Guest Editorial Stealth, health and Black wealth

Recently, the United States in general, and Black people in particular, were gobsmacked by SCOTUS when it forced Affirmative Action to bite the dust. This is a sad state of affairs when you consider it is a strategy that was apparently needed in order to help level the playing field for qualified individuals who would have been overlooked had it not been in place. No doubt, in today’s climate this might end up with fewer college-educated African Americans.

The possible reduction in the number of Black people with access to higher education will have a deleterious impact on the economic well-being of an already beleaguered Black community. The college acceptance process is costly and stressful. It is known that stressors, i.e., those issues that cause challenges to people’s health and well-being, will be added to the other issues facing the Black community. Stress impacts health!

In addition to the Affirmative Action SCOTUS decisions, along with others, there is the probability that the health of the community might be further imperiled as a result of stress generated by political intrigue. The community has already been devastated by years of maltreatment due to White supremacy. These new attacks on the rights of Blacks (and others) will present another hurdle the community must master.

This problem is more serious than it might seem. Right now, the country (actually, the world) is enduring a health crisis. The COVID pandemic has wreaked havoc on the health consciousness of Americans with many people losing their lives.

Another issue, most likely caused by climate change, is the air quality in some American cities has added to health problems of citizens, due to huge fires burning in Canada. This, added to ozone challenges and other toxins in our community, is lowering the health outcomes of all Americans!

It has become very apparent there are a lot of other dangerous elements citizens are subjected to, based on the actions of corporate America. It is obvious corporate America is making citizens sick. It has become obvious that the quest for economic gain has been the motivation behind a lot of environmental pollution cases that are causing illnesses.

The strategy seems to be, “Let’s make as much money as we can with what we know are noxious products, and if we get caught, we might have to endure lawsuits, but we’ll take our chances.” We now know certain corporations might have behaved in this manner.

Logic would dictate that with all of the community issues that impact us, there should be greater concern about helping to reduce the stress experienced by Americans, since a lot of the health challenges are ultimately caused by corporate stealth attacks that are economically driven. But no, that does not seem to be on the agenda.

Another thing causing stress among Blacks is popular culture, which is routinely creating and tolerating music so toxic it has resulted in a “life imitates art” situation.

Musical misogyny has created fissures in the Black community to such an extent that more than 70 percent of Black children are growing up in single-parent homes, and more rappers have been killed than any other group of contemporary musicians.

While this may seem like doom and gloom, it might represent an opportunity.

Black people have endured slavery, Jim Crow and a whole lot more, yet in every challenge presented, Blacks triumph. African Americans have been primary influencers in many fields even though they have been denied access in the past. Couple this with the increasing awareness that is resulting from the discovery of the true influence that Black people have had all over the ancient AND modern world and an interesting picture emerges.

The imprint of our community can be felt all over EVERYWHERE! Actually, oppression has had a positive impact if it is possible to overlook the challenges the community has traditionally faced. There is enough expertise, money and other assorted resources in the Black community that can serve as economic engines for the whole community.

The only impediment to this is the animosity Blacks demonstrate against each other. Currently, most unwealthy Americans are faced with scuffling for a share of dwindling resources and economic despair fueled by an increasingly right-wing GOP.

The stress in our communities would be significantly lessened and the wealth increased if we could work with each other; a unified community would be a formidable foe for ANY group that demonstrates animosity toward the community. If the details of this could be worked out, stress in the Black community could be lessened, and health and wealth outcomes would improve. It’s time to save ourselves! A Luta Continua.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Crusader)

(TriceEdneyWire.com)—At one time we could confidently turn to the U S Supreme Court for relief from extremist behavior that attempted to take away rights we already had or rights we were fighting to achieve.

Today, unfortunately, we experience extremism in so many areas of our lives.

Our forever President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama are sounding the alarm and have asked all of us to join with activists who’ve been sounding the alarm on extremism for years. Unfortunately, many never even dreamed racism and all the other negative isms would ever get as bad as they are today!

We thought Donald Trump, Ronald DeSantis, and a big chunk of the MAGA crowd were just a joke. It must be clear now, they are for real, and people we thought were semi-sensible have come down front to prove we were wrong. Many of them have spent years building their strength to do damage to us in many ways. I don’t think most of us ever thought we would witness a leader in the White House (Donald Trump) would work so hard to do harm to us—and worse still that there would be such a large group of people even running to become President—with the same ideas and plans as Trump. Some of them have already served in some capacity as a leader in our nation and are supporting the same turmoil that has been created by their criminal leader!

