Columbia, MD

“There are literally hundreds of thousands of apps on the market today, so I was very surprised to find ‘no results’ when I searched the App Store for African American and Black health apps, especially when there are so many issues that impact us disproportionately,” says A. Maria Hester, M.D., principal of Savvier Health, LLC.

She goes on to say, “I have seen far too many people suffer needlessly and die prematurely. It’s simply heartbreaking. I couldn’t rest knowing how many patients and their families were devastated by treatable, sometimes preventable diseases, so while still in medical school, over 20 years ago, I got busy writing my first book, Bridging the Gaps: An African American Guide to Health and Self-Empowerment, and I have been trying to empower people ever since.”

Common medical conditions, and their toll on the black community, are the key focus of this app. Topics are presented in a concise, easy-to-understand format, and include a list of risk factors – many of which can be modified – an action plan to stay well, and helpful links so users can gain more in-depth knowledge.

Since complete health also requires spiritual and emotional well-being, Dr. Hester included sections to enlighten and motivate users to live less stressful, more spirit-filled lives.

On a lighter note, Express is a unique greeting card app chock-full of electronic cards featuring African American photos, art, and poetry by the late Gerdine Newsome. Cards run the gamut from simple birthday greetings to thought provoking poems. Users can even send friends and loved ones reminders to see the doctor or get a mammogram.

Both apps allow users to record and e-mail voice memos and text notes directly from the app.

For more details about the Total Health for African American Christians and Express apps, visit www.savvierhealth.net/apps.html
PRESS CONTACT:
Maria Hester, M.D.
Hester@Savvierhealth.net
443-414-8182

During this session, Altuawn Nelson interviews Stackz and Patrick “Fat Pat” Bryant about street life. Altuawn also shares his opinions about certain issues relating to statements that are made. Topics that are spoken about in this video are issues that are faced while living a lower-class street life, rap influences, poverty, lack of fatherhood in lower-class communities, gangs, conformity, trends, the importance of education, goal setting, governmental systems, prosperity for African Americans, drugs, guns, prison, and choices and consequences.

For more information about From Nothing to Something Speaking, Altuawn Nelson can be found at one of the following:

E Mail: fn.twos@yahoo.com
Twitter: Altuawn1
Facebook: Altuawn Nelson

October is Bullying Prevention Month; the increase of bullying in schools, communities, neighborhoods, and even churches has continued to show how bullying is affecting lives. The growing awareness across the country even in political circles creates a mindset that Bullying is a violation of Human Rights to those being threatened, harassed and violated with words and actions, threats and intimidation. The United Nations Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states ”Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.” These works concerning Human Rights originated from the atrocities of both World Wars. It cannot be stated that bullying is not a serious action when young people have committed suicide or murder as the results of unwanted actions of others.

The denial of universal rights of safety and freedom from persecution for any reason is a violation of a person’s rights. Bullying has received noticeable attention through the unfortunate deaths of bright, talented, and intelligent young people. Young people so full of life, the spark of living glowing with the potential to bring love, happiness and hope into this world, but that spark was extinguished by the actions of others through continuous, unrelenting, intentional, and demoralizing acts of bullying and even growing cyberbullying.

Teaching over 20years in public and higher education I have conducted presentations on bullying to young people, to develop in them an understanding the seriousness of the demoralizing actions that have caused fear, anguish, mental and emotional damage that physical damage can never compare to. There seems to be a disconnection in the reality of what bullying actually does and how it has long term effects on the victim and perpetrator. Children starting from 3 years of age have the potential to bully, learned from either modeled behaviors or executing them on their own displaying power over another individual. Usually children at this early age perform these actions to get what they want from other children and learn this behavior which continues unless intervention strategies are imposed to change these behaviors.

The White House holding a conference on bullying, in 2010, Mrs. Obama’s speech directly related to her focus that everyone involved with children has a responsibility to be involved and accountable when
working with children To teach appropriate behaviors and involved in schools, communities and churches; prevention and education is the key to change the mindset of bullying. Mrs. Obama made a sincere plea for parents to model appropriate and accountable behaviors; parents (adults) are children’s
primary mentors, role models and teachers. There is a dire need for parents to be more engaged with their children to talk to children and consider as parents their own behaviors. Parent sets the example on how their children act, if a parent accepts a bullying or violent behavior, the child will continue to display and accelerate these behaviors.
I can relate to what President Obama said about kids being bullied at school, I have witnessed bullying
in the elementary environment even though studies show that bullying is more prevalent in Middle School
environments, but there is a transition from Elementary to Middle School. Data shows the seriousness is evident in studies by the Department of Education (1999); American children eight to 15 years of age rate bullying as a greater problem than racism or pressure to have sex or use alcohol and other drugs.

