon Dr. Regina Hampton. She says that vital time has passed by the time they show up in her office with a mammogram in hand.
"Because of their young age, many practitioners don't believe that a young woman can get breast cancer," Hampton says. "These cancers then, once they come to me, are at a later stage. So, we're kind of running behind the 8-ball trying to get the patient treated."
There are also questions about the care that African-American women are receiving, whether they are referred to cancer specialists in a timely way, and understand that they will need therapy after surgery. With all the issues surrounding black women and breast cancer, health professionals argue there should be separate guidelines for African-American women — and say they should get mammograms earlier and more frequently than the task force's recommendation of age 50.
Sheppard even wonders if the old guideline of routine screening every year beginning at age 40 is good enough. "The tumors are growing fast and the intervals that we prescribe may not work," she says. "How can we have better diagnostic tools, better screening tools that can capture the women that aren't the average woman?"
It's a challenge many African-American women will have to come to grips with. About one-third who get breast cancer are younger than 50 years old.
"One size doesn't fit all," says Lovell Jones, director of the Center for Research on Minority health at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Jones says the guidelines recently put out by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force covered a broad segment of American women based on the data available. "Unfortunately," he says, "the data on African-Americans, Hispanics and to some extent Asian-Americans is limited."
So while the recommendations may be appropriate for the general population, he says, it could have a deleterious affect on African-American women who appear to have a higher risk of developing very deadly breast cancers at early in life.
When you look at the death statistics for breast cancer in African-American women and compare them to white women, it's stunning. Beginning in their 20s, into their 50s, black women are twice as likely to die of breast cancer as white women who have breast cancer. In older black women, cases of breast cancer decline, but the high death rates persist.
Overall, breast cancer deaths have been declining for nearly a decade (by 2 percent annually), yet deaths of African-American women have been dropping at a much slower pace. In 2009, an estimated 40,170 women will die from breast cancer. Nearly 6,000 will be African-American women.
Dr. Vanessa Sheppard, a behavioral scientist at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, has been conducting a study to understand the response of African-American women to treatment for breast cancer, so she's seen this up close.
"We've lost eight African-American women," she says. "That's a pretty high mortality rate in about 200 women."
Personally, Sheppard says, she's lost friends who were 32, 36 and 40 from breast cancer. Studies estimate that 20 to 30 percent of breast cancers in African-American women are triple-negative breast cancers. This means the cancers lack estrogen and progesterone receptors and won't respond to drugs that work by preventing the hormones from reaching the cancer cells. Triple-negative cancers also are HER-2 negative, another hormone, and therefore don't respond to any of the treatments known to block the cancer's growth.
"The breast cancer is more aggressive," says Sheppard, "The tumors are harder to treat. They're larger."
Similar types of aggressive breast cancers have been found in other ethnic groups — including Africans — suggesting perhaps a genetic link. But no one knows exactly why this is happening. And there's probably no one explanation. There are known risk factors for breast cancer and combinations of risk factors — a family history of the disease, age at which menstruation and menopause start. But scientists have found it difficult to come up with a satisfactory model that predicts breast cancer in black women.
Causes Unknown
The deadly breast cancers in black women remind Jones of the higher infant mortality rate in the African-American community, which has yet to be fully explained. Researchers have the same difficulty determining what combination of factors causes low birth weights and infant deaths in African-Americans. For example, the age of child birth with the lowest infant mortality rate in white women is about 30. In black women it's around the ages of 16 to 19. Jones suspects the stress that African-Americans experience in this society is contributing to premature aging. It's not a popular theory, but even after adjustments are made for education, poverty and other factors, infant mortality remains high.
"It could be induced by discrimination or perceived discrimination," says Jones. "It could be due to living in an environment that produces stress." He offers the example of recent stories about the many young kids being killed in Chicago and says. "Well, that adds stress — community stress."
More Routine Screening Could Help
Studies suggest, in addition to higher risks factors, African-American women aren't getting screened for breast cancer as often as white women and when they do it is later in life. Often the mammograms are not routine screening mammograms, but rather they're done because the woman or her doctor felt a mass in a woman's breast. These cases happen all too often, says surgeon Dr. Regina Hampton. She says that vital time has passed by the time they show up in her office with a mammogram in hand.
"Because of their young age, many practitioners don't believe that a young woman can get breast cancer," Hampton says. "These cancers then, once they come to me, are at a later stage. So, we're kind of running behind the 8-ball trying to get the patient treated."
There are also questions about the care that African-American women are receiving, whether they are referred to cancer specialists in a timely way, and understand that they will need therapy after surgery. With all the issues surrounding black women and breast cancer, health professionals argue there should be separate guidelines for African-American women — and say they should get mammograms earlier and more frequently than the task force's recommendation of age 50.
Sheppard even wonders if the old guideline of routine screening every year beginning at age 40 is good enough. "The tumors are growing fast and the intervals that we prescribe may not work," she says. "How can we have better diagnostic tools, better screening tools that can capture the women that aren't the average woman?"
It's a challenge many African-American women will have to come to grips with. About one-third who get breast cancer are younger than 50 years old.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
REPORT: In The Recession . . . Blacks Have To TAKE THE BLACKNESS Off Their Resume To GET A JOB . . . So Barry Jabbar Sykes Goes By The Name BARRY J SY
Johnny R. Williams, 30, would appear to be an unlikely person to have to fret about the impact of race on his job search, with companies like JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.