Can you even imagine a Black leader being convicted or having as many serious indictments as Trump who would still be walking the streets freely so as to have time to personally push his day of reckoning beyond reach because the discovery of his continuing criminal behavior leaves him free to keep on upsetting any kind of belief that he will ever pay for the people’s lives his behavior has already ruined?

I talk with many people who’ve lost faith that Trump will ever pay for his thuggish behavior. If you think there’s any hope we will ever be able to head off a bunch of local and state Trumps, we’ve got to take an interest and action in heading off the destruction of our local community.

We must attend our city council, school board, county council, and political party meetings. We can’t fight the extremism that’s growing all around us by waiting for somebody else to handle things. We must stand up and help to fight this extremism.

Extremists want to cancel true African American history, fair voting rights, and rights to be educated at certain universities. Teachers are being fired. Books have been banned. Affirmative action rights to correct past wrongs are canceled, and for women, our right to choose what happens with our bodies—all of that has happened just over the past few months. Just think about what will happen in the coming years with any one of the current Presidential candidates challenging President Joe Biden who is trying his best to put us back on a sensible course to the things our nation professes to stand for.

We have people we once thought to be friends and to have a concern about our human rights now toying with giving aid and comfort to the enemies of our people. Whether or not they carry out their dangerous plans, we need to remind them of the negative impact their present course of actions will have on the 2024 Presidential, Senatorial, and House results. You know who they are. As much as Dr. Cornell West has usually been on the right side of issues, we question his intention now. Sen. Joe Mansion has always been suspect and has failed us at crucial times. I don’t think any of us can explain Joe Kennedy—so spread the news when somebody figures it out!

Rod Doss Editor & Publisher

Stephan A. Broadus Assistant to the Publisher

(TriceEdneyWire.com)—If things don’t add up, it makes sense to see if something has been left out of the equation. That’s the case today. The experts tell us that the economy is as good as it has been in decades —unemployment at record lows, inflation under control, wages finally rising faster than prices.

Yet, most people are unhappy and pessimistic. President Biden’s approval rating is still underwater.

Donald Trump, his likely opponent in the presidential race, is even less popular. What’s going on?

Americans aren’t wrong. They struggle every day with what pundits call a “polycrisis.” That’s a fancy word for a lot of big things going wrong in a big way all at once. Catastrophic climate change, pandemics, extreme inequality, a broken and unaffordable health care system, a dangerously decrepit infrastructure, a growing Cold War amid unending forever wars—this list can go on.

These crises are real and present. Families and communities take the hit again and again. Extreme heat—or floods or forest fires or hurricanes—take lives and destroy homes. Ancient pipes serve up poisonous drinking waters. People can’t afford to get sick. Big money and powerful lobbies block vital reform. Now billionaires are paying for a new party—the No Labels (and Dark Money) Party, as if owning the two major parties were not enough.

Joe Biden—much to the surprise of many—stepped up to address some of this. He passed the biggest bill to rebuild America in decades, the biggest investment in renewable energy ever. He made a small start in making some drugs more affordable. He broke with our ruinous trade policies and began to crack down on the merger mania. First steps—but not nearly enough.

Trump’s MAGA Republicans, meanwhile, are missing the bus.

They—aided and abetted by a zealously right-wing majority on the Supreme Court—are focused on social reaction—rolling back the progress of the civil rights movement, stripping women of the right to control their own bodies, trying to make voting harder and opening the door to big money in politics, waging war on “wokeness” as if diversity were the source of our problems. They just overloaded the Defense Appropriations bill with a bevy of anti-woke provisions—while utterly ignoring the reality that we’re starving basic investments at home while wasting billions of dollars and millions of lives trying to police the world. They may add to our problems, but they surely are not addressing the crises we face.

It is clear what gets in the way. In each area, powerful interests, deep pockets, entrenched lobbies benefit from what is—and stand in the way of what must be. Big oil and King Coal still impede a needed transition to renewable energy. The military-industrial-think tank complex defends endless wars and ever more bloated Pentagon budgets. Big Pharma and the health insurance complex defend a health care system Americans can’t afford. It is easy to get depressed, to give up, or to turn on one another rather than toward one another. But change —and survival—will come only when citizens come together, confront the powers that be, and force the change. Modern America has seen two periods of profound reform. The New

Deal under Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s ended the Depression, built a modern infrastructure, guaranteed the right to organize, Social Security, and much more.

