Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By Akosua Kathryn Albritton

crazy as a Fox 5
Fox News at 5 PM was dead set on showing the 40th West Indian Labor Day Parade in a negative light. Although the station anchors described it as New York City’s largest parade where over one million people attend, Fox News never showed shots of the dignitaries, union members, floats, dancers, stilt walkers or trucks.  In fact, there was a party of Christians walking through the crowd asking people did they want to pray. The Brooklyn Catholic Archdiocese drove a truck down Eastern Parkway. It was an event attended by people of various ethnicities, nationalities and personal interests.  In fact, restaurateur Kathy Ewa set up one classy vending booth offering jumbo shrimp cocktail and bourbon chicken over rice pilaf.  If you watched Fox News at 5, you didn’t see any of this.
No, Fox News, on September 3, 2007 during its 5 PM airing had reporter Robert Malcolm talk about an unidentified 26-year-old black man who was shot in the leg two times. This shooting occurred in front of 935 Eastern Parkway during the latter part of the parade. Rather than the usual on-the-ground shots, the video was done from a helicopter. Why?  The police used effective crowd and traffic control throughout the parade’s duration so the news van could have got to the crime scene.  Fox 5’s Robert Malcolm did his report away from the shooting site.
Interestingly, no one was arrested. There were police officers along the Parkway and posted two blocks away from each intersection between Grand Army Plaza and Utica Avenue.  To add to the sensationalism, Robert Malcolm, during his last of five reports on the shooting, said it was a “double shooting”, excused himself and said, “one shooting involving two shots.”
Then Fox repeatedly showed a 10-second shot of men being jostled. It appeared that they were swinging at one another as if someone was walking through the crowd creating a disturbance. Once the disturbance moved along, the same crowd went back to dancing on the sidewalk. Just what is Fox News trying to depict? That a body of 1 million or more people can’t behave themselves? Is it too easy to believe that there must be a shooting when people of color come together?
A flick of the TV remote to Channel 11 revealed the festive side of the event. The preview of the 10 o’clock news highlighted on-the-ground shots of gaily costumed dancers and stiltwalkers moving down Eastern Parkway.  What’s a parade without colorful costumes, music and smiling street performers?  Can you imagine millions of people coming out to Eastern Parkway to a known violent event year after year?  Apparently, NY 1 can’t believe it because they had Josh Robinson posted at the corner of Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway to do an on-the-ground report.  Robinson explained the origins of the carnival going back to ancient Egypt.  Robinson said, “In this incarnation, the carnival celebrates its 40th Anniversary.”  He urged NY 1 viewers to come down to the event.
The parade is managed by the West Indian American Day Carnival Association.  The parade is the finale to a week of festivities.  To learn more about the parade and the association, visit www.wiadca.org.
Lulu For Self-Publishing
Lulu (www.lulu.com) is the digital marketplace to buy, sell or display your words, your art and your ideas.  Launched in 2002, this Web site is the place to self-publish videos, music, artistic creations and photography.  CEO Bob Young conceived of this site as the means for more people to gain access to the world’s consumer market.  The content generator-writer, artist, photographer-keeps editorial and copyright control.  With users in 80 countries, it is evident that Lulu, 2007 Web 2.0 awards winner in the books category, is turning artistic dreams into reality.
As with most Web sites, online registration is necessary.  There are forums, blogs and a newsletter.  For those interested in publishing their work, the site has service providers to get you through editing, cover art, obtaining the ISBN, translation and promotion.
