THE
100 BLACK MEN OF
AMERICA
Joins
Healthcare debate on behalf of THE Children
THE 100 BLACK MEN OF AMERICA
BELIEVES THAT ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE IS A SEED THAT GROWS BEST IN A FERTILE
MIND FORTIFIED BY EXUBERANT HEALTH.
For children to make
powerful choices about their future, they must meet positive chances in their
formation. For nearly 50 years, the 100 Black Men has been engaging with
children in general and African American children in particular to exact from
them the powerful life-choices necessary to sustain a nation’s greatness. We
are, at core, a mentoring group engaged in the struggle to propel our children
to academic prominence. Yet, we have, like Sisyphus, encountered that
proverbial stone which, no matter how hard and effectively we push, we know
that it will inevitably roll back to the start for us to begin all over again.
For us, that stone is a flagrant decay in the health and wellness of the very
children whom we would push to excel. Academic excellence and healthful
decadence are mutually exclusive polarities. Trying to grow a viable mind in a
decaying body is like growing a rose garden in the Death Valley desert; you
might meet with some successes but you wouldn’t bet the farm on your
chances.
The Health Care Reform Act currently being
debated in Congress is long overdue. But, for the international chapters of the
100 Black Men, it is a welcome challenge. Because, until we find an
economically viable way to cultivate a vibrant corps of healthy children, we
will not be able to educate them in the numbers and at the level we demand to
assure a vibrant and growing economy.
Thus, we will continue to experience a rapid and precipitous decline in
our nation’s ability to effectively compete. So the 100 Black Men of America
joins this debate on behalf of our children. From their vantage point, we want
to suggest that their healthfulchances are the Return on Investment we seek as we decide the ultimate
value of this health reform effort.
Health begins with wellness which begins with a capacity to make rational choices. Rational choice
presupposes a mindful, willful, conscious and informed selection from among viable alternatives. It demands knowledge-ability,
accessibility, affordability, responsibility and accountability. No one who is
paying attention can dare to suggest (in good faith) that all of our citizens
in general and all children in particular
have viable health choices. While many
miraculous medical interventions exist inside our hospitals, they are
inaccessible and unaffordable for far too many of our children. And children do
not grow in a vacuum so the care delivered to the child must be accessible to
the entire family. What vision are we following as a nation that has led us so
far off course? Who really, would defend the status quo of our national
standing in health, wealth or education with a straight face? What person,
regardless of ethnicity, can defend the pitiful standing in our health and
wellness among nations and still hold their head up.
When we want to cultivate a healthy vegetable
garden, we always “begin with the end in mind.” We visualize a beautiful
picture of a clearly rich crop of luscious, ripe vegetables growing without
hindrance at the hands of our effort. Then, we imagine our nurturing the soil,
the seeds and the sensations of the season to add and detract where necessary
to assure a vibrant and succulent harvest. But before we begin our nurturing
effort, we are forced to clear away the toxic weeds, entangling vines and
obstructionist stumps and stones to prepare the soil for optimal growth. We are
required to denude the soil of blight and affliction if we truly aim to enrich
the environment for transmitting vital nutrients to the fruit. And we have to assure that within easy reach
of the garden, we store a liberal stash of water and fertilizer so as to
enhance the photosynthetic promise of the sun to grow a truly strong crop.
Likewise, the promising shoots of learning geniuses lurking just beneath the
toxic epidermis of the hoods, hills and hollows of America must be visualized
at the height of their harvest.
The educational achievement of our children is both a civil rights
struggle and a national security challenge. The growing opportunity gaps,
decomposing school facilities, diminishing graduation rates and declining
college eligibility are depriving our children of their constitutional promise
all at once. This promise ordained a
government to, among other things, “promote the general welfare” “provide for the common defense” and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity”. With our Third
World educational and medical accessibilities to showcase the richest nation in
the world, we are
woefully delinquent on the founders’ promise.
Our nation is not well.
We the 100 Black Men of America are proud to join with the President of
the United States and the millions of other Americans to say that we have come,
yet again to that fierce urgency of NOW! Now is the time to make good that
promissory note bequeathed to us by the
Declaration of Independence and articulated so eloquently by Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. in 1963, the birth year of the
100 Black Men. “Now is the time to make real the promise of Democracy…” and
“Heal Our Nation”. Now is the Time!