The Great Society under Lyndon Johnson that brought a final end to segregation, revived the right to vote, provided Medicare and aid for mothers with children and much more. Both were driven by citizens in motion—workers forced the New Deal reforms, the civil rights movement inspired Johnson to act.

Now we see stirrings once more. Occupy Wall Street exposed extreme inequality. Black Lives Matter challenged systemic racism, particularly in our criminal justice system. In response to reverses, the women’s movement and environmental movement are growing more powerful. Across the country, workers are striking for better pay and conditions, and for the right to a union.

The Bernie Sanders campaigns inspired the young and provided the agenda. The progress Biden made came largely from that energy. Much more is needed. We need leaders who will show up at the point of challenge. We need citizens who will come together to demand change. The “polycrisis” makes dramatic reform necessary. And that will come only from the people up—not from the interests and the big money down.

When I ran for president in 1984 and 1988, I sought to build a progressive coalition, across lines of race, region, religion, gender and sexual preference. We need, I argued, to move from racial battlegrounds to economic common ground and onto moral higher ground. Now, in the face of the many crises that are disrupting us at once, that citizens coalition is needed now more than ever. It is time to act.

Allison Palm Office Manager

Ashley Johnson Sales Director Rob Taylor Jr. Managing Editor

John. H. Sengstacke Editor

At the heart of the story that President Biden preserved last week by creating our newest national monument are a mother and son, Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till.

That’s especially moving for me because so much of my understanding of what the Tills endured and why their story remains essential today comes from my own mom’s experiences. Like Emmett, she was in her early teens in 1955 and growing up in West Baltimore. The ritual he was taking part in by traveling from Chicago to Mississippi that summer was a universal one for Black kids living in destinations of the Great Migration, one that still happens today.

Despite the indignities of Jim Crow, everyone seemed safe when they went back to Grandma’s. Emmett’s torture and lynching by two White men incensed that he whistled at a White woman exposed the vulnerability of Blacks anywhere in South. But rather than cower in response to the brutal murder, my mom and many other young Black people dove deeper into a lifelong struggle for civil rights.

Mamie Till’s courage to leave open her son’s casket so tens of thousands of mourners in Chicago and the entire world could see his bloated, disfigured corpse galvanized that growing civil rights movement.

I went to Mississippi in my early 20s to organize opposition to the gov- ernor’s plan to close three historically Black colleges and turn their campuses into prisons. Nearly 40 years later, I could still see the deep trauma in the souls of Black Mississippians who were Emmett’s age when he died.

One night, my dad called to ask me to leave the state, if only for a short time. “Your mom keeps having the same nightmare. She hasn’t slept for days,” he told me. “She keeps seeing your face on Emmett Till’s beaten body.”

The deep concern apparent in those dreams wasn’t irrational. The rhetorical violence of Jim Crow always accompanied the physical violence of lynchings. That culture persisted. The Jackson newspaper where I later worked got shot up in drive-bys several times in much the same way a plaque at the place where Emmett’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River has been repeatedly vandalized (with that site now part of the national monument, those crimes will be a federal offense).

At a time when we see racist rhetoric and dog whistles find re- newed popularity, the Tills’ story is a reminder to all of us that there’s a well-worn path from hateful language to violence to the murder of a 14-yearold boy. As it’s been since colonial times, that rhetoric exists to divide poor and working-class people of all races so that they can’t unify around the political and economic interests they all share.

There are signs of hope, even in Mississippi. In November, the state could elect a populist Democrat as its governor, unseating the Republican heir of the governor I opposed 30 years ago who revived racist rhetoric from that high office.

We create national parks and national monuments to preserve places, people and ideas that define who we are as a country. Emmett Till should be alive and relatively anonymous in his 80s, not dead from an infamous attack. His mother should be remembered for anything other than making Americans look at just how cruel they can be.

Being able to visit where Emmett’s body was recovered, where he was eulogized, and where an all-White jury acquitted his killers gives us the chance to measure how far we’ve come and accept how far we’ve left to go. (Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization.)