Tag: African American

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Federal Menthol Cigarette Ban Aims to Protect Youth, African Americans

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Menthol cigarettes and cigars could be soon banned by a federal authority in an effort to stop young people from starting to smoke and helping many, especially African Americans, to quit. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the long-awaited move Thursday. The agency has worked on the issue since at least 2011. A 2009 law banned all flavors in cigarettes, except for tobacco and menthol. 

The FDA estimated in 2019 that more than 18.5 million people aged 12 and up smoked menthols in the U.S. It recorded high rates of use by youth, young adults, African Americans, and other racial and ethnic groups.

The FDA said banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S. would lower smoking by 15 percent nationwide in the next 40 years. Smoking deaths could drop from 324,000 to 654,000 over that time if menthol was banned, the agency said. African-American deaths could be reduced from 330,000 to 238,000 in the next 40 years by banning menthol cigarettes, the FDA said. 

 “The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”

A government study issued last year said almost nine out of 10 African Americans who smoke use menthol cigarettes, compared to less than 30 percent of whites who smoke. That paper said this choice was heavily influenced by cigarette makers for profit. 

“For decades, the tobacco industry perniciously targeted Black communities with menthol for tremendous profit, researching and appropriating Black culture along the way,” reads the study, titled “Why Menthol Bans Protect African Americans.” “From free menthol giveaways in ice cream truck-like vans in the 1960s to 1990s to saturating urban, Black neighborhoods with menthol advertisements, cheap prices, and coupons through today, the industry has flooded and continues to target Black communities with this minty poison.” 

However, others say the ban unfairly targets African-American consumers. Writing in The Washington Post last May, columnist Eugene Robinson said he understood tobacco companies targeted Black consumers for years. 

“But I can’t rush to cheer a new policy that puts a terribly unhealthy — but perfectly legal — practice enjoyed so disproportionately by African Americans on the wrong side of the law,” Robinson wrote.

Enforcement of the new law will only address manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers that deal in cigarettes. The new rules do not include a prohibition on individual consumer possession or use. 

The FDA will open the proposal for public comment. Beginning May 4th, the public is invited to listening sessions with government leaders. They may also submit comments via mail or email through July 5th. If approved, the new rules would not need Congressional review.  

“The authority to adopt tobacco product standards is one of the most powerful tools Congress gave the FDA and the actions we are proposing can help significantly reduce youth initiation and increase the chances that current smokers quit. It is clear that these efforts will help save lives,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf. “Through the rule-making process, there’s an important opportunity for the public to make their voices heard and help shape the FDA’s ongoing efforts to improve public health.” 

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News News Blog

U of M Students Look to Raise Funds for African-American Greek Organizations

CREDIT: NPHC

NPHC

Members of the U of M’s National Pan-Hellenic Council executive board

Students at the University of Memphis recently launched a campaign to raise funds for their predominantly African-American, Greek-letter, service-based organizations on campus.

The university’s National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), which governs the school’s nine traditionally African-American fraternities and sororities, hopes to raise $7,500 by September 28th.

The money raised will fund “plots,” or permanent housing facilities, for each of the fraternities and sororities.

“The largest symbols of Black fraternalism on college campuses is the plot,” the group’s campaign website reads. “Unlike chapters within the Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils, NPHC chapters typically do not own housing facilities.”

Having housing on campus provides “representation and sacred spaces for these groups.” The goal of the NPHC is for all nine organizations to have their own housing on campus near the University Center and Alumni Mall.

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“The University of Memphis’ NPHC community has been given the opportunity to obtain physical representation on campus, in the form of plots, but we need your help to make it happen!” the campaign site reads. “With your help, the NPHC community will be able to create and maintain these sacred spaces on the U of M’s campus for many years to come.”

About 200 students are involved in the nine organizations at the U of M governed by the NPHC, according to the group.

“We pride ourselves in scholarship, service, and quality programming,” a description of the groups reads. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard and ensure students on our campus can see us as role models, while actively engaging in the numerous activities that we program for students.”

So far, $992 of the $7,500 has been raised.

Jessika Williams, president of the university’s NPHC executive board, said the council is “breaking barriers and making history” at the U of M.

“Through rebranding and elevating our campus community, we have set a new standard for NPHC,” Williams said. “As we rise to the occasion as active role models for our campus community, we see the importance of us having physical representation through placement plots here on campus.”

The nine groups under the school’s NPHC, known as the “Divine Nine,” include Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.; Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.; Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.; Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.; Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.; Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.; and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

U of M Students Look to Raise Funds for African-American Greek Organizations

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

Some African Americans have raised the question about Barack Obama, “Is he black enough?” But the young senator also may have a problem in that he is not white enough for a lot of Americans who I think are not ready to accept a man of color as president. This is sad. If Obama got the Democratic presidential nomination, I would gladly vote for him rather than any of those no-good Republicans.

