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Lone CBC member votes against historic health care

Critics say it’s a ploy for the once Obama supporter seeking governorship in the South

By Kenya Beverly

Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, who is

attempting to become that state’s first Black governor, was the lone Congressional Black Caucus member who voted against health care reform championed by President Barack Obama, sparking local and national criticism.

“He let us down,” state Rep. Mary Moore, a

Birmingham Democrat, told BlackAmericaWeb. com. “You tell someone, ‘Vote for me, and I will look out for you,’ then they vote for his or her own agenda.”

She and about a dozen people gathered in

front of Davis’ downtown Birmingham office around midnight Saturday.

“We prayed for a miracle. We prayed that

God would change his heart because so many people in this country and in his district are hurting,” Moore said.

Davis says he couldn’t vote for the health

care reform package because it’s too big. “A comprehensive, 2,000-page, near one tril-

lion dollar overhaul of the health care system is just too cumbersome and too costly in a time of trillion dollar deficits,” Davis said last week.

That’s when Moore and several others took

to the streets marching with signs, trying to urge the congressman to change his mind. Voters also were encouraged to call his offic- es.

“It was like he closed the blinds and the

curtains and said, ‘I’m not listening to them,’” Moore said.

“I believe the no vote I cast tonight was the

right one, and a significant number of other Democrats joined me in casting that no vote,” Davis said Sunday night in a statement released after the late-night vote. “Going forward, I hope for the good of our country that this legislation ends up working and that my reservations are proved wrong. I joined many other Americans in hoping that Congress can move past this

Artur Davis

enormously divisive debate and get on with the business of strengthening our economy.”

Davis represents Alabama’s Seventh Con-

gressional District in the center of the state. It includes a region called the Black Belt, which has some of the poorest counties in the South- east and the nation.

A recent national study on county-by-county

health rankings published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that several coun- ties in Davis’ district had high poverty, inad- equate access to primary care doctors and a large numbers of uninsured residents.

Sumter, Hale and Greene counties had less

than half the number of doctors recommended for their size populations, and 13 percent to 16 percent of the residents were uninsured, the survey showed.

“It’s not just the people in the Black Belt

who are need of health care insurance; we’ve got people right here in Birmingham who don’t earn a living wage that allows them to buy in- surance,” Moore said. Part of Birmingham also is in Davis’ district.

“Tom Joyner Morning Show” commentator

Roland Martin spoke about Davis in a recent “Call Them Out” segment on his TV One show, “Washington Watch,” and questioned the con-

gressman’s position that the bill is too big. “He should have told President Obama. He’s

been one of his biggest supporters. He cam- paigned across the country with him,” Martin said. “He was elected to represent people from his district in Congress, not a future position he may or may not get.”

Davis served as the president’s Alabama

chairman and was one of the first to endorse him when he announced plans to run.

Now Davis is in a race for the Democratic

nomination for governor. He has a war chest of more than $2 million leading up a June contest with Ron Sparks, the state commissioner of agriculture. Sparks is White and has garnered key endorsements from people such as former Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington Jr.

Angela K. Lewis, a political scientist at the

University of Alabama at Birmingham, said Davis’ position and subsequent vote on health care reform is causing some in his district to change their minds about supporting him for governor.

“People in his district are saying he threw

them under the bus,” Lewis said. Blacks make up about 25 percent of Al-

abama’s population. Most traditionally vote Democratic, but a majority in the state sup- ported Sen. John McCain in the presidential election. The current governor, Bob Riley, is a Republican, and the Republican primary is at- tracting a lot of attention in the state.

Moore said no callers were supportive of

Davis on her Monday night talk show. And Chris Coleman, a drive-time radio talk show host, said several callers on Monday were criti- cal of Davis.

“Black people in America have a love affair

with President Obama. Even if they get angry with him on one day, the next day, they’ll be okay,” Coleman told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “They want to know why Davis did this.”

The state of Black America 2010: Responding to the jobs crisis

By Marc H. Morial

This week, the National Urban League releas-

es the 34th edition of the State of Black Ameri- ca, our annual assessment of the economic and social progress, or lack thereof, within the Afri- can-American community. The highlight of the 2010 report is our yearly Equality Index, mea- suring the status of African Americans, and for the first time, Hispanics, relative to Whites in five key areas: economics, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement. While this year’s report appropriately focuses on the job crisis that has been especially devastating to communities of color, I want to first take a few moments to applaud the passage of the most important health care legislation since the cre- ation of Medicare in 1965.

Because of Sunday’s historic “yes’’ vote in

the House of Representatives, 32 million Amer- icans will be added to the ranks of those who will finally have the protection and dignity af- forded by health insurance. That includes 1 in 5 African Americans, 1 in 3 Hispanics and 1 in 10 Whites who don’t have health insurance today.

But health care reform cannot be viewed in

a vacuum. Most Americans will continue to get their health insurance at work and with 15 mil- lion people unemployed, African-American un- employment at 15.8 percent and the Hispanic jobless rate at 12.4 percent, tackling the jobs crisis requires as much focus, commitment and courage as health care reform. That is why we have made it the cover story of this year’s State of Black America.