Daughter of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Iowan Tribal self-published a book of poetry entitled Trials and Tribalations earlier this year.  Lulu offered the kind of features an independent, out-of-the-box thinker like Iowan had to capitalize on.  She explained there was no financial overhead; she stood to get 90% of the revenue; and Lulu would arrange sales not only from this site but also Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s.  Purchasers had the option of a digital download or hard copy version.  Iowan Tribal says, “I’m using lulu.com so that the book can be ordered easily on the Internet no matter what state or country the request comes from.”
akosua@plans4success.com

By  Stanley Kinard

Condolences go out to the family of Mr. Arnell Lacy, a longtime resident of McDonough Street.  At his funeral, I met Ms. Virginia Hawkins, who I was amazed to find out is 99 years old.  I indeed felt blessed when she informed me that she reads my column on a regular basis.  Oh what a blessing to see an elder in good health and sound mind.  There is so much that we can learn from our elders and what some people call senior citizens.  They have a wealth of knowledge and experience that we don’t utilize.  In developing a new pedagogy for teaching kids, senior citizens must play a role in the education of our children.  Years back, there was more emphasis of intergenerational education and we need to bring these programs back into our school system.
Residents are urged to come out and vote this Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 for Ms. Diana Johnson for Surrogate Judge.  Ms. Johnson was recently endorsed by Rev. Al Sharpton; Mr. Roger Toussaint, President of the Transit Workers Union, Councilpersons Charles Barron, Al Vann and Letitia James, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and a host of other clergy and elected officials.  Ms. Johnson is also endorsed by The Daily News.  History will be made if Ms. Johnson is elected as the 1st Black ever elected to this position in Brooklyn.  It will set the trend for Charles Barron to become Brooklyn’s 1st Black Borough President in 2009
Great news at Boys and Girls High School is that Mr. Chris Smith, a former student, was recently named Assistant Principal in charge of Performing Arts and Community Affairs.  Mr. Smith, a prot‚g‚ of Frank Mickens, is a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant and has served as a Special Education teacher and coordinator of student activities for the past few years.  Back in the day, he was affectionately called “Little Mick.”  Principal Spencer Holder has made an excellent choice as he moves forward in establishing his leadership at  Boys and Girls High.  We expect to hear about many new initiatives as this very challenging school year develops. We shouldn’t have to pay kids to go to school.  If schools were relevant to students’ cultural experience they would be excited about going to school.  In a recent plan to combat poverty released by Mayor Bloomberg , students and parents can earn up to $5,000 if they do the things as outlined in the plan. Under the plan, students will receive $25-$50 per month for 95% school attendance.  They will receive $600 for every Regent Exam that they pass.   Now that the mayor has realized that his initiatives for school reform have failed, he is doing what he knows best.  That is, to use his money to buy whatever he wants as he bought the election to become Mayor of New York City. 
While there is value to a reward system, I don’t like the approach; however, critics believe that we should wait prior to passing judgment of this program.  Many parents are supportive of the program because they can earn up to $5,000.
The Adelaide Sanford Institute will host a daylong conference Saturday Sept. 22nd at Medgar Evers College.  The conference is titled, “Creating a Culture of Success for Students of African Ancestry.”  This conference is sponsored by The Adelaide L. Sanford Institute an outgrowth of the Brooklyn Education Task Force.  Some of the presenters include Dr. Lester Young, Dr. Frank Mickens, Bernard Gassaway, Dr. Adelaide Sanford and Dr. Edward Joyner.

By Errol Louis

Quiet Revolution
While nobody was looking, black political empowerment in Brooklyn has taken a big step forward in recent years. What used to be considered impossible in Kings County – the election of a black candidate to a borough-wide position – is now routine. In the last five years, no fewer than 10 black judges have won countywide races for Civil Court: Delores Thomas, ShawnDya Simpson, Evelyn LaPorte, Johnny Baynes, Genine Edwards, Sylvia Ash, Jacquelyn Williams, Deena Douglas, Robin Sheares and Carolyn Wade.
It must be pointed out that many of these judges ran with help from Clarence Norman, the former Brooklyn Democratic boss who was recently convicted of larceny and other crimes and is currently incarcerated. When he first took over the Kings County machine, Norman promised supporters he would create more diversity on the bench – a promise he kept despite his many other mistakes.
