You have to understand that when we do screening events (which are included on the route of this walk chosen by NYU), we on purpose choose to do them in undrprivledged areas of a city. The last screening we did here in CA was in south central LA, not far from the location of those really bad riots of ten years ago. I never met a more thankful, polite, and helpful group of people than those who that came to the screening. The area was 60% black and 40% Hispanic. Racial sterotypes are not going to get in the way of what we need to accomplish.
It doesn't do us alot of good to have a screeening in Westwood, or Santa Monica, as all the residents there have $, see a dentist regularly, etc. As to Harlem, Bill Clinton has his office there, and any phobias that you have about the area, especially in the day time are misplaced. There is a huge medical center at that address where the walk starts. There will be maps of the area to be walked at the registration desk, and I will ask the school to send me a version that I can put up on the web site.
The issue of disparities in health care and health information in the US are significant. If people are not willing to reach out to others in less priveldged areas, it is indeed a sad world.
Does anyone think that blacks get and die from oral cancer twice as often as whites because there is something genetic in blacks that causes that? Hardly. It has to do with socio-economic issues that are for the most part not in the control of those affected. If you grew up in south central LA, I guarantee you that you would have had a lesser education, lesser availability of healthcare, less of a feeling that you would have the opportunity to breakout of the poverty that might be keeping your family there, and fewer local role models that would perhaps keep you from smoking and engaging in other lifestyle habilts that would compromise your health. That only scratches the surface of some of the obsticles that you would grow up with, that those growing up in a neighborhood 10 miles away in LA wouldn't face. As a last soapbox perspective, in the neighborhood where we screened, a grade school child shares their textbook with two other children. In the city next door, one zip code away, this isn't the case, everyone has their own books. What does this do to a young child's learning abilities, and chances? There are disparities that take an extraordinary person to overcome. Out of this particular neighborhood however, one comes to mind who is giving back. Magic Johnson. We have to do what we can with what we have to change things. If those of us that have fought for life cannot appreciate a differnet kind of unfair fight, then we are surely myopic. If you all haven't seen the movie Crash, I highly recommend it. The issue of stereotypes and how they influence us is cleary shown for the problem that they are.
