By Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP President and CEO
Cross-posted from TheRoot.Com

In the past decade alone, 880,000 African Americans died because they did not have access to meaningful health care.

For people of color, life is, on average, shorter. Illness is more prevalent, and disability is more common. We live in a system that provides limited opportunities for communities of color to access health services, with fewer options for treatment, and with lower-quality care.

Communities of color are hit hard because of lower incomes and less ability to afford insurance and care. Patients of color also face greater health risks since they are less likely to live in communities with basic access to a healthy lifestyle-local hospitals or clinics with specialized services, parks and green spaces to exercise, and supermarkets where people can buy fresh food.

For this reason, the NAACP has teamed up with the National Urban League and the Black Leadership Forum to form a War Room in Washington, D.C., in order to push for real, meaningful reform in the days leading up to the House vote. We will be holding dozens of rallies, lobby days and press events across the nation.

What do we mean by “real” reform? Here’s what we are fighting for: (more…)

By Shavon Arline, NAACP Health Care Programs Director

I am writing from the heart of Civil Rights Health Care War Room-an unprecedented coordinated effort by the NAACP, National Urban League, and the Black Leadership Forum and others to fight for real health care reform. Low income families and people of color have the most at stake in this national debate, and with a vote coming up as early as Friday, we have got to take control of this debate.

What does “real reform” mean? We are talking:

* Full, affordable & comprehensive coverage for all individuals and families
* Nobody being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions
* Equity in access to care, treatment & resources-an end to racial and income disparities.
* A real choice of a private or public health care plan. There is no reform without at strong public option.

Check out our War Room webpage, complete with video, action items and links to events going on across the country this week. Together we can make sure that health care reform works for all of us.

By Stefanie Brown, NAACP National Field Director

This week, civil rights groups across the country will rally for meaningful health care reform. On Thursday, November 5th, local NAACP units will hold press actions in ten states to kick off our final, coordinated push for meaningful reform, which includes a strong public option. Our actions will continue through the weekend and next week with rallies and lobby days in a dozen more cities throughout the country.

We know that real healthcare reform will have a profound impact on African American families. As a group, African Americans are more likely to be without quality, affordable and accessible healthcare. Our volunteers range in age from 15 to 95 years old; with our youth and college members belonging to the least insured generation ever and our cadre of senior citizens actively concerned about Medicare and the future health of their families.

Along with partner organizations like the National Urban League, Black Leadership Forum and Color of Change, we’ll be holding dozens of rallies, lobby days and press events across the nation. Please check out our online War Room to find an event near you!

By Quentin T. James, Political Action Chair of the Howard University Chapter of the NAACP

The symbolism of having the first African American President is being interpreted in many ways throughout American politics, and more directly in both the Atlanta and Charlotte mayoral races. In both southern cities, race has long been a deciding factor in the representative politics of the post-civil rights era. However, one must ask if symbolism and the level to which a glass ceiling is shattered is a worthy enough reason to measure a politician’s success or failure, without regard to their policies?

Since 1974 Atlanta has elected African American mayors to lead its city in every election. These mayors have done everything from developing the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport into the world’s busiest airport to bringing the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to the city. Their mutual successes have garnered Atlanta’s reputation as “the Capital of the South.” State Senator Kasim Reed and Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders, both African American candidates for mayor, hope to continue this tradition despite the perception that Atlanta is due for change in its racial politics.

By contrast, Anthony Foxx, the only Democrat in the Charlotte mayoral race, is attempting to become the city’s first African American mayor since 1987, and only the second ever.  (more…)

By Robert Rooks, Director of NAACP Criminal Justice Programs

As I was thinking about what to write for this blog, my mind kept floating to personal experiences of friends I’ve lost to violence and how inept responses to crime have made our communities less safe. My thoughts were confirmed minutes before I gave a workshop in LA last weekend when my workshop facilitator informed me that he had just received a call that his cousin had been shot and killed in Oakland. I know what a call like that feels like and after conversing with him about his loss, I knew I had to write about violence, how I believe incarceration makes our communities less safe, and introduce Smart and Safe as a strategy to address both violence and mass incarceration.

Over the years in response to violence, I’ve always been unsettled by the call to action that parents should be more responsible. Not because it is not true or that parental responsibility should not be at the top of the list. What’s unsettling about blaming parents for violence in communities is that when we do this, we often take away a call for community responsibility and a need to analyze systemic influences that perpetuates and creates violent scenarios in our communities. Although there are many factors to violence today, one important but over looked contributing factor is the role mass incarceration plays in destabilizing urban communities and creating environments that make our communities less safe.

