“The world is full of willing people: some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” -Robert Frost
The Lead Paint Travesty
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
20•13
“…Perhaps Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) best exemplified the dubious protection of parental consent, which it was careful to elicit when it began its “Repair and Maintenance Study” in the mid-1990s. Researchers approached black families in 108 units of decrepit housing encrusted with crumbling, peeling lead paint. Lead paint is a notorious cause of acute illness and chronic mental retardation in young children, who inhale the lead borne on the air and nibble the peeling paint chips, drawn by the appealing sweet taste of the lead. That same sweet taste led Romans to infuse their wine with lead, courting mental devastation, which some historians believe hastened their civilization’s decline. Today, it is poor children in crumbling inner-city housing who suffer most from lead. Fortunately, we know how to protect children by banning the use of lead paint and by offering lead-abatement programs. But the agenda of the KKI scientists did not include removing children from lead exposure, because they planned to use these children to evaluate new, cheaper lead-abatement techniques- of unknown efficacy- in old homes with peeling paint.
Because scientists wished to explore cheaper ways of eliminating the lead threat in the future, they purposely arranged with landlords to have children inhabit lead-tainted housing so that they could monitor changes in the children’s lead levels as well as the brain and developmental damage that resulted from different kinds of lead-abatement programs. Scientists offered parents of children in these lead-laden homes incentives such as fifteen-dollar payments to cooperate with the study, without divulging that it placed their children at risk of lead exposure. The literature given the parents implied that the study was protecting their children from lead damage and promised to inform parents of any hazards.
KKI researchers simultaneously encouraged landlords of approximately 125 tainted housing units to rent to families with young children by paying for the lead abatement if the landlords rented to such families. They met with chilling success. When the KKI drew blood from one-year-old Ericka Grimes on April 9, 1993, for example, her reading was nine micrograms per deciliter, which is a ‘normal’ reading, according to CDC guidelines. The KKI identified lead-imbued hot spots in the home but did not tell Ericka’s parents. When Ericka was retested on September 15, 1994, her blood-lead reading was 32, which CDC charts label a ‘highly elevated’ reading.” –From, “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to The Present” By: Harriet A. Washington
[SIDEBAR: This book is a MUST read! Please go out and get it. It has superb information in it! It should be required reading in all educational institutions. *SIDEBAR UPDATE*: The only objection I have to this book is the epilogue. I disagree with a lot of conclusions drawn in that section of the book. I still appreciate how thoroughly researched and explained the rest of the book is though.]
Black History Fact Of The Day
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
20•13
Peter J. Delfyett developed “the worlds fastest, most powerful modelocked semiconductor laser diode.” [SIDEBAR: Don’t ask me what that is or how it functions. Lol.] In 2004, Dr. Delfyett was named one of the 50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science by Science Spectrum Magazine and Career Communications Group. He has also received: The National Science Foundations Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, The 1999 University Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award, The 2000 Black Engineer of the Year Award, and the 2000 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award.
Quote Of The Day
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
20•13
“God made us in his own image, and he had some purpose when he thus created us; then why should we seek to destroy our identity?” -Marcus Garvey
Black Actresses & Hollywood
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
19•13
“Whoever controls the images of the Dark Feminine has a powerful weapon…black women themselves are often not the ones shaping that image. Rather, the dominant culture seems to pull those strings, leaving black women to decide whether to work with or against what the mainstream purports about them and the Dark Feminine. Often, they have done both at the same time, going along a little to survive and resisting as much as they can get away with. The most pronounced venues for this conflict are the theater, the cinema, the radio, and the television screen…Black women and their mythically influenced roles have been staples in all of them.
‘By The Way, Meet Vera Stark” is a play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, which explores the choices that black actresses have had to make in order to practice their art, to work. The two main characters are actresses separated by talent and skin color. The title character, Vera Stark, is a gifted, light-skinned black actress who came to Hollywood determined to find refined acting roles, only to find those roles to be too few and far apart to live on. She takes a job as a housekeeper and drama coach for a less talented and less intelligent blond actress. The white actress comes to specialize in the roles of sweet and fragile girls, but as she ages those parts get scarce. There is a lot of buzz about a big new movie, a Civil War-era ‘Gone with the Wind’ type, the kind of movie that America loves. The white actress is preparing to read for a part. After too many years and too little acting work, Vera decides to try for a role in the film too: the role of a slave woman, exactly the type of role that she had vowed never to take. It is a matter of her survival- both physically and professionally.
