Are you salty?

No I don't mean are you mad, I meant do you have a lot of salt in your body. Last week CNN's Black in America allowed Roland Fryer to open up the "salt sensitivity theory" of Black health again (see 31 minutes in on the first video below). If you followed my previous link to Blacksmythe's blog on Black in America you probably got a sense of why folks are so cynical of this theory and Fryer's fame for unsubstantiated or non-peer reviewed theories, but the responses below really speak to the power of popular perception.
(If you have two hours (that you'll never get back), here is Pt 1 of Black in America - The Black Woman & Family ... don't get me started on how Black women didn't get a full program)




First a press release from Dr. Thomas LaViest at John Hopkins.

MEDIA RELEASE
July 28, 2008

Johns Hopkins Health Disparities Expert Criticizes CNN Report

Baltimore – Promoting unproven theories as a key cause of the
enormous health gap between African Americans and other ethnic
groups will likely widen the gap further, said a leading researcher
working to close the gap.

Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Director of the Center for Health Disparities
Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was
alarmed when he saw the health care segment of CNN's "Black In
America" series and heard the salt-sensitivity theory being promoted
as a key reason to explain why blacks are unhealthy compared to
whites and other groups.

"I commend CNN and Soledad O'Brien for tackling this very important
topic, but to expose an audience to this theory is very troubling and
disappointing," LaVeist said.

During the segment, O'Brien interviewed Harvard economist Roland
Fryer who said he believes the salt-sensitive theory may be key to
unlocking why blacks on average have poor health. The salt-
sensitivity theory claims that during the transatlantic slave trade,
African slaves whose bodies held higher levels of salt were better
able to survive the long brutal voyage to the Americas. Their
descendants are now genetically disposed to hypertension and other
diseases that are tied to salt.

"This bogus theory just won't seem to die," LaVeist said. "Even
though public health researchers have discredited the theory it
continues to be promoted by people who are not knowledgeable about
the field. THE AVERAGE HEALTH CONSUMER WATCHING CNN COULD TAKE THIS
AS THE GOSPEL AND RUN WITH IT TO THEIR OWN DETRIMENT."

Most research scientists who work on this public health problem would
agree that some of the key health disparity causes are:

• Blacks are exposed to more environmental toxins because of
residential segregation
• Blacks have less access to quality healthcare
• Higher levels of poverty among African Americans
• Higher levels of use of harmful products such as cigarettes
• Less healthy diets
• Less healthy foods in African American communities
• Residing in more stressful environments

"To suggest that health disparities are caused by a gene that exists
in African Americans and does not exist in others is ridiculous.
There are no genes found in only one race group," LaVeist
said. "Hypertension and all other major causes of death are caused by
a complex set of factors. They are not single gene diseases. If race
disparities were primarily caused by a gene, that gene would have to
cause hypertension and cancer and diabetes and glaucoma, and Crohn's
disease and asthma and HIV-AIDS and every other condition that is
more prevalent in blacks and we know no one gene does that."

"I respect professor Fryer, but quoting an economist as an expert on
health disparities is like interviewing me for a story about why gas
prices have spiked," LaVeist said. "Not only are researchers at
Hopkins working on this problem, but people are working on this issue
right there in Atlanta where CNN is headquartered. The problem of
health disparities is complex. By trying to reduce it to a simplistic
explanation we risk having health care providers, policymakers and
patients feel there is nothing they can do to address the issue."

About Thomas LaVeist:
As the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy,
and Director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. LaVeist has
studied the major healthcare gaps in America, the trends causing them
and the problems they create. His work is enabling healthcare
organizations and individuals to prepare for a new America—a minority
majority.

Second, an editorial by Osagie Obasogie penned a little over a year ago in response to Oprah's show advancing the same bogus salty theory.

Both commentaries I received via the Spirit of 1848 listserv, thanks for sharing Shak-G.

I wish I had more hands...

so I could give CNN Black in America four thumbs down!!!

Really too disgusted to comment on it, but if you want a decent flavor of what was running through my mind, check out BlackSmythe's live blog post on it!

Tune in at 9...

Tonight, Monday July 21st, I'll be featured as a panelist on Lynn Doyle's It's your call. We'll be continuing the conversation about Jesse Jackson, Black political leadership, and the controversies surrounding both. The show airs regionally on Comcast's Cn8 or can be streamed live from here if you're outside one of the designated regions. We'll be taping live and it has a call-in format, so drop us a line.

Tune in Sunday to Keep Hope Alive Radio

Sunday morning I will be appearing on Jesse Jackson's radio show Keep Hope Alive Radio which is syndicated nationally. This week Marc Lamont Hill will be filling in for Rev. Jackson. We will be discussing Civil Rights leadership and contemporary politics. Find out where and when you can hear the show locally here. Tune in and give us your perspective.

And yes I know this is some late notice...

UPDATE: The show is now available online here!!! After Sunday it will be available in the Audio Archive.

Truth/Reconciliation: Morehouse on my Mind by Jafari S. Allen

I am linking to a post by Jafari Sinclaire Allen about Morehouse, sexuality, and community. Jafari was before my time at Morehouse, but he lays out some heavy, powerful, and challenging issues in his post about his time at Morehouse, Atlanta, and beyond. Please, please, please ... did I mention please, give it a read. It eloquently displays many of the questions that plagued me about the brotherhood at Morehouse, the larger Black community and the greater potential for social change. Brother Jafari, thank you for caring enough to share.


