black mothers’ sons
Last year, Landismom wrote that the essence of organizing is to give people anger, hope, and a plan. In that spirit, I offer these links:
- Anger: I was filled with fury at this story in today’s Post, about a 12 year boy who died for want of a dentist. By the time he was seen, the infection in his abscessed tooth had spread to his brain. My office is opposite the break room at work, and all day I heard my coworkers exclaiming in outrage as they picked up the newspaper. We work on poverty issues, and so sometimes we get a little jaded, lose a little of our outrage. But this story hit home.
- Hope: Via Miriam at Everyday Mom, and Nanci at From the Mom Zone, I read about Wakanheza, a program of the Ramsey County public health office to get people to identify people in stressful situations and reach out with a helping hand.
- A Plan: Campaign for Children’s Health Coverage. Insuring all children is only a start of a solution — adults need health insurance too. But kids are relatively cheap to insure, and there’s an existing program — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — that provides a lot of the framework for doing so. And it’s up for reauthorization this year. So sign the petition, and write your Senator and Representative.
I’ve had Ella’s Song stuck in my head for half the day. I’d like to see as many people learning about the death of Deamonte Driver as about the death of Kyle Miller. (And yes, I know the odds of dying from an abscessed tooth are probably about as low as the odds of dying from seat belt failure. But a kid shouldn’t have to walk around with his teeth rotting out of his mouth for months either.)
March 1st, 2007 at 10:02 am
I think your last point is spot-on– one kid dies and we get scary videos and a brand-new foundation, another kid dies for much more preventable reasons, and the reactions are totally different. I just wrote a bunch of letters to officials in my city because today one of the groups in our city that deals with HIV patients and their families is losing funding today due to federal cuts. 75 of the clients losing food and health care assistance are children of parents with HIV.
There are so many horrifying situations in this country that would be solved if children were guaranteed health care. There’s simply no excuse for this country’s ignorance on this issue.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:17 am
That is a pretty horrific story, and it certainly made me angry, too. I’ve been watching the stories about various governors giving Bush hell at last week’s Governors’ Association meeting about his cuts to the SCHIP budget–I hope that they/we are able to move him to fully fund this program, instead of just continuing his idea of giving tax breaks to people to pay for health care.