Monday, March 4, 2024

My Thoughts on Cornelius Jones Senseless Murder

 by Kenny Anderson

“Damn another funeral, Lord knows, Lord knows, Lord knows.” – Tupac Skakur
"Working together, we can put an end to this cycle that creates deep pain in the hearts of our mothers, our fathers, and our people, who have lost loved ones to this senseless violence." - Stanley 'Tookie' Williams
As a Black male elder, I can recall back in the day a Black man killing another Black man because of being spat on, but a Black man being murdered by another Black man because he was told not to spit in the sink as in the case of Cornelius Jones tragic death is a descent into extreme lowliness.
My son knew Mr. Jones since elementary, he said ‘Corn’ as he was known was one of the coolest dudes he’s ever met; always just wanted to make jokes and keep people laughing.
Though I did not know Corn his death has touched me; this 33 year-old Yak-Town Black father had so much more to live for and accomplish; so much more to offer his children and community; his life was taken down by a reckless young Black man out here too ‘sensitive’ and ‘vicious’ driven by a twisted sense of being disrespected.
Distorted Sense of Respect and Thin-Skinned an Impetus for Murder
Unfortunately, too many young Black males like Corn’s murderer who felt some kind of way ‘slighted’ being told not to spit in the sink walk around with a simple and twisted retaliation definition of ‘respect’, as John Rich & Courtney Grey state:
“Respect, defined as receiving the deference that one deserves, is a central part of how young urban men make their way through the dangerous world in which they live. Anderson identified respect as a central component of the code of the street whereby urban young Black men protect themselves physically while also safeguarding their fragile personal identities. The code of the street dictates that when someone disrespects you, whether physically, emotionally, or materially, you must respond aggressively to regain your respect.”
Too many young Black males distorted sense of respect coupled with emotional impairment ’too sensitive’ often is a death producing cocktail. Indeed, as a community we have socialized and allowed way too many young Black males to be ‘caught-up in their feelings’, they have ‘emotional dysregulation’, the inability to control or regulate their negative emotional responses.
Being easily slighted and full of negative feelings too many young Black males like the killer of Corn are always in the ‘conflict-creating’ mode, that’s increased by their low frustration tolerance, unable to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations.
These emotional provocative young Black males view conflict-resolution as being a ‘punk’ or ‘sucker’; they don’t believe in resolving conflicts non-violently; they subscribe to conflict-extermination ‘murder’; any encounter with them has the potential to be deadly.
Black-on-Black Male Violence is a Public Health Problem
Since the 1980's, past 4 decades, massive Black-on-Black violence and homicides have been primarily viewed and addressed through the lenses of law enforcement: arresting, trying, sentencing, and incarcerating offenders on the assumption that this will deter future violent acts.
This limited law enforcement approach has failed to curb Black-on-Black male violence and homicides, this violence and homicides rages on; this limited police and legal approach has led to the mass incarceration of Black men.
In contrast, a public health approach to addressing Black-on-Black male violence and homicides is more interested in understanding the causes and determinants of violent behavior.
Violence becomes a public health problem when it has a significant negative impact on the public (communities, neighborhoods). Indeed, violence causes many more injuries than deaths in Black communities. For Black males ages 15-34 their health problems are unintentional injury, suicide, and homicide, not chronic diseases.
Though Black boys and men account for just six percent of the total population, they comprise more than half of all gun homicide victims. The disparities in Black and white homicide rates are particularly stark in large cities and counties.
Research suggests that roughly half of all gun homicides take place in just 127 cities, driving the elevated rates of homicides in these geographies. In the nation’s 20 largest counties, Black men ages 18 to 25 die from gun homicides at a rate nearly 19 times that of white residents.
This disparity means that while five out of every 100,000 young white people in these counties die from gun homicides, more than one in every 10,000 young Black people are killed in such incidents.
According to the National Violent Death Reporting System, violence is preventable; that supportive relationships can decrease violent behaviors and disrupt a 'cycle of violence'; that education on life skills and social-emotional development at an early age can also prevent violence.
Over the years many Black leaders, scholars, health professionals, and violent offenders have stated that what drives Black-on-Black male violence and homicides internally and what needs to be addressed and intervened is self-hatred, low-self-esteem, lack of self-worth, disrespect, and distrust.
During my over 40 years as a Black community leader and over 30 years as a social worker now retired, I committed my efforts to saving Black men and boys both professionally and in the community as a top priority.
As a Black male development specialist, I recommend to this generation of Black male mentors like Maurice Mahone ‘Coach Dollar’ and ‘Max Maine’ when engaging Black boys and young adults to stress the basic 5Rs:
*RationalityThinking before acting
*Respect Value self and others
*ResponsibilityBeing accountable
*ResiliencePositively responding to setbacks
*Righteousness Choosing the ‘right’ way
To the rest of the Black community (parents, grandparents, pastors, teachers, coaches, etc.) when engaging Black boys and young adults develop in them:
*Respect Clarificationthat a sense of respect is beyond a low-level ‘get back’ of feeling slighted. That a higher sense of respect is listening to others thoughts and feelings even if you don't necessarily agree with them; valuing and giving them the same consideration you would expect for yourself.
*Emotional Management - is the ability to be aware of the range of your emotions both positive and negative and to deal constructively with those emotions in different situations; helps you manage situations that make you feel angry or sad, and better understand your emotions.
*Conflict-Resolution Skills - the ability to seek compromise and avoid aggressiveness and violence; to at least say ‘my bad’ when you’re wrong; a readiness to forgive and forget, and to move past the conflict without holding resentments or anger.