For those who don't know, Morehouse is my alma mater and I hold her near and dear to my heart. I have always wished that Morehouse offered a freshman year course like Spelman College's African Diaspora and the World, but one that focused on issues of gender privilege, sexuality, and leadership. Maybe we will get there someday... hopefully soon.

Harlem's Homeless Renaissance

At about 1 in the morning I strolled along the main artery of Harlem, 125th street. As I walked from East to West I got to thinking about the transformation that Harlem is undergoing. Some call it gentrification, revitalization, land grab, urban pioneering, no matter what you call it, things are changing. When we talk about gentrification, we talk about those who have homes, but we forget those who go without consistent shelter.

As I passed the State building, I watched homeless citizens hover on concrete benches. As they lay resting, it almost looked like they were at perfect peace. Like the stone that was their pallet was made by Sealy mattresses, but that's likely not true. As they lay huddled beneath Adam Clayton Powell with his top coat flapping in the wind, I began to wonder what he would have thought? Did he think about these Harlemites? I began to wonder, do today's heroes of Harlem think about them?

The juxtaposition of the consummate Black political figure to the Black homeless was more than a sight. A sight would be too transient, too dissimive, too temporary. No, for the folks seeking refuge under ACP's cape, poverty was not temporary or passing, it was their long term reality. As Harlem undergoes yet another Renaissance I wonder what is to come of the folks who never saw the booms of prosperity? The folks that didn't have leases to be tricked out of. Are the stares that folks shoot them on 125th tonight the same as the stares that newcomers to Harlem will shoot them in 10 years? Or will they even be there?

Hidden Hip-Hop: Independent's Day

No, you won't see this on BET, you won't see this on CNN, you won't see this... pretty much anywhere but you're computer. But this is why I still love Hip-Hop. This is why I still have hope, this is why I know that Detroit is in good hands. Check this video beneath of Invincible, Finale, and a host of Detroit activists dropping science on the D.


True I'm no longer BlackatMichigan but lord knows the Mitten always has a place in my heart. And make sure to cop Invincible's full length album, she's a beast!!!!!!! And because I know most of ya'll won't click the link, you better recognize she's even co-signed by Jean Grae. Don't take my word for it, take hers,

Invincible is a problem, always has been. Wonderfully humble, a humanitarian, an amazing and caring person just in general. All that and she'll rip your mic to shreds and then set it on fire. I don't even think she fully understands how dope she is. She's a true lyricist. She's been here for a long time going extra hard at this, no new jack here at all. She has an amazing fighter's spirit... Cause let's all be real about how the world perceives her based on appearance alone is a ridiculously large cross to bear. That woman is a beast and I have no idea how she manages to keep getting better with her art while saving the entire world. People complain about not having any role models or rappers not taking responsibility for their communities...well then respect this woman right here and give her her credit for her fight and everything she's accomplished thus far.

the gospel

"hard to be a spiritual being when shit is shaking what you believe in."

It's just sex, right?

That's what people want to boil it down to. This morning the Root is running two pieces on "sex tourism" to Brazil and other "third world" locales. I pen a direct review of Jewel Woods and Karen Hunter's book "Don't Blame it on Rio" and Mark Sawyer does a indirect review of the book as he discusses the representation of Brazilian women in American popular imagination and scholarship.

I decided to write the review after traveling to Boca Chica, Dominican Republic and seeing many of the things that Woods wrote about come to life. I think that the book can open a dialogue that we are seriously in need of around Black middle class men and the lack of accountability that we are allowed to operate with. Yes Virginia, Black male privilege does exist and we need to uncover it, discuss it, and act upon it. Give my piece a read here. No doubt that many of the responses will try to compartmentalize the actions of these "prostituting" brothas, or claim it's just like sex tourism from other groups, but I think even if it's like processes that happen in other groups, we really need to begin to address it with care, because it's having serious effects.

Mark Sawyer, a scholar I respect very much, does a great job of discussing the relationship between "developed" and "developing" nations and characterizations of women. While Sawyer pans Woods and Hunter's book, he then goes on to suggest there is something that makes Westerners look upon Brazilian women, and others, as mere sexual objects. I'd contend that thing is male privilege coupled with financial capital ... which are central to Woods and Hunter's book. Additionally, Sawyer brings up a question that was troubling me as I read "Don't Blame it on Rio," who are Black women? It is likely that many of the women that these Black male tourists are cavorting with are of African descent, but this Diasporic connection becomes dissolved into sex. By saying being with women from Brazil, DR, Cuba, etc is weakening the Black community, are we too narrowly defining the Diaspora? And before you say it, yes I do know men who have traveled abroad, met women, married them, though they are fewer in number then the ones I know who have just slept with women and returned to the US.

A little while back I wrote, "what if everyone knew Black was beautiful?" it was triggered by some deep conversations I had with brothas and sisters in the DR about Blackness and its negativity. Will we ever truly forge a Diaspora? I wonder how do we, as African-Americans, contribute to these negative images as we transverse borders. Alright, that's enough of me opening cans of worms, I'll have to revisit some of this later. Thoughts?