* * *
Counting on Progress
According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), blacks only comprise 3% of all CPAs and make up less than 1% of partners in accounting firms – and those numbers have remained constant for nearly two decades. To change this, the 100,000-member National Association of Black Accountants, Inc. (NABA) and the Howard University School of Business Center for Accounting Education (HUCAE) have launched a program called CPA Bound, an initiative to address the barriers to certification, including misperceptions about the level of preparation needed to become certified.
NABA has convened summits on the topic and is preparing a study that will include recommendations on how educators and professionals can increase the number of black CPAs nationwide. For additional information about the initiative, visit www.nabainc.org.
* * *
The Struggle for Safety
There are signs everywhere that violent crime is increasing in Bedford- Stuyvesant. So far this year, murders have jumped in the precincts that cover the neighborhood: Killings are up 18% in the 79th Precinct and up 22% in the 81st compared with last year.
But there has been a curious apathy on the part of NYPD commanders when it comes to battling this wave of violence.
Exhibit A is the main walkway in the middle of the Tompkins Houses public housing project. The Bloods gang has taken over the complex so completely that for months – a full year, according to some residents – ominous words were spray-painted all over the main walkway of Tompkins in big red letters: WELCOME TO DEATH ROW.
The walkway runs two blocks and has cast-iron fences on both sides. Once you’re on it, there are few places to run. Criminals have found it an ideal spot for ambushes.
There could be no mistaking what the red spray paint meant. Each message was tagged with the nickname Teflon.
In one place, there’s one red arrow pointing to DEATH ROW and another pointing to MEMORY LANE, festooned with half a dozen initials of the dead. There’s even a no-trespass sign painted across the street on the walkway of the adjacent Sumner Houses: a red arrow, the label TOMPKINS and the warning DON’T SLIP.
For reasons best known to themselves, the Housing Authority and the NYPD left this murder manifesto undisturbed, in full view of the complex’s 3,300 residents until I wrote a Daily News column about it. It’s hard to imagine a better way to let people know they are completely outside the concern or the protection of the city, hostages at the mercy of murderous thugs.
As we’ve heard ad nauseam since the early 1990s, the NYPD’s vaunted “broken windows” approach to crime-fighting depends on stopping little infractions to show crooks that somebody cares about the area and will fight to protect it.
You’d think that bright red gang graffiti in foot-high letters would qualify. It seems the cops – and officials of the Housing Authority, the landlord – either passed by the DEATH ROW markings every day and ignored them, or quit patrolling the area at all.
Fortunately, a few exasperated Bed-Stuy leaders took matters into their own hands, covering the gang markings with black spray paint. The minute they began spraying, residents ran over to thank them and point out other spots to cover.
The move was the brainchild of activist Taharka Robinson, founder of the Central Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, who rounded up a few retired cops – including state Sen. Eric Adams and Mark Claxton of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement – and a couple of ministers, the Revs. Leonard Hatter and Damon Cabbagestalk.
The bravest member of the group was my neighbor Frances Davis, whose three sons were murdered in the complex between 1987 and 1993.
“This was my second home. I got married in the community center,” she said. “It broke my heart when I saw those words on the ground.”
The words are gone – for now. It’s up to everyone – the cops, the community, the Housing Authority – to keep them gone, and to join in the fight to save Bed-Stuy from the violent criminals who prey on it.

By Lydell Lettsome, MD

When you think of a mission to help those less fortunate in other countries, you may have preconceived misconceptions about what they entail.  Especially when you watch infomercials that typically give a sense that missions are almost always organized by white Christians traveling far and wide to spread the gospel to poor peoples around the world. However, this “Bread & Bible” concept is often no longer the case.
One of the most rewarding experiences outside of my practice as a General Surgeon has been my involvement in the Dorcas Medical Mission.  For the past 3 years, I have volunteered with the team to provide free medical and surgical care to impoverished communities in St. Lucia, Dominica, Ghana and West Africa.