*I give my sincere condolences to Cornelius Jones family!

Saturday, February 24, 2024

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Racial Oppression is Why Black Men Are Missing!

by KenRay SunYaRu

“To a great extent, the personality of the African-American today has been shaped by our desires to escape the memory of the slave experience, to deny its existence. We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to come to terms with it. We don’t want to re-experience it psychologically. And therefore, our lives become defined by eternal escape and avoidance of reality and of history and of knowledge of who we are and how we came to be who and what we are. And consequently, we cannot act upon the reality of our history and we therefore guide our behavior and define ourselves in terms of a fantasy as history, and a misinterpretation of reality.” – Dr. Amos Wilson

Having awareness of Black history through deep study as a Black man, I understand clearly that the force removal of Black men ‘intentional repression and causative premature medical mortalities’ has been and is an integral aspect of America’s institutional racism.
Regarding Black men on slave plantations, historians cite that Black men were constantly sold and relocated ‘removed’ from their families due to their high value. Historians also cite that Black male slaves were removed due to health-related deaths, citing that sixty-two percent of slave deaths occurred in the male population.
Indeed, Black male salve departures due to ‘sales and sicknesses’ left a prevalence of single mothers and children on plantations; male children were also frequently taken from slave mothers. When you look at the mass removal of Black men and boys from their families and communities today it’s no different from the days of our Ancestors enslavement.
Current research shows that in hundreds of predominantly Black neighborhoods in the U.S. there are only about three Black men for every five black women under age 65. This disproportionate gender imbalance reflects factors including mass incarceration and high mortality.
According to figures from the ‘Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Black males are imprisoned in state and federal facilities at six times the rate of white men, and about 25 times that of Black women. Regarding Black male youth ‘children’ research shows they are almost five times as likely as their white male peers to be held in juvenile facilities.
Many Blacks have been led to believe that the single biggest driver behind the absence of many Black men is mass incarceration, but this is not the case at all! According to Nina T. Harawa a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, states that:
“A common, but misleading, narrative about the Black family is that it is broken - fractured by wayward and self-destructive Black men who have gone missing, either dead or in prison. This supposed breakdown of the Black family has been blamed for any number of ills, from high school dropout rates to entrenched poverty. The reality, however, is that while bullets, prison bars, and criminal injustice do pull too many men from the arms of their partners and children, Black men who “follow the rules,” hold a steady job, and advance from young adulthood into middle age will still face systemic threats to their health and wellbeing. Many chronic diseases hit Black men harder, younger, and more frequently than they do other groups. Homicide does not even crack the top eight causes of death for Black men in middle-age, but each year, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and diabetes collectively shave off nearly one and a half years of life for every 100 Black men under the age of 65 - more than twice their toll on White men.”
To Black women, many of you all raise the question where are the Black men at? Many of you all say they are in prison – dating or marrying white women. No! The main reason Black men are missing is because they are in the ‘cemetery’ due to dying prematurely ‘disproportionately’ from chronic diseases.
Studying our history as Black folks shows us clearly from past to present that the removal ‘absence’ of Black men from their families and communities has been due to the pathologies and deadliness of white racist oppression.

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Friday, February 2, 2024

Black Men Are Dying More From Sleep Apnea

*Study finds racial disparities in sleep apnea mortality

By Ellen Goldbaum


A University of Buffalo (UB) study has found that over the past two decades, more Black men have been dying from obstructive sleep apnea than have white people or Black females. Their death from sleep apnea has continued to rise, in contrast to rates that have flattened for white people and Black females.


The study identifies for the first time this significant racial health disparity in mortality resulting from sleep apnea. It was published online in February in Sleep Medicine.

“Despite several epidemiologic studies focusing on the prevalence, risk factors and clinical presentations of sleep apnea, no study, to our knowledge, has evaluated the disparity of sleep apnea-related mortality among different racial groups,” says Yu-Che Lee, first author and a medical resident in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, who sees patients through the Catholic Health System. 

“We therefore brought up an idea to do the research discussing the difference of sleep apnea-related mortality and mortality trends from 1999 to 2019 between Black and white Americans.”