During a presentation (I Will Survive Bullying) myself and Cheryl Williams, LPN conducted at the Boys and Girls Club Keystone Leadership Conference (Orlando, Florida, March 2011) youth from across the country shared their fears, apprehensions and their distress on attending school because of the threat of bullying. These youth reflections demonstrate and give a testimony that students cut school, do not eat lunch, do not ride the school bus, carry weapons or are fearful of walking home because of bullying. Even President Obama has stated that; “We cannot turn a blind eye to bullying any longer.

Children are taking their lives or taking the lives of others.” The National Threat Assessment Center found that the attackers
in more than two thirds of school shootings, stabbings and violence felt “persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others,” and that revenge was an underlying motive (American Medical Association 2004).Cheryl Williams (LPN), states that the underlying stress and anxiety from bullying lasts a life time. It can lead to personality disorders, emotional instability, drug/substance abuse, unhealthy dietary changes and to the extreme suicidal thoughts and actions.

The definition of bullying centers around; a person repeatedly, and over time, exposed to negative
comments or actions by another person or group. These negative actions can cause injury
(physical violence) or emotional discomfort to another person (name calling, spreading rumors) and mental distress (low self-esteem, demoralization, suicidal thoughts); Virtualmedicalcentre.com 2009.
Human Rights are “the rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled.” The universal concepts that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity, rights, happiness. Humans are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood) Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
The United States of America is a model for the world, the statement that, “We hold these truths that all
men are created equal, endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
(United States Declaration of Independence). Parents must model appropriate behavior, set high
expectations of moral and ethical character. Bullying is a violation of Human Rights and must be stopped with education, compassion, empathy and love.

William Jackson, M.Ed.
Jacksonw@duvalschools.org

http://about.me.williamdjackson

Cheryl Williams (LPN) is available as a medical professional to talk at conferences for youth, teens, tweens, girls and young women on bullying and personal health matters. Ms. Williams has been a medical professional for over 20 years.

Cyberbullying A Domestic Threat

Colorism At HBCUs

By William Jackson, M.Ed.

“I leave you racial dignity. I want Negroes to maintain their human dignity at all costs.”
Mary McLeod Bethune

I recently drove my son to check off campus housing at his college and overheard a discussion between several young ladies. They were talking about another girl in a matter that they were unhappy with. One of the disturbing parts of the discussion besides the use of profanity that sounded like sailors (that is a blog
for another time) was the way they included in their conversation the young ladies shade of color. You could tell the young lady they were talking about was light skinned because among the many words was “that high yellow, light skinned”, the rest I cannot put here. Disturbingly they were speaking
in public, on a college campus, but how could they be so hateful to reference someone’s shade of color?
HBCU students are faced with challenges ranging from; financial aid, housing, food, and the list continues. One of the issues that should not have to be addressed, but has raised the racist and colorisms of society is the shades of color of a person. We think that this is outside of a higher educational learning
environment, but obviously many of our young sisters either forgot their home training or never received any. Stated by Chassidy Hinton, on a brief history about the origins of color among slaves: “One could look no further than the history books than to see where the dividing factor between African-Americans
of a light complexion and those of a brown or darker complexion began. The raping of the darker slave women and the birth of the lighter offspring. Creating various shades of lightness, but where slave owners not caring for their offspring from the slaves (Black College Wire). Colorism is the remarks to students of a “lighter shade of Blackness.” There is still the perception that any person with a “drop” of Black blood is
un-pure, by caucasian comparison are considered Black. Writing about racism, Colorism and prejudice there is in many cultures the perception and realism of Colorism. In the recent E3 Real Talk Real Change “Are You Living Color” the concern and issue of colorism was raised by Tri Vu, a Vietnamese immigrant
who became a successful architect who spoke of colorism in all cultures not just African American.

Defining this, Colorism is a global form of discrimination and occurs where lighter skin tones are preferred, and darker skin tones are considered to be less desirable. There seems to be an implicit understanding behind this belief that makes the goodness of the individual related to the darkness (or sometimes lightness) of his/her skin. Terms such as Light Bright, White Girl, High-lighter, High Yellow, Red Bone, Mulatto,  Light-skinned-ed, See Through, and even Transparent,” these are names one would think were heard 50 or more years ago, or even on a playground (Felecia Carty2007, Facebook).
Names that have been called on campuses of HBCU’s are similar or even worse, when will we as a people move away from our use of separatists words that were beat into us from past slave owners? Slavery has been over for several hundred years, but the mentalities, emotional baggage and psychological tinge is still present and passed down to younger generations.  How can Blacks in America move forward to compete with other cultures for jobs, educational advancement and social acceptance if Blacks still hang on to these ideas of colorism.

