Page 2 The Skanner November 22, 2017
®
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Black Celebrities, Athletes and Politicians Must
Respect the Black Press — Even After Big Fame
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
T
Jerry Foster
Advertising Manager
Christen McCurdy
News Editor
Patricia Irvin
Graphic Designer
Melanie Sevcenko
Reporter
Monica J. Foster
Seattle Office Coordinator
Susan Fried
Photographer
2017
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Opinion
hroughout history, the
Black Press has been the
best friend that Black
celebrities, athletes and
politicians have ever had.
The Black Press often covers
Black public figures from the
very start of their careers,
before they’re “discovered”
by the mainstream media, all
the way through to their as-
cension to star or leadership
status. Before they became
household names, had hit re-
cords, secured multi-million
dollar contracts or became
leaders in the United States
Congress, it was the Black
Press that was always there
for their press conferences
and events, often giving them
extensive coverage when the
mainstream media might
only give them a brief men-
tion in the B-section of their
newspapers or 15 seconds at
the end of an evening news
segment.
When the mainstream me-
dia finally “discovers” these
same Black celebrities, ath-
letes and politicians and they
attain a certain degree of
fame and success, suddenly,
they think it’s okay to snub
the Black Press. Now they
don’t have time to give inter-
views to Black newspapers
or magazines; there’s no time
to make the visits to Black ra-
dio stations, where they once
made regular appearances;
Rosetta
Miller-
Perry
NNPA
Columnist
their (usually) White public
relations and management
staffers guard their time and
appearances carefully, and
shun Black-owned media.
These same public relations
“
Public rela-
tions firms
often dis-
courage their
Black clients
from working
with Black-
owned media
firms often discourage their
Black clients from working
with Black-owned media com-
panies and advertising with
the Black Press.
This is a disgrace, because
when things go bad and these
Black celebrities want to get
“their” side of the story out,
the first place these folks run
to is the Black Press. If there
is a story about political cor-
ruption, infidelity or other
alleged crimes involving a
Black public figure, the main-
stream media’s attitude is
usually “guilty until proven
innocent.” It’s the Black Press
that usually takes the “in-
nocent until proven guilty”
approach, urging fairness
and caution, telling readers,
listeners and viewers to wait
until all the evidence is in,
frequently reminding folks of
all the great things that their
favorite hero did in the past.
The Black Press remains the
advocate for Black celebri-
ties, athletes and politicians,
even now, despite the fact
that so many of them seem
oblivious to our existence.
That is why, increasingly, the
National Newspaper Publish-
ers Association (NNPA), the
trade group that represents
over 200 Black-owned media
companies, that reach more
than 20 million readers in
print and online every week,
is reminding these Black pub-
lic figures that Black news-
papers are their champions
and defenders 24/7, and that
we have backed them in good
times and bad. While the clas-
sic case of a Black superstar,
who ran away from the Black
Press for years and then re-
turned at the eleventh hour,
remains O.J. Simpson, it is
instructive to see how main-
stream media is covering the
NFL in the wake of Donald
Trump’s garbage claims that
the players are somehow “dis-
respecting the flag and the
military” if they kneel during
the playing of the national
anthem, a claim that was and
continues to be absolute non-
sense.
The Black Press backed
Colin Kaepernick’s protest
against oppression and police
brutality from the beginning,
and continues to do so. The
Black Press supports Seattle
Seahawks defensive lineman
Michael Bennett and other
players who have responded
positively in the wake of crit-
icism. Black newspapers have
printed the entire Star-Span-
gled Banner, including its
verses supporting slavery,
while many mainstream pub-
lications have bought into the
Trump idiocy. When conser-
vative newspapers and pub-
lications attacked ESPN com-
mentator Jemele Hill for her
tweets about Trump, it was
the Black Press that offered
unqualified support. We’ve
been there through decades
of attacks on Black leaders,
and we remain vigilant to the
constant character assassina-
tion and innuendos lodged
against Black public figures
at the local, state and national
levels.