I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but white racism has been driven underground. Few white people today will voice even a legitimate criticism of an African American lest they lose their job or get crucified by the press and be branded a racist. But just because people keep silent or even maintain a facade of tolerance doesn’t mean that prejudice has been extinguished. We would be far better off if white people felt free to express their true opinions. Then, at least, we would know where everybody stands.

There is no genuine debate in America on the subject of race. Like the state of Israel, the subject is forbidden if it involves criticism or dissent from the politically correct views. This is not good. Hidden prejudice is difficult to combat.

Thomas Jefferson said words to the effect that lies or errors are not to be feared as long as people are free to debate them. Prejudice of any kind is, after all, an error in thinking. These days it is equated with hate, but that, too, is an error. A person can be prejudiced but not hate what he’s prejudiced against. People can hate without being prejudiced. The point is that errors in thinking can be corrected if people are free to discuss them. Hate, which is an emotion, is another problem altogether. Haters generally hate everybody, often including themselves.

Senator Obama was lionized at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He has become a celebrity and draws nice crowds at his personal appearances. But he remains far behind Hillary Clinton in the polls despite the fact that he is twice as intelligent and thoughtful, and, no doubt about it, he would make a far better president.

True, he is jug-eared and sounds often too professorial, and many Americans today are looking for stars rather than leaders. But I believe the hidden wall is simply prejudice against the idea of an African American as president.

Right up through and long after the War Between the States, the belief that African Americans were inferior was universal. The North was as prejudiced as the South. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French observer, noted of America that “the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the states which have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known.” Even Abe Lincoln expressed his belief that African Americans were inferior and could never live as equals among whites.

Such deeply ingrained beliefs are difficult to get rid of, especially if, as we have done, we have created a situation where everyone feels compelled to hide them.

As I said, I sincerely hope that I am wrong about this. Obama would clearly be superior to Hillary Clinton or to any of the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul. Nevertheless, I fear the senator is too white for some blacks and too black for some whites.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

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Politics Politics Feature

LaSimba Gray to Congressional Black Caucus: “Stay Out” of 9th District Race

CREDIT: jb

According to
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. publication for political insiders, the
Rev. LaSimba Gray is asking members of the Congressional Black Caucus to “stay
out” of the 2008 Democratic primary race pitting incumbent 9th
District congressman Steve Cohen against repeat challenger Nikki Tinker.

Noting an appearance in Memphis last weekend on Cohen’s behalf by U.S. Rep.
Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, who is black, Gray said, according to the
newspaper, “”Steve
Cohen has been quoting many of them heavily and bringing them into the district
and we are simply asking them to stay out of this race.”

Gray strove unsuccessfully during the 2006 congressional race to winnow down a
large field of African-American candidates to a consensus black
candidate to oppose Cohen, who, as the minister noted, is both white and Jewish.

Roll Call quoted Gray as contending that the second-place finish in last
year’s primary of Tinker, a corporate attorney, meant that “she has won … the
primary of African-American candidates.” Gray said further, “The road has been
cleared for Nikki and we are busy meeting with candidates who ran last time to
show them the reality — the fact that with all of them in the race they can’t
win.”

Gray’s concept of a black-versus-white showdown was frowned on by Cleaver
spokesman Danny Rotert, who remarked that Cohen seemed to stand high in the
estimate of his constituents and observed, “If somebody here [Kansas City] said
Congressman Cleaver can’t represent his district because it’s a [majority] white
district, that would not go very far. So it’s too bad that that’s the rhetoric
that’s being used in Memphis.”

As of the last Federal Election Commission filing, Roll Call noted,
Tinker had $172,000 in cash on hand compared to Cohen’s $374,000. As the
periodical also observed, the feminist organization Emily’s List, which supported Tinker
strongly in 2006, has so far been non-committal about 2008.

A number of Tinker’s former Memphis supporters have also indicated they will not
be backing her in next year’s race. One such, lawyer Laura Hine, said she had
committed to Tinker in 2006 before Cohen made his candidacy known. Affirming her
support for Cohen in next year’s race, Hine said recently, “The fact is, he’s
been a very effective congressman, speaking to all the issues I care about.”

One such issue, according to Hine, was pending federal Hate Crimes legislation,
which Cohen has backed and Tinker has been silent about. Rev. Gray recently made
an effort to organize opposition to Cohen’s stand among black ministers, on the
ground that the bill would muzzle their opposition to homosexuality.

Other
local African-American ministers, like the Rev. Ralph White and the Rev. O.C.
Collins Jr., have refuted that allegation, citing specific sections of the bill,
and made a point of supporting Cohen. The Memphis chapter of the NAACP also
recently affirmed its support of the bill and Cohen’s activities on its behalf.