Today, America is just 5% of the world population and has 25% of the world’s prisoners.  Over the last 30 years, the “war on drugs” has been our nation’s vain response to selling and using illegal drugs and is the reason why incarceration rates are so high. Not only does mass incarceration do little to address problems associated with drug use or drug selling, incarceration strategies over the last 30 years have actually made our communities less safe and in some instances, perpetuate continual violence. (more…)

By Jacqueline Patterson, Director of the NAACP Climate Gap Initiative

When a lot of us hear about climate change we might think, “Well, I like the polar bears as much as the next person, but there are definitely more pressing issues to work on in our communities than worrying about some melting ice near Antarctica!” Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that.

Climate Change is about Katrina, Rita, and Ike devastating communities in Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. Climate Change is about our sisters and brothers in the Bahamas who will be losing their homes to rising sea levels in the coming few years. Climate Change is about our folks in Detroit, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere who have died from exposure to toxins from coal fired power plants.  Climate Change is about sisters and brothers in West Virginia who are breathing toxic ash from blasting for mountain top removal mining. Climate Change is about our folks in Thibodaux, Louisiana who are being forced to move within the next 10 years because rising sea levels will result in the submersion of the coastal land that is their home currently. It’s about the fact that race–over class–is the number one indicator for the placement of toxic facilities in this country.  Climate Change is about us. (more…)

By Shavon Arline, NAACP Health Programs Director

The healthcare reform debate has taken over our lives.  It has aired on the news, in the newspaper and on the radio. It is an issue that can’t be ignored.  On October 8, 2009, in partnership with the Washington DC Branch of the NAACP, Thursday Network of the Urban League and the Omicron Lambda Alpha chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the NAACP hosted the National Health care Reform Town Hall Meeting in Washington DC.

This live-streamed event was a pivotal moment for me as I sat and listened to the heart wrenching story from a young Howard University student, Zikia Jones-Martin , who shared with us her personal story in this healthcare debate.  Zikia’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and was no longer eligible for health care after losing her job.  She eventually had a relapse after being in remission and was rushed to the emergency room where she waited for hours just to receive a private room.  She lost her battle with cancer, right there in the hospital. Three days later, her family received the message that she was finally eligible for medical assistance.  Where was the help?  Where was the functional health care system that very well could have helped prevent this incident from occurring? (more…)

By Leila McDowell, NAACP Vice President for Communications

Wow.  Lou Dobbs isn’t just going after our Latino brothers and sisters anymore. The CNN television host, famous for his nasty and incendiary attacks on immigrants, has now set his sights on the African American community. In a radio broadcast last week, after a discussion of the brutal beating death of Chicago student Derrion Albert, Dobbs just went off:

“It’s a black community problem. And part of the problem is the black community is not being responsible and I mean turning Heaven and Earth to protect our children.”

And then:

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want to hear your lame nonsense about how much money you need to save the next life. you have it in your power, the black churches, the black school leaders, the black community leaders, the black community organizers, the black parents of that community. Fix the problem. Quit whining, quit looking to someone else for the solution, and by God, let’s move ahead.”

Lame nonsense? Money? When I first read the transcript, I couldn’t immediately put my finger on exactly which part of Dobbs’ drivel made me so angry. Was it his glaring ignorance of “the black community” and our response to the Derrion Albert murders? The condemnation-to anyone who was paying attention-was swift and severe. From the NAACP to community organizers in Chicago, I’ve seen nothing but outrage, condemnation, and planning.

The danger of the Dobbs frame is that it forces folks to be defensive, to feel compelled to focus exclusively on their anger.  The reality is - as Martin Luther King pointed out decades ago - “violence is the language of the unheard”.  Frantz Fanon, author of the seminal book Wretched of the Earth, documented the violence of the oppressed against each other.

Chicago has the highest teen homicide rate in the country.  Tragically, there are many more Derrion Alberts - just not always caught on tape.  The real conversation we need to be having is not one of condemnation, but of examination of just what causes the violence of young men in our communities against their brethren and how do we prevent it. This, Dobbs might be interested to learn, is a “solution.”

So when Dobbs attacks us for making “excuses”, he joins a chorus that uses the mantra “don’t make excuses” to keep America, white and black, from having the crucial public discussion about solutions and demanding from a government we fund with our tax dollars what is needed to save our kids in urban wastelands: libraries, after school programs, quality schools, good health care, grocery stores, parenting classes, and opportunity.

Of course, in the end it’s not Dobbs I am so angry at. It’s CNN. In my years as a producer and a journalist, I knew of no TV station or newspaper that would allow such pure, uninformed, and downright nasty venom to be directed toward any particular group of people. It’s not that I worked for any particularly enlightened or even P.C. outlets - in fact, I did a stint at CNN in its early years - but we were news people, and it was our job to be accurate, fair and even-handed.

Lou Dobbs’ foul, ugly bigotry is not suitable for a news channel. CNN should be ashamed.

The NAACP Blog is geared toward promoting a free exchange of ideas. The views represented in individual posts may not represent the official position of the Association.