In the Bible, within the Book of Acts, “Dorcas” is understood as a missionary who gave what she had to those in need.  Founded by Mrs. Lorna Mullings, wife of Dr. Sidley Mullings, Bishop of Rugby Deliverance Tabernacle in Brooklyn, New York, the Dorcas Medical Mission has set out to emulate the good work and charitable deeds of that biblical missionary for the past 7 years. 
On average, it can cost between $3,200-$5,000 to send a doctor to the Caribbean or Africa for a week. However, through public and private donations of medication and supplies, the Dorcas Medical Mission is able to fund medical missions to places and peoples that are truly in need. All care and medications are dispensed completely free of charge without any requirement of religious participation.  Each doctor or volunteer also pays up to half of their own expenses for each mission.
An individual mission consists of 80-100 members including doctors, nurses, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists and missionaries, and can last from a week to 10 days.  Private free clinics are set up in rural parts of each country offering free health care and in Caribbean countries, free food and clothing is even distributed.  In a week’s time, 3500-4000 people can receive health care on a Caribbean mission.  On an African Mission, 6000-8000 patients can receive care. 
Over the past two years, Dorcas Medical Mission launched a surgical division where we successfully performed over 150 procedures abroad; including hysterectomies, thyroidectomies, inguinal and venereal hernia repairs, as well as minor procedures such as lipoma removals and breast biopsies.
Dorcas has also improved the lives of our brothers and sisters abroad in other notable ways.  The mission received the Arise and Walk Ministries’ International Missions Award in 2004 and, in 2005, received an award from the government and people of St Lucia for meritorious service.  Last year; the mission sponsored the building of a well in a village outside of Accra, Ghana. In the fall of 2005, a response team was dispatched to areas of the Gulf Coast that were stricken by Hurricane Katrina.
Most recently, the Mullings Ministries Charitable Corporation has bought land and buildings in South Africa that they are hoping to turn into an orphanage in the near future, and in Spring 2008, we look toward the next mission in Guyana and Ghana, West Africa.  It has truly been both an honor and a privilege to serve our global community and if you would like more information on how you can help support the Dorcas Medical Mission, please contact me at drlettsome@gmail.com.
Donations may be written to Mullings Ministries Charitable Corp. 4901 Snyder Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11203.  For further information call (718) 342-5720 or e-mail dorcasmission@aol.com.
Board-Certified Dr. Lettsome is the Director of General Surgery for Lexington Plastic Surgeons and the Director for the Breast Health Clinic at Interfaith Medical Center.  E-mail: drlettsome@gmail.com

“We are living in  great irony now” is how Provident Clinical Society President Dr. Dexter McKenzie described the similarity between the health care disparities in the era the Society was founded (in 1905) and the current health system in Brooklyn which he terms “broken” and health policies that are “ill-advised.”
An illustration of the interrelatedness of health issues Dr. McKenzie gave was the 14% increase in malpractice premiums this year forcing obstetricians in Brooklyn to pay upwards of $175,000 for malpractice premiums.  “How is that sustainable,” McKenzie asks, “when in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, where a delivery is on the order of $900, when that obstetrician has to deliver about 190 babies just to meet the malpractice premium?”  And this is in addition to the regular expenses of running a business and beyond that, trying to earn a living.
McKenzie says the result is that doctors are opting out of delivering babies.   “At a Borough Hall hearing called by the Society, Dr. Ing fromthe Medical Society of the State of New York said that there are between five and seven zip codes in Brooklyn where there is no full time practicing obstetrician, and most of those zip codes were in the central part of Brooklyn where the resources are scarcest and the need is greatest.” 
It is facts like these that convince Dr. McKenzie that “what we’ve been doing is not working,” and that doctors “cannot just continue to see patients behind closed doors, write prescriptions and assume that all will be well.” 
We followed up after the meeting and asked Dr. McKenzie about his analysis and prescription for the health care system.
OTP: It seems that medical decisions for folks in Bedford-Stuyvesant are made in committee rooms in Albany and Washington.   You’ve spoken of the formation of a United Doctors Political Action Committee.  Do you see this as the best way to influence the political agenda?