I graduated from South Carolina State University and did hear off-hand remarks about colorism during humorous moments, but it seems these sentiments are still growing into hurtful statements. An intelligent person would think that being at an HBCU, students of African-American culture would unite because of a commonality of African ancestry and educational growth. Sadly people seem to look at the things that divide us, rather than the things that should unite us. Ignorance is not bliss, it is hurtful and unproductive.

Psychologists like Julia Hare, (Executive Director of the Black Think Tank), notes that the issue of color is still prevailing. “You would have thought that this thing would have ended after the so-called free movement (civil rights movement) and slavery supposedly was over,” Hare writes. “But black people have taken on the same patterns as the slave master. Wherever you go, I don’t care if it’s in the church, I don’t care if it’s in the bar, I don’t care if it’s in the corporate rooms, I don’t care if it’s on a cruise, color still comes up among black people.”

When one person chooses to judge another in the black community it is usually based on skin color, career choice, marital status or money. Blacks show that they are unaware of the progress that Black society must continue to strive to improve.  Black Americans must be reminded we must struggle towards success; instead of constantly looking for means of judging and holding each other back. While other cultures look upon us and comment; their they go again putting each other down.

Even in our Greek organizations of HBCU’s such as Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta there has been past differences of color. Shades, levels, lightness, darkness and skin tones accounted for admittance in our historic Greek organizations. Charing Ball commented, “black people see themselves through a lens that has been deliberately assigned to them and not necessarily of their own creation.” Since the days of slavery Blacks were physically worked, but mentally manipulated. A great quote by a great woman, “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife” Zora Neale Hurston (Dust Tracks on a Road).

If I ever see these young ladies again when I visit the college or anyone else and the issue of colorism rises its ugly head again seeking to divide us, I will be sure to educate them that, “you can elect to not play perpetrator, participant, or victim in this nonsense with our people or you can participate to separate us as slavery has continued to successfully do.”

If we as Black people cannot get rid of the slave mentality of colorism no amount of education and no amount of money will lift us out of dehumanizing and degrading each other, leaving other cultures to look upon Blacks as truly a lost and forsaken people.

Some Information gathered from:
Students Taunted for Having Light Skin, By Jernai Ellis, Chassidy Hinton
Black College Wire 2009

By William Jackson, M.Ed.

http://about.me/williamdjackson

Let us tell you about a new website that could potentially be a game-changer for black children across the globe. NorthParan.com is adding a philanthropic touch to the business of selling black books. For every book purchased on the site, North Paran will donate a book to a child in need. The site’s slogan is Buy One, Give One.

In the life of a child there is nothing more powerful than a book. It has the potential to free a child’s mind, to open up a world of possibilities. Incredibly, the mere presence of books in the home can lead to greater academic achievement: researchers have determined that a child who grows up in a home with at least 500 books will attain three more years of education than a student with no books in the home. But for millions of children in the United States and around the world, their access to age-appropriate books is limited or nonexistent. North Paran’s mission is to change that.

Neil Nelson, the site’s co-founder, is driven by the memories of his childhood in Jamaica, when his family only had five books in the house that he and his sister had to share. But Neil read those five books over and over, until he had all the words memorized. Now he wants to change this bleak picture for as many children as he can. After starting a vastly successful celebrity news and video site that reached nearly 30 million unique visitors last year, Neil partnered with husband-and-wife authors Nick Chiles and Denene Millner to create NorthParan.com, a cutting-edge site that will publicize black books and nourish black children. Chiles and Millner have written or co-written 19 books between them—Millner is the co-author with Steve Harvey of the #1 New York Times bestseller “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” which was the top-selling nonfiction book in the country in 2009, and the sequel “Straight Talk, No Chaser,” which has already reached #1 on the New York Times list. Chiles co-authored with gospel legend Kirk Franklin “The Blueprint,” which also was a New York Times bestseller last year. Millner and Chiles are both also award-winning journalists and the parents of three children of their own.

By spreading the word and making all your book purchases at NorthParan.com, you can help get a book in the hands of every child in our community. If, for every book we bought in 2009, a free book was given to a child in our community, we could give 4 free books to every Black child under age 10 in America.

Buy One, Give One.

I’ve never been much of a fruit eater so when my acupuncturist, Dr. Phranee (not her real name), insisted I eat healthier by adding fruit to my diet, I bulked. Although I’ll eat an occasional apple, orange, tangerine or banana, and I can be persuaded to eat a handful of grapes, cherries and strawberries, from time to time, previous attempts to eat more fruit always ended the same way: with a hasty and generally unpleasant trip to the porcelain throne. Dr. Phranee, however, is an eastern medical practitioner who takes a proactive approach to her patient’s healthcare. When I admitted I hadn’t followed her “eat more fruit” advice after a couple of subsequent office visits, she started bringing me fruit from her own garden.