To conduct the study, the researchers examined sleep apnea-related mortality for the years 1999-2019 from the National Center for Health Statistics, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sleep apnea is the most common sleep-related breathing disorder and has been associated with development of systemic hypertension, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and abnormalities in glucose metabolism.

Lee and his colleagues found a steady increase in mortality from the years 1999 to 2008, but then the rates flattened for Black females and for white males and females. That flattening suggests that medical management and public health interventions have helped stabilize outcomes in these groups.

Black males were the only group that saw a continuous increase in mortality from sleep apnea for the 21 years of the study.

Truly Concerning

“Our study showed that Black men were the only demographic group to have a continuous sleep apnea mortality increase in the last 10 years, which is truly concerning,” Lee says.

A combination of factors, including compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, likely contribute to this continuous increase in sleep apnea mortality among Black men, the researchers say.

“The literature suggests that compliance with CPAP is lower in patients who are Black, are of lower socioeconomic class and may have lower health literacy,” says M. Jeffery Mador, associate professor in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School and a study co-author, who sees patients through UBMD Internal Medicine.

“It is extremely likely that deaths occurred because the subjects were untreated or poorly compliant with therapy,” Mador continues. “CPAP therapy is highly effective and very few deaths, if any, would be expected if the subjects were adequately treated, followed and were able to use the therapy.”

He adds that clinicians may have opportunities to help. “We have noticed that there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing CPAP usage in our own patients who display the above factors,” he says.

Another striking finding in the study was what the researchers saw as “remarkable” geographic differences in mortality from sleep apnea. The highest age-adjusted mortality rates were seen in the Midwest for both genders in Black and white people, while the lowest mortality rates were seen among Black males in the West and Black females and white males and females in the Northeast.

Among states, the highest age-adjusted mortality rate from sleep apnea for Black people was recorded in Indiana, while Utah had the highest mortality rate for white people. New York had the lowest mortality rates for Black and white people.

An Underdiagnosed Problem

“Sleep apnea is relatively underdiagnosed in the general population, but this problem may be greater in Black patients,” Mador says.

“Even when diagnosed, successful treatment is lower in Black people than the general population,” he adds. “Untreated sleep apnea is associated with higher levels of hypertension, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, all of which are common in Black patients. Hopefully, increasing awareness and improving efficacy of treatment may lead to better health outcomes in this patient population.”

“This is the first study to demonstrate the disparities of sleep apnea-related mortality and different mortality trends between Black and white Americans,” Lee says. “These findings should give clinicians some insights into the problem to develop more tailored strategies and treatments to reduce racial disparities in outcomes from sleep apnea.”

Monday, January 29, 2024

Black Men Why Do Too Many Of Us Get Turned Against Each Other Through Crime And Violence?

 "Many of us turn to crime, stealing, gambling, prostitution. And some of us are used by the white overlords downtown to push dope in the Negro community among our own people. Unemployment and poverty have forced many of our people into a life of crime. But the real criminal is in the City Hall downtown, in the State House, and in the White House in Washington, D.C. The real criminal is the white liberal, the political hypocrite. And it is these legal crooks who pose as our friends, force us into a life of crime, and then use us to spread the white man’s evil vices in our community among our own people." - Malcolm X

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Black Men Brief Thoughts on Discipline

I've learned that the words discipline, disciple, and discipleship have the same root meaning of being a student or a follower of some belief, philosophy, activity, method, etc.; of learning and ongoing follow-through; being devoted and determined.

I've also learned in life that we all engage in disciplines of different types and they are distinguished by what you prize, want to 'accomplish', and 'outcomes'.

Disciplines have direction 'forward or backward'; disciplines have qualities 'positive or negative'. For example, one person has a criminal discipline, while others have a writing, meditation, or exercising discipline.

Too often as Black men too many of us have socially acquired self-defeating, self-diseasing, and self-destructive disciplines. Too many Black men have a socialized 'oppression-maintaining' daily discipline of just gossiping, consuming, flossing, fronting, and entertaining; no discipline at all towards Black unity, healing, and self-determination.

Moreover, I've learned that one's discipline is driven by what one 'values'. We have to assess our disciplines: raising the questions are they truly 'important', beneficial, righteous, lasting, progressive, and worth the costs 'consequences'?

Yes, we have to keep in mind the relativity of disciplines and that they may require 'demand' change for new or added disciplines.

Black Men Let Us Stop Faking and Half-Baking

Black men too often we become 'fake artists' and 'busy body's' to ourselves, we believe saying something and engaging in insignificant things automatically means we really did something, thus too often we do a lot of talking and superficial actions not accomplishing much at all.

Action faking is the practice of confusing being busy with making actual progress towards an intended goal and often involves a lot of over-analyzing, planning, and stunting 'posturing', but very little meaningful and consistent actions.

Action faking involves participating in tasks that don't actually drive us towards accomplishments. Action faking is making yourself busy without making yourself accountable and productive; it is a self-deceptive form of procrastination. Too often New Year's resolutions become action-faking!