Dr. Dexter McKenzie: Firstly, you’re absolutely correct.  The decisions about how physicians practice and what tools we can utilize and what resources we have at our disposal are generally made as part of a political process that physicians are oftentimes divorced from.  When the physicians are divorced from medical policy, then the public is even more divorced. 
We look at our role as being the legitimate advocates for our patients and that physicians must now adopt a new posture and become vocal and involved in the health care process.  The United Doctors Political Action Committee will have at its active central core health care professionals.  But our intentions is to open the process for the involvement of the citizen in the political action committee so that we can have, in a methodical way,  community-level discussions about health policy and keep the public abreast of these issues and begin to affect the political process at the local level. 
OTP: You’ve spoken about the conditions for African-Americans in 1905 which prompted the creation of the Society and yet in looking at pictures of that period, everything seems to be quite nice.  These images don’t tell the other story. 
Dr. M: It was very difficult for black Brooklyn in those early years.  The mortality around the time of the creation of the Provident Clinical Society was dismal. It was 86% higher than for whites.  The black physicians at the time were hampered from addressing this issue in any effective way because of the larger social issues of segregation and racism.  Physicians in Brooklyn were not allowed to admit patients into the public hospitals.  That went on until 1927.
Provident Clinical Society commissioned a historical work by scholar Irma Watkins-Owens, An Introduction to the History of Black Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists in Brooklyn from 1850-1985 which included a compilation of Provident Society members from 1905-1985.  She brought into light that era before the Provident Clinical Society in the 1880’s.  In the book she speaks of recorded accounts of black physicians performing surgery on kitchen tabletops.
Provident and its founders realized, even at that early juncture, that the medical problems they were contending with were really the end result of larger social issues and nothing has really changed since that time. And outside of those genetic forces that determine disease, most of what physicians are contending with, even now in 2007, are as a result of social policies.  Those areas of our cities where infant mortality is the highest, it’s where people are the poorest and it’s where African-Americans live predominantly.  Those are the same areas where you’ll find an excess of disease, an excess of unemployment, an excess of early loss of life and an excess of a lack of political power.  That all culminates into disease.  These statistics are well-known.  The maps of poverty, disease, unemployment, lack of insurance, they all coincide.  So it feels a bit futile as a physician to deal with the ends of these issues from day-to-day without involvement in the root cause. 
OTP:  It seems like we’re seeing the same problems now as in 1905.  What can be done differently to get some different outcomes?
Dr. M: There are those who would argue that there are striking similarities between 1905 and 2007.  And I would agree that we have made advancement in terms of technology in medicine and we have more pharmaceuticals than at anytime in history and yet at the same time, over the last thirty years, the incidence of diabetes has risen consistently over the last three decades.  There is more hypertension than ever, more obesity than ever.  So there is a paradox that is occurring. We’re making advances but not all of our citizens are benefiting from those advances and in some cases segments of our society have made retrograde steps.  We have a dismal situation in the education sector where less than 50% of our high school students are graduating and we know that there is a link between education, poverty and health insurance; we know that 75% of those with health insurance get it through their employer.  So if you are unemployed, but not destitute, meaning you don’t qualify for government programs, then you will be without health insurance.  Or you may be underinsured.  The result of this is the disparate appearance of disease.  We know that these kids who are not finishing high school are going into the prison system.  82% of the prison population of New York State are Black and Latino young men and women.   Despite the advancements made since 1905 we are not totally better off, and in some ways we are worse off.
OTP:  Looking at your associations,  Chairman for the Brooklyn NAACP Health Committee,  Chairman for the National Black leadership commission on AIDS, part of the Executive Committee for Black Brooklyn Empowerment, Assistant Professor of Medicine at SUNY-Downstate as well a President of the Provident Clinical Society,  what are the results of those cross-pollinations, how does that work to help you fulfill your mission and what is your mission?