The 2010 Equality Index comparing the eco-

nomic status of Blacks and Whites is consider- ably lower at 57.4 percent.

This reflects an unemployment rate for

Blacks that is double that for Whites, a widen- ing of the median household income gap, and the sobering facts that less than half of African- American families own a home compared to three quarters of white families and that Blacks and Hispanics are more than three times as likely as whites to live below the poverty line.

Our 2010 report reiterates our call for more

attention to the deepening unemployment crisis in urban America, the centerpiece of which is our six point plan for Putting Americans Back to Work. Our plan proposes targeted invest- ments now for direct job creation, job training for the chronically unemployed, greater access to credit for small businesses, additional coun- seling relief for those caught in the backlog of the foreclosure process, and tax incentives for clean energy companies who employ individu- als in the targeted communities.

We are taking that message directly to Capi-

tol Hill this week during our annual Legislative Policy Conference.

Now that historic health care reform legisla-

Marc Morial

This year’s overall Equality Index for the Black- White comparison stands at 71.8 percent, com- pared to the revised 2009 index of 71.2 per-

cent. The overall Hispanic Equality Index calculates at 75.5 percent.

tion has finally passed, it is time to turn our full attention to the health of our economy and jobs, jobs, jobs. To order a copy of the 2010 State of Black America, go to our website at www.nul.org. And remember to take the “I Am Empowered pledge at www.iamempowered. com.

Marc Morial is president and CEO of the Na- tional Urban League.

Controversial book on snitching

Detroit’s Black community is confronted

with a unique dilemma, says Kwasi Akwamu. Taking his cue from an old proverb, he says if we continue to do what we’ve been doing over the past two decades then we’re going to get more of what we’ve been getting: more reces- sion and repression.

The author of a new book, “Stop Snitching:

Does It Really Reduce Crime in the Black Com- munity?” Akwamu expresses his concern for crime. He is against it. He argues, however, that it is here to stay and only threatens to worsen if the Black community doesn’t take responsibil- ity for its own destiny.

“We rarely turn the magnifying glass back

on ourselves,” Akwamu shares in an interview with the Michigan Chronicle. “The reason is it’s easier to scapegoat someone else for our problems. There is a lot of blame to go around, but there is also responsibility. And when do we decide to shoulder the burden for the qual- ity of life in our community?”

In his book, Akwamu says that the state of

the economy in the Black community is the driving force behind most crime that occurs. However, he insists that the blame that is often heaped upon young Black males, who have, in many cases, internalized a popular thug cul- ture, is totally misdirected.

“We cannot deny the self-destructive behav-

ior of our young people,” he says, “but we must understand how we, as a community, reached this point. It isn’t the mayor or city council’s fault if we live in broken communities that abandon our youth to raise themselves. They don’t live there. We do.”

Fighting Crime

Crime is an unfortunate but inescapable re-

ality. While police assert that many crimes go unresolved due to a lack of cooperation from the community, Akwamu says that’s only par-

tially true. “People do cooperate

with police,” he maintains. “Have you ever had to visit the courts to pay a traf- fic ticket or serve on jury duty? On any day of the week there are long lines wrapped around the build- ing due to courtrooms overcrowded with criminal defendants.”

“The crime isn’t resolved

because the root cause of crime hasn’t been re- solved.”

Akwamu says his book

uses the controversial issue of snitching as a springboard for a more im- portant discussion of grow- ing meaningful unity in the Black community. However, he is unwavering when he says snitching does more harm than good. He says consider the criminals who serve as police informants; they exploit their roles to commit crimes with official authority.

Or, how about the ex-

cessively high numbers of wrongful convictions based on informant testimony? He references one study led by the Northwestern University School of Law where of 111 death row in- mates exonerated of guilt by 2005 nearly half were wrongfully convicted on

the questionable testimony of snitches. Finally, snitching also “has a downside,”

Akwamu writes, “that threatens to unravel what little trust that still exist among Black people and promises to undermine any possibility for discovering real solutions to reducing crime in the Black community.”

The Mission

With co-owner Yusef Shakur, another author

whose book “The Window 2 My Soul” earned much praise and recognition for its brutal but honest examination of his life as a former gang leader, Akwamu operates the Urban Network book store. From there, he says, they cham- pion a campaign they hope to take citywide.

“Our slogan is restoring the neighbor back

to the ’hood,” he says. “You see, we don’t have too many neighborhoods anymore. All we have now is the ’hood, and for good reason. There aren’t any neighbors around. Everyone is minding their own business and keeping to themselves. They only social interaction exists among the youth, who often run in gangs or cliques.”

Both authors ultimately aim to push for

stronger, healthier neighborhoods. This, says Akwamu, requires community members to step out of their comfort zones and begin the process of being not only good neighbors but “our brother’s and sister’s keeper.”

Akwamu maintains that his book doesn’t

take a hard line on whether one should “snitch or not snitch.” Not every situation is the same, he says. He is, however, unequivocal in his po- sition that snitching as a social policy or cul- tural norm is a great liability. He nevertheless makes it clear that, “More than to reject snitch- ing in the Black community, my objective with this book is to advocate a type of activism that can truly combat crime.”

March 31-April 6, 2010

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