Categories
Music Music Features

Listening to Ernest Withers

I have a print of an Ernest Withers photograph hanging on my office wall. It’s a portrait of Bilbo Brown, a sad-faced clown who worked with the circa-1940s entertainment troupe called the Brown Skin Follies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this image of a wearied and wary entertainer, his brown face further darkened with cork, serves as a perfect avatar for other misguided African-American talents ranging from Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, and Sam Cooke to Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, and T.I., both predicting and predicating their missteps by decades.

When Withers died at age 85 on October 15th, a huge portion of this city’s history died with him. Google the Brown Skin Follies and scant information is returned; had you queried Withers on the subject, you’d have gotten remarkable tales about long-forgotten clubs like the Flamingo Room and the Hippodrome, two venues that were part of what the photographer coined “a separate America,” where he could augment his policeman’s salary making “fifty, sixty dollars a night — maybe a hundred, being seen, making pictures” for a buck-and-a-half apiece.

I doubt anyone wandering down Beale Street with a daiquiri in their hand this weekend could give a damn about the history of that storied district, but Withers, who rented a space for his studio at 333 Beale for the last decade, would often pause to explain, “When people go to blues shows now there’s a combination of all people. But [in the old days] it was ninety-nine and forty-four hundredths percent African American people. It wasn’t a mixed crowd.

“The Hippodrome was at the east end of Beale, between the Hunt-Phelan home and the Martin Luther King Labor Center. It was originally a skating rink. When that declined, they turned it into a one-night-stand facility. At other places, black people had to go up through the back to see the big acts,” he said, referencing once-segregated venues like Ellis Auditorium and the Orpheum Theatre. “The acts were African-American, so why did the African-American people have to sit up in the gallery? So the Hippodrome was opened for blacks only. It held five or six thousand — and it was always a packed house.”

Withers also told me stories about the Flamingo Club, which was located on Hernando Street between Beale and Gayoso. “For a number of years,” he said, “the Flamingo Club was the legendary Hotel Men’s Improvement Club, a group of Negro men who were waiters or what-have-you, who worked in the hotels. The management sold it to Clifford Miller, who changed its name to the Flamingo Club. This is after the early days of corn whiskey, but before the liquor-by-the-drink period. The club sold set-ups and you brought in your own bottle. Or you could make a deal with a bootlegger — go outside and buy a bottle of whiskey from him.

“White people,” he explained, “used to come on Beale Street to the Palace Theatre on a special night for white attendance at the Midnight Ramble. At a given night at the Midnight Ramble, the black theater switched to whites only. They didn’t put signs up. It was just understood: no black people. And the same thing would happen for black people at North Hall.”

Despite segregation, Memphis’ music scene in those days was wide open, and Withers captured it all: B.B. King and band lined up in front of their tour bus; Howlin’ Wolf performing at a grocery store; Elvis Presley and Rufus Thomas backstage at a WDIA Goodwill Revue; Lionel Hampton onstage at the Hippodrome; the Finas Newborn Orchestra hamming it up at the Flamingo Room; the Teen Town Singers with a young Isaac Hayes; Ray Charles at North Hall; and hundreds more pictures that have become an indelible part of the American music psyche.

“Being backed by good players can strengthen your confidence,” says Jeff Hulett, drummer-turned-guitar slinger, who plays a free show with his group Jeffrey James and the Haul at the Blue Monkey Thursday, October 25th.

“At first, it was kinda nerve-wracking, but now that I’ve been doing it awhile, I’m pretty comfortable with it,” says the perennially good-natured Hulett, who formed the Haul two years ago after his other band, Snowglobe, went on hiatus.

“I picked up the guitar in 2000 or 2001 and learned a few chords from friends,” Hulett says. “We started playing at Kudzu’s, and eventually graduated to the Hi-Tone and the Buccaneer.”

For more on the Haul, who plan to record a follow-up to their 2006 debut Win the National Championship this winter, go to MySpace.com/JeffreyJamesAndTheHaul.

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News

October Is Breast-Cancer Awareness Month — and It Strikes Blacks Earlier

The American Cancer Society estimated more than 19,000 black women would be diagnosed with breast cancer this year — the second-most common cancer among black women, surpassed only by lung cancer.

And while the incidence of breast cancer is about 12 percent lower in black women than in white women, with black women, it often strikes at an earlier age, and the mortality rate is higher.

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many women schedule their annual mammograms during the month to make it easier to remember. Others make mammogram appointments on or near their birthdays.

According to the American Cancer Society’s “Cancer Facts & Figures for African-Americans 2007-2008” booklet, “Factors that contribute to the higher death rates among African-American women include differences in access to and utilization of early detection and treatment, risk factors that are differentially distributed by race or socio-economic status, or biological differences associated with race.”