Dr. M:  It may sound a bit contrived, but it is really about service to my fellow man.  I have a deep and abiding, total antipathy for human suffering and that has been a part of my makeup since I was a child.  I never dreamed when I was attending junior high school in Brownsville that fulfilling my dream to mitigate the suffering of those who are most vulnerable that it would take the form of being a physician.  Even after becoming a physician, I realized it’s totally futile to lock yourself in the office and attend to those individuals who come through the door and leave for home and come back to do it again.  I cannot see that as being the end of the road for the fulfillment of any dream or any promise. 
It is indeed true that to those who much is given, much is required.  And I am totally inspired by the character of the founding members of the Provident Clinical Society and the part they played in the social fabric of Brooklyn.  For those early members, their social and community commitment far outweighed any economic gain as a motivation and I’m trying in my feeble way to live up to that same mission and dream.  So my approach is really nothing new.   In fact a founder of the Clinical Society, Dr. Walter Beekman, was very active socially and was a co-convener and co-organizer of the Brooklyn NAACP with W.E.B. Du Bois.  They had the inaugural meeting of the organization at the Concord Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, so Beekman was very much there in the creation of the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP and I think it is only appropriate that Provident is once again playing a role in this very important organization. As physicians, we have to move out into the community, hold meetings and educate the public, not only on diabetes and hypertension, but to educate the public in terms of the political process and health care.  When we do that, I think we will again have the respect of the public like the founding members had.
OTP: Is part of that process the presentation  the Society is doing at the Adelaide Sanford Institute at Medgar Evers College? 
Dr. M: Yes it is.  The Adelaide Sanford Institute is the brainchild of Dr. Lester Young Jr. and Dean Richard Jones of Medgar Evers College and it represents the health cluster of the Black Brooklyn Empowerment Coalition.  Their talking about a new approach to educating our children based on well thought out techniques and a comprehensive approach to education, drawing upon the success of programs currently at work in various parts of the city. The PCS is bringing some ideas into that paradigm and giving insights into the determinants of cognitive development of children and the child’s capacity for learning.  There are health determinants of intelligence and aptitude that have to do with what happens to the child while in gestation.  There are choices the woman makes such as smoking, alcohol, drug use, poor nutrition, not getting proper pre-natal care, which culminate in pre-term delivery, having lifelong limitations in terms of academic achievement. 
Having said that, it is unthinkable that we can have five zip codes with no fulltime practicing OBGYN physicians.  It is deplorable, abominable and unspeakable that should not be a reality in this time.  It is because of our lack of involvement in the political process and I believe the medical community has the responsibility to protect the welfare of the most vulnerable citizens of Brooklyn, by being more than doctors.  We re supposed to be well-educated and we’re standing on the shoulders of people who have gone before, people whose names we don’t know.  People who probably never had the opportunity to go to college, but fought for the liberties we have as physicians.  That’s a debt and we have to repay that.  We have to be more than the proverbial definition of the doctor.  We have to demonstrate our commitment by assuring the empowerment and giving the community a voice.
OTP:  We were very impressed by your two Christians at the meeting, Christian Bijoux, the premed student on your board and Christian  Paylor-Smith, who has just graduated from Midwood High School.  What aboutyour mentoring program?
Dr. M:  A few years ago, we initiated a mentoring program was to not just to engage the children in motivational speech and disappear, but to be present in their lives throughout.  At the end, have them take on mentees so that it is a sustained process.  What we are doing in this next phase is developing a science academy, a virtual academy for math and science enrichment for children who are interested in the scientific sphere.   We structure it in such a way that it augments their regular scholastic responsibilities.  We understand that children learn in a particular way.  They are involved in experiments and some are publishable.  We have them in our offices. We take them to the university.  They get to do hands-on work.  The children, they bloom, they flourish, and these are two examples of many that do exist.  We are now expanding the program down to the 7th grade.  David Ruggles School 258 will be one of the schools we will be bringing onboard.  I saw wonderful talent at their last science fair.  Sometimes it’s important that the community knows that there are people out there who care deeply and are working every day to make things better.