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Karena Cawthon for The New York Times
Barry Jabbar Sykes goes by Barry J. Sykes in his job hunt.
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But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted.
“If they’re going to X me,” Mr. Williams said, “I’d like to at least get in the door first.”
Similarly, Barry Jabbar Sykes, 37, who has a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, now uses Barry J. Sykes in his continuing search for an information technology position, even though he has gone by Jabbar his whole life.
“Barry sounds like I could be from Ireland,” he said.
That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.
But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.
College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.
Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.
A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.
The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.
Whether or not each case actually involved bias, the possibility has furnished an additional agonizing layer of second-guessing for many as their job searches have dragged on.
“It does weigh on you in the search because you’re wondering, how much is race playing a factor in whether I’m even getting a first call, or whether I’m even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I’m probably African-American?” said Terelle Hairston, 25, a graduate of Yale University who has been looking for work since the summer while also trying to get a marketing consulting start-up off the ground. “You even worry that the hiring manager may not be as interested in diversity as the H.R. manager or upper management.”
Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in with his parents in Dallas to save money.
But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.
“Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said. “It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.”
The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.
Discrimination in many cases may not even be intentional, some job seekers pointed out, but simply a matter of people gravitating toward similar people, casting about for the right “cultural fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.
There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.
Many interviewed, however, wrestled with “pulling the race card,” groping between their cynicism and desire to avoid the stigma that blacks are too quick to claim victimhood. After all, many had gone to good schools and had accomplished résumés. Some had grown up in well-to-do settings, with parents who had raised them never to doubt how high they could climb. Moreover, there is President Obama, perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that belief.
Certainly, they conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.
In fact, whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that there was now a backlash against blacks.
“There is resentment toward his presidency among some because of his race,” said Edward Verner, a Morehouse alumnus from New Jersey who was laid off as a regional sales manager and has been able to find only part-time work. “This has affected well-educated, African-American job seekers.”
It is difficult to overstate the degree that they say race permeates nearly every aspect of their job searches, from how early they show up to interviews to the kinds of anecdotes they try to come up with.
“You want to be a nonthreatening, professional black guy,” said Winston Bell, 40, of Cleveland, who has been looking for a job in business development.
He drew an analogy to several prominent black sports broadcasters. “You don’t want to be Stephen A. Smith. You want to be Bryant Gumbel. You don’t even want to be Stuart Scott. You don’t want to be, ‘Booyah.’ ”
Nearly all said they agonized over job applications that asked them whether they would like to identify their race. Most said they usually did not.
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Racial Differences in JoblessnessGraphic
Racial Differences in Joblessness
Enlarge This Image
Karena Cawthon for The New York Times
Barry Jabbar Sykes goes by Barry J. Sykes in his job hunt.
Readers' Comments
Share your thoughts.
* Post a Comment »
* Read All Comments (266) »
But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted.
“If they’re going to X me,” Mr. Williams said, “I’d like to at least get in the door first.”
Similarly, Barry Jabbar Sykes, 37, who has a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, now uses Barry J. Sykes in his continuing search for an information technology position, even though he has gone by Jabbar his whole life.
“Barry sounds like I could be from Ireland,” he said.
That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.
But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.
College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.
Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.
A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.
The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.
Whether or not each case actually involved bias, the possibility has furnished an additional agonizing layer of second-guessing for many as their job searches have dragged on.
“It does weigh on you in the search because you’re wondering, how much is race playing a factor in whether I’m even getting a first call, or whether I’m even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I’m probably African-American?” said Terelle Hairston, 25, a graduate of Yale University who has been looking for work since the summer while also trying to get a marketing consulting start-up off the ground. “You even worry that the hiring manager may not be as interested in diversity as the H.R. manager or upper management.”
Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in with his parents in Dallas to save money.
But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.
“Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said. “It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.”
The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.
Discrimination in many cases may not even be intentional, some job seekers pointed out, but simply a matter of people gravitating toward similar people, casting about for the right “cultural fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.
There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.
Many interviewed, however, wrestled with “pulling the race card,” groping between their cynicism and desire to avoid the stigma that blacks are too quick to claim victimhood. After all, many had gone to good schools and had accomplished résumés. Some had grown up in well-to-do settings, with parents who had raised them never to doubt how high they could climb. Moreover, there is President Obama, perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that belief.
Certainly, they conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.
In fact, whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that there was now a backlash against blacks.
“There is resentment toward his presidency among some because of his race,” said Edward Verner, a Morehouse alumnus from New Jersey who was laid off as a regional sales manager and has been able to find only part-time work. “This has affected well-educated, African-American job seekers.”
It is difficult to overstate the degree that they say race permeates nearly every aspect of their job searches, from how early they show up to interviews to the kinds of anecdotes they try to come up with.
“You want to be a nonthreatening, professional black guy,” said Winston Bell, 40, of Cleveland, who has been looking for a job in business development.
He drew an analogy to several prominent black sports broadcasters. “You don’t want to be Stephen A. Smith. You want to be Bryant Gumbel. You don’t even want to be Stuart Scott. You don’t want to be, ‘Booyah.’ ”
Nearly all said they agonized over job applications that asked them whether they would like to identify their race. Most said they usually did not.
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