As Netwellness.org reports, “Statistics show that overall, when African-American women are diagnosed, they have larger tumors and their breast cancer has spread further (i.e., to the lymph nodes and to other parts of the body).”

The five-year breast-cancer survival rate for black women is 69 percent, compared with 84 percent for white women. And while there has been an increase in the number of women getting mammograms, black women still tend to have fewer mammograms and are more likely to be diagnosed after the cancer has spread.

If that’s not enough to get you into a doctor’s office, consider this: Black women are also disproportionately prone to a rare, particularly virulent form of breast cancer that tends to strike women under the age of 35.

According to a study published in June 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, black women under the age of 50 have a 77 percent higher mortality rate from breast cancer than other women of the same age group.

The study, led by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, said that younger, pre-menopausal black women are more prone to an especially aggressive type of cancer.

In addition to the UNC study, researchers at Emory University and the University of Chicago are trying to determine the root cause of the cancer and why it strikes young black women decades before menopause, when most breast cancer develops.

And don’t forget to check the medical history of your father’s family. In June, JAMA published the results of a study that revealed that a pattern of hereditary breast cancer may be hard to detect because a family is so small or has so few female members that it doesn’t appear to be prevalent. However, the cancer gene can be passed on from the father’s side of the family, as well as the mother’s, because every person inherits half of her genes from her mother and half from her father.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Ernest Withers

Ernest Withers, who died this week at age 85, was a giant of American photography. Like a real-life Zelig, Withers seemingly was everywhere — documenting the most pivotal moments of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Negro baseball leagues, jazz and blues greats, scenes of Beale Street in its pre-tourist heyday, weddings, funerals, and parties. Withers captured African-American life in the South like no other.

He photographed Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, B.B. King, and Aretha Franklin, to name just a very few of his notable subjects. Withers was in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, documenting the bus strike in the wake of Rosa Parks’ arrest. He rode buses with Martin Luther King Jr. His famous “I AM A MAN” photos of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike are in American history books, as well they should be.

Withers was a modest, soft-spoken man who tended to his large and loving family to the same noble degree that he did to his photography. And like many Memphis icons, he was probably taken somewhat for granted. But Withers never stopped working. In recent years, he could be seen moving through the crowd at social events, charging revelers a modest fee for instant photos of themselves. It’s likely that many of those who bought a picture had no idea they’d just purchased a piece by one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers.

He will be missed, like few others. His legacy will live on in the photos he created.

And if there are any biographers out there looking for a subject whose life could fill several volumes, we’ve got your man.

Another Mock Issue

In their zeal to oppose the reelection effort of 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, certain of his adversaries went out of their way to mischaracterize Cohen’s vote for hate-crimes legislation. The congressman was verbally flagellated as a would-be muzzler of ministers who might want to oppose homosexuality from their pulpits.

Fortunately, counsels have arisen within the African-American religious community to rebut the accusations against the bill and against Cohen. But now another campaign has been launched against the congressman — this time for his refusal to support a congressional resolution affirming that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against an Armenian minority in the years following World War I.

We do not dispute the allegation concerning events that are now almost a century old. Nor do we contend that the lobbying effort on behalf of this resolution, led locally by one Dany Beylerian, an ethnic Armenian, is anything but sincere.

But, like Cohen, we find the resolution to be ill-timed. Why aim a provocative accusation at an American ally, Turkey, when that government, considerably evolved from its Ottoman past, is not known to be planning any such malice?

And why should a congressman from Memphis vote so as to insult a currently unoffending nation that is the 2008 Memphis in May honoree? Yes, Cohen, as a white Southener, sponsored a resolution apologizing for slavery. In the same way, it is up to the Turks themselves to acknowledge their darker history.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Taste the Rainbow

A recent AP article chronicling the difficulties faced by openly gay students on historically black college campuses quoted Rev. William Owens, a historically black college graduate and head of the Coalition of African-American Pastors in Memphis. According to Owens, school administrators can say “no” to gay students who ask for inclusion and acceptance.

“I don’t think they have to give a lot of reasons,” said Owens, who, like other black pastors, worries that homosexuality “is a threat to the black family.”

The article was inconclusive as to whether or not gays should use separate water fountains and toilets.

Urban Camping

From Action News 5: “Joe Birch went to check out a tent [that] sits on a hill near Preston and Waldorf in South Memphis. … A lifelong neighbor and concerned citizen says the tent is a hub of criminal activity where addicts trade stolen items for drugs. … In a one-mile radius of the intersection of Preston and Waldorf in the last 30 days, there were 27 narcotics arrests, 3 robberies, 17 aggravated assaults, 50 burglaries, 38 domestic-violence arrests, 30 thefts from homes and 11 from cars.”

The news report failed to mention whether or not the tent’s occupants were flying a red flag.