-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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MILWAUKEE: REPORTS REVEAL RACISM'S HUMAN TOLL
By Phil Wilayto
Milwaukee
Wisconsin has been in the news lately. And the news isn't
good.
>From infant mortality to prison terms, from diabetes to
home-mortgage loans, a number of recent reports single out
Wisconsin and metropolitan Milwaukee as places where
African Americans are having a particularly hard time.
The most disturbing report has to do with the rising
infant mortality rate. On May 14, Start Smart Milwaukee's
annual study on the state of the city's children reported
that the rate at which babies die before reaching their
first birthday rose 17.6 percent between 1997 and 1998.
Black Health Coalition Executive Director Dr. Patricia
McManus points out that the infant mortality rate for Black
infants rose nearly 37 percent. The rate of death for white
babies fell.
In 1998 Milwaukee's infant mortality rate stood at 18.2
deaths per 1,000 births. The national rate in 1996 was 7.2
per 1,000.
The period studied just happened to be the first year of
"Wisconsin Works" or W-2, touted as a national model for
welfare-to-work programs.
That's when many poor families lost their health care,
food stamps and other benefits.
"Milwaukee took a major hit with the implementation of W-
2," said Dr. McManus.
Another startling finding came from the New York-based
Human Rights Watch. On June 7 the group issued a report on
race and prison sentences. According to the report, Black
males in the United States are 13 times more likely than
white males to receive prison sentences for drug offenses.
That's bad enough. But in Wisconsin the rate for Black men
is 53 times higher that whites. Wisconsin was second worst
of the 37 states studied, after Illinois.
The disparity in drug sentencing is the single biggest
reason why Wisconsin imprisons Black people at two-and-a-
half times the national average.
The racism extends to other areas.
Looking for a home loan? According to the June 30
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Racial disparities in home
loan denials remained greater in metropolitan Milwaukee
than any other metro area for the 10th year in a row..."
Wisconsin's mortality rate for diabetes was twice as high
for Blacks as for whites between 1979 and 1997, according
to a state-sponsored study. Again, Wisconsin's gap is wider
than the national one.
Patrick Remington, a professor of preventative medicine at
the University of Wisconsin, said inadequate health care
for African Americans is a likely cause.
GET THE LEAD OUT!
Right-wing commentators say poor communities' ills all
boil down to a lack of "personal responsibility." But most
of the problems facing Milwaukee's African American
community have two main causes: economic conditions and
government policy.
Take lead poisoning. Lead is especially dangerous to small
children. It can leave them with a host of health problems
and developmental disabilities. Lead-based paint is the
biggest source of exposure.
The July 3 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the
percentage of city children with excessive levels of lead
in their bodies dropped from 73 percent in 1992 to 16
percent in 1999. That's a big improvement. But it means
there are still 5,750 children in the city with lead
poisoning--a rate triple the national average.
That makes lead poisoning the biggest health issue for the
city's children--more than infant mortality, AIDS, asthma
or violence.
Of course, these are only the kids who've been tested.
There's no great mystery about how children get lead
poisoning. Babies and toddlers eat the sweet-tasting paint
chips that flake off the walls in older houses. Or they get
the paint dust on their hands and then put their fingers in
their mouths.
They aren't making a personal decision to eat lead.
They're just being babies.
And their parents aren't making personal decisions to move
into houses with lead-based paint, either. Milwaukee is a
segregated city. Almost all of the older, affordable
housing in Black and Latino neighborhoods has lead paint.
Nearly a third of the houses in Milwaukee are considered
at high or extreme risk of having lead hazards. Most of
these houses are in the Black and Latino communities.
The cure is no mystery, either. Lead-based paint must be
covered or removed.
But that costs money.
The city is considering a lawsuit against the
manufacturers of lead-based paint. But that would take
years to work its way through the courts.
The government could act now. A program could be set up to
inspect every house painted before 1978, when the
government banned lead-based paint.
The test is simple and many people would jump at the job
if it paid a living wage.
Money could be allocated to fix every at-risk house where
children are living. Then the paint manufacturers, real
estate companies, landlords and government could admit
their collective responsibility and foot the bill.
But to politicians, bosses and the corporate media, even
talking about spending money to save children is considered
wasteful. What they consider "proper" spending is building
jails and baseball stadiums and dropping bombs on Iraq.
Meanwhile, kids get sick, youths go to prison, older folks
get preventable diseases--while the rich get richer.
- END -
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