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IE Groups Criticize Report |
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Thursday, 15 March 2007 |
RIVERSIDE
By Marti Taylor
A travesty. Misleading. Insulting. Lies.
 That is how guest speakers described the legislative report,
The State of Black California 2007, at a scholar's forum last Wednesday at the
Chavez Community Center/Bobby Bonds Park in Riverside.
The purpose of the grassroots meeting, sponsored by the Riverside branch of the NAACP and the DuBois Institute,
was to review the 48-page document commissioned by the California Legislative
Black Caucus and released in January. The report covered topics ranging from
economics to housing as it relates to Blacks throughout the state after a
year-long study.
But the focus of last week's forum was mainly on information
in the report discussing the health issues of Blacks in the San
Bernardino and Riverside
counties. The handful of black professionals from the local medical community
invited to speak on the matter all agreed the findings in the report were
fallacious.
About 30 individuals, a third of them NAACP members,
listened as Dr. Diane Woods, assistant professor of research, School of Public Health
at Loma Linda
University, explained how some data in
the report was skewed because it compared those two counties to metropolitan
cities such as Los Angeles and Oakland where there is a higher concentration
of Blacks.
"San Bernardino
is the largest county in the nation and we're in a critical emergency state.
This report implies the Inland Empire is doing
alright," said Dr. Woods, whose done research in health disparities between
Blacks and other races. "You have to know how to properly interpret the data."
She gave examples of how the report is flawed and "masks the
outcome" by not supplying thorough information when it came to topics such as
Heart Disease and the mortality rate among Blacks in the Inland Empire.
"Why didn't they put in the ages?" she asked. "It simply
states that Black males die younger. If it said that the average age of death
for Black males (in the Inland Empire) is 56
as opposed to the state average of 72 then people might say, ‘Wow! We're
talking a 25-year span and its getting worse."
Surgeon Dr. A.J. Rodgers, president of the James Wesley Vines
Medical Society, expressed his disappointment with the Black Caucus for
presenting the document to legislators and the public. The report can be found
online.
"The people who wrote this know it's wrong. And if they
didn‘t know, then they should have known," he said.
"I look through and see the smiling faces (pictured in the
report) and wonder what are they smiling about? That their sons are going to
get shot? That their fathers are going to die of prostate cancer?" Dr. Rodgers
said.
Guest speakers said the report's inaccuracies would result
in a lack of government funding to tackle health issues affecting the Black
communities of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, something Dr. Carolyn Murray, a
psychologist at the University of California, Riverside
and trained researcher, views as a grave disservice.
"This is a dangerous document," said Dr. Murray. "We have a
list of demands based on the needs of our community. We're dying. It's really
about genocide."
Dr. Woods said a written response discussing flaws found in
the report was sent to the Black Caucus.
The nine-member group, which includes Assemblymember Mervyn
M. Dymally (D-Compton), chair of the caucus and the Assembly Health Committee;
Majority Leader Assemblymember Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), caucus vice-chair,
and Assemblymember Amina Carter (D-San Bernardino), member, have been invited
by the Riverside NAACP for a "part two" forum tentatively slated for Monday,
April 16 at the Chavez Community Center/ Bobby Bonds Park.
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