Posted on 10/22/2011 12:52:13 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
BENTON TOWNSHIP - Five decades after struggling to gain civil rights, African Americans must still deal with a health care and political system that denies their most basic needs.
That was the feeling voiced by former Georgia congresswoman and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, who cited her aunt's death from a botched colonoscopy as an example.
"The doctor punctured her colon (and) sent her to her daughter's home, where she began to feel pain," McKinney said. "She called the hospital, and the doctor told her to go to sleep and call back in the morning. By the time the morning came, my aunt was in another hospital, and my aunt never went home."
For McKinney, her aunt's death brought a painful irony to mind.
"She could survive Jim Crow, but she couldn't survive the U.S. health industry. That stunned me, and I didn't know what to do," she said.
McKinney spoke Saturday at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center as part of the Freedom Fund Banquet put on by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Benton Harbor/Twin Cities chapter.
McKinney voiced hope that the next time she visits Benton Harbor, its residents will be faring better economically.
"Things have changed in Benton Harbor, but they have not necessarily gotten any better. I understand that land issues have been resolved now. I understand there's a golf course," McKinney said, referring to the Golf Club at Harbor Shores. "I wonder how many golfers we have here with us tonight."
In 1992, McKinney made history as the first black woman to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. She served six terms until her 2002 Democratic primary loss. McKinney won re-election in 2004, but lost again in 2006.
Since her congressional tenure, McKinney has left the Democratic Party and established herself as an outspoken critic on many issues, such as U.S. intervention in Libya, which she opposes.
McKinney is enrolled in a Ph.D. program, a decision that she made after losing her father to cancer, which came shortly after burying her aunt and also resulted from lack of quality care, she said.
"These two losses have caused me to question everything about my life, what I did in the past, and what I'm going to do in the future," she said.
However, McKinney has come away with a major lesson from both tragedies - and experiences like her weeklong detention by Israeli military officials in 2009, she said.
McKinney was detained after she joined a group trying to take coloring books and crayons to children of the Gaza Strip. Their boat came under fire from Israeli warplanes, as it made its way across the Mediterranean, she said.
"When confronted with this possibility of death, it dawned on me: 'It's not so much about how you die, but how you live,'" she said.
NAACP Chapter President Ed Pinkney presented McKinney with its Malcolm X Award, which she received for her leadership in peace and justice issues, he said.
Benton Harbor Mayor Wilce Cooke voiced similar feelings in presenting McKinney with a Freedom Fighter Award and a key to the city.
"She came to Benton Harbor, the new Selma of the 21st century civil rights movement," Cooke said. "With all the problems the state of Michigan has, she felt that she should come to Michigan, and I want to thank her for that."
McKinney voiced support for Cooke's re-election bid, which voters will decide in next month's city elections.
"I will do whatever is that I can do - in the cause of maintaining a voice - for people who need that voice," she said.
Pinkney said 215 tickets were sold for Saturday's event, about double last year's turnout. He attributed the improved attendance to growing awareness of a viable chapter in Benton Harbor, which had been considered dormant until it revived itself last year, he said.
"We're now here and people are beginning to find out some of the work we're doing, and they want to come out and be part of it," he said.
‘It’s not so much about how you die, but how you live,’” she said.
Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, man.
“... African Americans must still deal with a health care and political system that denies their most basic needs.
That was the feeling voiced by ...Cynthia McKinney, who cited her aunt’s death from a botched colonoscopy as an example.”
Oh, WOW. Surgeons (both white AND black) don’t screw up at times with white people? Or hispanics? Or Asians?
PROVE your point without emotional charges meant for empty-headed racist fools, B!TCH!
Uh, how old was your aunt and father? Were they covered and received treatment under the rules of that wonderful government Medicare program? If so, just maybe there is a death panel hidden in there somewhere hey?
And oh, Cindy, you are a flaming leftist idiot.
Anyone, even illegals, can walk into any county hospital and get healthcare.
Of all possible medical procedures, a colonoscopy has to be one of the least racially dependent procedures imaginable.
Cynthia:
You are botched science experiment.
Someone needs to lance that awful boil on your neck... /S
And it took her 50 years to learn that. And she’s going for her PhD. Taking coloring books and crayons to the kids in Gaza. Riiiiiight. Doesn’t she know about UPS or FedEX? Maybe she will learn in her advanced degree class.
Well said. They are always the victims - it’s a mindset driven in to them.
She’s the perfect example of how if you say something simplistic with a straight face, people will think it is some deep, mystical Zen truth. The response should have been mockery, and “NO sh*t, Sherlock?” but in that context, it’s just a cheering section, not a group of adults. They demand to be pandered to, as so many ‘social change’ groups do, and she served it up.
Next she’ll be telling us “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
I was making the same comment as you. Anyone who thinks the Israelis were concerned with coloring books is a dip. The purpose of those boats was to support Israel's enemies and, failing that, to cast Israel in a bad light.
Yes and thanks. Wonder if she feels having that lie out there is a good way to live her life. Someone reading that with no knowledge of the details - alarms would go off - she’s not fooling anyone, not even the uninformed.
They can't get much of it. They can't get screenings, preventive care, or expensive medications which may be the only meds for certain conditions.
You can walk into a hospital ER. You will get a thorough screening for financial ability, and if you're bleeding they'll try to stop that hazard from spreading. If you're unconscious, they'll screen someone else about your finances.
I am not advocating any sort of govt health care here, just correcting the misinformation. Illegals and the poor do not get appropriate, sufficient health care; in fact they get hardly any at all.
If you doubt me, take one to the ER.
Don’t insurance companies sell healthcare insurance to blacks? If they don’t wish to buy insurance, will doctors not accept cash payments from blacks? Can’t afford it, you say? Oh. So it isn’t blacks who are “denied” health care, it is the poor...
That’s not the way I’ve seen it work here in Texas. Folks without insurance that are not on deaths door may have to wait longer, but they will get taken care of. Granted I can’t speak about the preventative part, I’ve seen plenty of people walk in and get treated for a wide range of illnesses and chronic conditions without a lick of insurance. Especially when it comes to prenatal and pediatric care.
Seriously. Find someone to play the role of patient, and try it.
Whining vs. doing.
Yes they can, and into many city clinics where they can be diagnosed for clamydia, gonorrhea, syph, HIV, and several more by well-paid folks such as my sweetheart. Not a penny charged; not a thank you rendered by most of them. It’s expected service you know.
Isn’t THAT the truth.
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