Dr. Phranee would wait until I walked up to the receptionist area to settle my bill and to schedule my next appointment, to appear with a plastic bag containing one of the many varieties of fruit growing in her garden.

Unfortunately, my Thai is poor and while Dr. Phranee’s English is better, she tried to convey a lot of information to me that was simply lost in translation. Still, I got the gist of what she was saying which was, “Eat this it’ll make you feel better.” I would thank her profusely for both her gift and her concern about my well being then I’d leave the office with a bag of strange looking fruit. I was too embarrassed to tell Dr. Phranee, if my Thai had been better and I could express myself properly, that I had no idea what to do with the fruit she had given to me.

For many westerners, fruit from Thailand is commonly referred to as “exotic fruit”, meaning it looks and tastes different than the varieties found in our native countries. As I mentioned earlier, my fruit eating habits were limited to a narrow range of choices and that’s the way I liked it. I would take Dr. Phranee’s fruit home and place them in the center of my table, where they’d remain until I was forced to dispose of them.

If it hadn’t been for my continuing bouts with poor health, I might have never taken steps to unravel the mystery of Dr. Phranee’s fruit. As I was hobbling around on a crutch down one of Bangkok’s notoriously crooked streets, after springing my ankle, I started to wonder if Dr. Phranee’s bag of fruit might actually help improve my general health. I resolved to eat the next bag of fruit she gave to me no matter how odd it looked.

Sure enough, at the end of my follow-up visit to Dr. Phranee’s office for my sprung ankle, she appeared with another bag of fruit. I thanked her for the fruit and held the bag up to take a closer look at its contents. Inside the bag, I saw what looked like from my western perspective, 3 large alien spawn eggs. The fruit was brownish-green and was covered in black-spike-like nodules. The green color threw me for a loop because like most westerners I think of green fruit as being unripe, (it is worth mentioning ripe oranges in Thailand are green! Yes, that’s right, green! A completely confusing situation for a person looking for orange juice because if you see a picture on a carton displaying orange colored fruit it’s usually NOT orange juice,). Green or not, Dr. Phranee said the fruit she gave me should be eaten right away.

During the cab ride home, I studied the strange looking fruit and tried to picture how it was eaten. When I arrived home, I put the bag of fruit in the center of my table and studied it some more. I had resolved to eat it but I didn’t know what part was even edible. Fortunately, my boyfriend Gabriel stopped by to see me a short time later. Gabriel is a professional soccer player from Cameroon. He trains constantly to stay in tip-top shape and he’s a health fanatic. Unlike me, Gabriel eats a lot of fruit.

He noticed the fruit on the table and asked me where I had got it. I told him my doctor had given it to me and he smiled, “Good!” he said. “We have fruit like this one in my country only they’re much bigger,” he said grabbing one of them from the table. He broke it open and handed a piece of it to me. I looked at the white pulpy mass inside the fruit and pushed it away. “What’s wrong with you? Try it,” he said. I looked at the piece of fruit in his hand and noticed large black things were inside of it, “Ugh! There’re bugs in it!” I yelled jumping up from the table. Gabriel laughed. “Those aren’t bugs, they’re seeds,” he said calmly removing one to show me. I had never seen such large seeds inside of fruit.

“Here, try it,” he said. I took the piece of fruit and touched the pulpy mass inside of it. “It’s soft Gabriel, I think it’s rotten,” I said. All my experience with fruit, up to that point, told me soft pulp was a sign of over-ripeness. Gabriel removed a section of the pulp from my piece of fruit and popped it into his mouth. He spit out the large back seed and ate the rest of it. I followed his lead and was surprised to discover a flavorful and tasty treat. The fruit had a sweet tangy flavor. It tasted like a cross between an apple and a grapefruit. “Mmmm,” I said, “This is good.” It really was delicious.

The next day, I showed one of the remaining pieces of fruit to a Thai neighbor who spoke English well. “Oh, you’ve got a custard apple there,” she said, “They’re quite tasty.” “Yes, I know,” I said sheepishly. Instead of breaking it open the way Gabriel had, she peeled off all the “black-spike-like-nodules” and suggested I cut the skinned fruit open and eat it like an orange. I now know there’s more than one way to eat a custard apple.

Living in a foreign country requires you to make a lot of adjustments. I’ve discovered the simple act of eating fruit can present you with an opportunity to expand your knowledge about a culture. Now that I know how to eat a custard apple, I’m ready to eat more of the strange looking but undoubtedly tasty fruit from Dr. Phranee’s garden.

Visit Ivory Simone at

http://www.onewoman.onehouse.com

http://web.me.com/ivorysimone/www.ivorysimone.me.com/Podcast/Podcast.html

https://sites.google.com/site/bangkokpoetrystreams/