Vera tells her friends and herself that she will pump enough dignity and grace into the role that Hollywood will see her talent and give her other, better roles. They are skeptical; they, too, are intelligent black female actors who are trying to survive. One, a brown-skinned woman, is a classically trained actress- a good one- who survives by doing piecework, sewing labels into shirts. The other, a light-skinned woman, has to consider passing. Vera wins the mammy role, the movie is a hit, and she becomes a star for playing a slave. Throughout the rest of her life and the play, we see her wrestle with the choices she has made, at turn vilified and honored by others.
I sat with Nottage during the first public reading of her play at Center Stage in Baltimore, and we talked about the difficulty of her message. As a writer, she wanted to show the artistry and intellect of women in that era who found that the only roles for them in Hollywood required an apron and a smile…Black Hollywood actors still say that they too often have to choose between their art and their dignity, to act in roles that make us all wince or not to act at all.” -From, “Fierce Angels” By: Sheri Parks
TODAY IS BUY BLACK FRIDAY
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
19•13
PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (EACH ONE TEACH ONE OR TWO!) THIS IS PHASE ONE ON HOW WE CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN & EMPOWER OUR COMMUNITY:
The 2008 not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case evoked outrage, emotion, and debate. It is not an anomaly that the police officers involved in the Sean Bell slaying were acquitted of all charges on all counts in State Supreme Court. I could run out of ink printing the names of people who have been victimized by the inaptly named justice system.
The American justice system has been especially terroristic towards the African American community. Many community members can cite historic and personal accounts to prove this. Therefore, it would be foolhardy (at the least) to turn to a system that has methodically oppressed us, and request that they free us. We can only free ourselves through extreme discipline and intelligent planning.
As a community we have been too compliant with leaders who organize ineffective, delayed reactions. The only strategy that can save us in this last hour is one that calls for a collective code of conduct that will be conducive to improving the conditions of our community, and shifting the paradigm of how we are treated by outside entities. The first step of this code of conduct should be based on economics.
The old adage of “money talks,” still reigns true in the new millennium. Any political scientist worth his or her library card will tell you that: “Economic powerlessness equals political powerlessness,” and conversely “economic power equals political power.” This means that if we continue to allow our wealth to be extracted from our community, we will remain impotent.
The power of the collective “Black Dollar” is often discussed. However, that power has been left unchanneled. Today is the day to change that. A one-time boycott is not going to bring long-term change and respect to our community. Our community has launched boycotts before. Our success and ascension will be based on what we consistently do. For this reason, we should initiate “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS.”
BUY BLACK FRIDAYS is a small step towards our community acquiring power via controlling our economics. Every Friday, people who acknowledge the injustice and oppression that the African American community has been consistently subjected to should do one of the following:
Option #1: Spend $0 on Friday
Option #2: Spend no more than $10 on Friday
Option #3: Only Shop at Black Businesses on Friday
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE OPTIONS CAN & SHOULD BE EXERCISED ON A DAILY BASIS. However, we can all at the very least focus on Fridays. This way we can take a collective stand and build our collective discipline. Please remember that this is only Phase 1!].
To the people who are tempted to label “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS” as racist, I say this: In the big scheme of things, this is about right & wrong, justice & injustice. The African American community is a strong, proud community that has endured the brunt of America’s iron fist. We must stop the pounding. I feel that any fair-minded individual will concur, and join in.
ANY business that is privileged to enjoy the support of the African American community MUST return that support.
I thank you in advance for your effort and dedication.
-Elsie Law AKA Starface
Black History Fact Of The Day
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
19•13
In the 1970s (before he successfully started his own practice), famed attorney Johnnie Cochran became the first African American District Attorney for Los Angeles County.
Quote Of The Day
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
19•13
“My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that’s nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.” -Helen Hayes
Elsie Law’s Dose Of The Law: The Franking Privilege
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
18•13
According to Black’s Law Dictionary, The Franking Privilege is: “The privilege of sending certain matter through the public mails without payment of postage, in pursuance of a personal or official privilege. The privilege granted to members of Congress to send out a certain amount of mail under signature without charge.”
Black History Fact Of The Day
Written By: Elsie Law
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Apr•
18•13
Federick McKinley Jones was a prolific inventor. He owned dozens of patents.
According to About.com, Frederick Jones “is best known for inventing an automatic refrigeration system for long-haul trucks.” He also invented devices that allowed silent movie projectors to show talking films.