Read the rest of this commentary at
TheSkanner.com
Better Watch Your Mouth: Dental Care in the Black Community
F
rom the time I was a lit-
tle girl, to just a day or
so ago, someone has al-
ways told me to watch
my mouth. Why? My mouth
runs and sometimes it runs
unplugged. I’ve been known
to flim flam folks with flattery
or eviscerate them with evil,
sometimes moving from one
to the other with just a shrug
of my shoulders. But my
“mouth-watching” is not the
kind of mouth-watching I’m
writing about in this column.
I’m writing about the healthy
mouth-watching that is criti-
cal to our health.
Nearly a hundred folks
gathered at the National
Council of Negro Women
(NCNW) headquarters at 633
Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C., to hear two
dynamic women talk about
dental health. Dr. Diane Earle,
the managing dental director
at Kool Smiles, in Lancaster,
Texas, talked about dental
health and its importance.
Your mouth, she said, is the
gateway to your body, so it
is important for you to take
care of it by getting regular
checkups, taking care of your
mouth and, especially, ensur-
ing that children have early
dental care as soon as they
have even a single tooth. She
was joined by healthy living
Julianne
Malveaux
NNPA
Columnist
expert Debra Peek Haynes,
who is passionate about the
way we eat and how what we
eat can transform our lives.
These two women held an
audience for an hour, focus-
“
Your mouth...
is the gate-
way to your
body, so it is
important for
you to take
care of it
ing on the many ways we can
improve our lives so that we
can better resist these oppres-
sive political times. There
was talk of the ways we can
eat better, exercise better,
and live better, with both Dr.
Earle and Mrs. Haynes pre-
senting as great examples of
healthy living. Dr. Earle, for
example, said she had never
had a cavity in her life. Deb
Haynes (whose husband,
the Rev. Frederick Douglass
Haynes, III, has expertly pa-
stored Friendship West Bap-
tist Church in Dallas, Texas)
shared the ways she used
healthy eating to turn her
health around after a diagno-
sis of infertility. I was thrilled
to bring the women together
and to moderate a discussion
that had significant meaning
for our community.
NCNW, under the transfor-
mative leadership of Attorney
Janice Mathis (who led Rain-
bow PUSH’s Atlanta office un-
til she came to Washington),
is the only space owned by
Black people on Pennsylvania
Avenue. It is close enough to
the “People’s House” at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue that
one might walk there, which
perhaps means that it is close
to the devil. That proximity
offers an opportunity for re-
sistance, and while much of
our resistance must be polit-
ical, some of it hinges on our
personal commitment to a
physical excellence that pre-
pares us to have resilience for
the struggle.
Even as we met, the devil
was busy. The House of Rep-
resentative passed the new
“tax overhaul” package that
they say will create jobs, but
we know will create wealth
for billionaires; to benefit the
top one percent, the bottom
80 percent will be hit hard,
but Congress doesn’t seem to
care. The Senate has a ver-
sion of the legislation, and the
two houses will have to come
up with compromise legisla-
tion, but both the House and
the Senate agree that corpora-
tions should pay less tax.
At NCNW, we talked about
Congresswoman Robin Kel-
ly (D-Ill.) and her Action for
Dental Health Act (HR 2422).
The bipartisan legislation,
co-sponsored with Republi-
can Indiana dentist and Con-
gressman Mike Simpson,
would make dental care more
accessible, but with issues
like these having low priority
in this ideologically divided
Congress, it is not likely to
even make it to the floor for a
vote. Instead, the new tax law
would weaken, not strength-
en, healthcare access.
Dental care and nutrition
issues don’t get as much vis-
ibility as Russia, or sexual
harassment, or jiving Jeff Ses-
sions. But they are also im-
portant issues. So when we
“watch our mouth” by watch-
ing what we eat and how we
manage our dental care, we
are strengthening ourselves
for the inevitable struggle
against the inequality that is
part of the status quo.
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