D2
The Afro-American, March 19, 2016 - March 25, 2016
Lead Paint Continued from D1
abandoned housing in Baltimore – much of them lined with lead paint. The use of interior lead paint was banned in the US in 1978. “The US has known about the dangers of lead paint long before 1978,” said Kerpelman. “Baltimore has been one of the most aggressive cities in monitoring lead paint exposure – but we’re also known for our share of problems with this issue” Kerpelman stated. As early as 1899, Sherwin-William’s internal research unit warned company insiders against the dangers of lead paint. By the early 20th century, leading lead paint manufactures such as Dupont and Sherwin Williams, knew ingesting chips from lead-based paint caused lead poisoning in children, according to the book “Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children.” A number of European countries, including Sweden, France, Belgium, Poland, Austria and others soon banned the use of interior lead paint in the 1920’s and 1930’s concurrent with an international ban on lead-based paint sponsored in 1922 by the League of Nations. As early as the 1940’s, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Huntington Williams partnered with the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, to conduct evaluations on homes of children suffering from lead poisoning. Baltimore was one of the first cities in the US to ban lead-based paint in the construction of new homes in 1950 and the first city to offer free blood-lead testing.
Photo by Deborah Bailey
Airborne lead dust from abandoned housing, like this one in Baltimore’s SandtownWinchester area, poses danger to children and adults. Shortly after 1978, when lead-based paint was banned in the US, Federal Government officials started reaching a consensus that something had to be done to remove lead from older homes. The Department of Health and Human Resources developed a multi-billiondollar plan in 1990 to remove lead-based paint from American homes, but the effort was shelved.
Instead, the US Environmental Protection Agency, commissioned The Kennedy-Krieger Institute, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, to conduct the Lead-Based Paint Abatement and Repair and Maintenance Study, controversial research involving children in 108 African-American households to investigate “low-cost partial lead abatement procedures to prevent lead poisoning in
children living in inner-city Baltimore” according to David Buchanan and Franklin Miller, authors of a review article on the troubled study. Although most of the study children’s lead levels decreased or remained constant, several participants ended the study with elevated blood-lead levels. Two parents who enrolled their children in the Study later sued Kennedy -Krieger indicating, “they were not fully informed of the risks of participation for their children and Kennedy-Krieger failed to inform them in a timely manner of test results.” Buchanan and Miller wrote in their review. The Maryland Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s initial ruling to dismiss the case and reinstated the families’ lawsuits. In August 2001, the court issued an impassioned 96page ruling questioning the basic ethics of the Kennedy-Krieger study and drawing parallels with the latent racial discrimination involved in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. In 2011, a class action lawsuit was filed against the Kennedy-Krieger Institute alleging that researchers “used those children as known guinea pigs in lead-contaminated houses to complete the study” according to court documents. Some of the Kennedy-Krieger cases have been settled while others are still in litigation. Johns Hopkins University Hospital was contacted for comment on this story but did not provide a response.
Race and Politics Continued from D1
The word on the street is (subsequently bolstered by credible sources on background) that there is definite interest by members of Maryland’s GOP to bring Trump to Baltimore right around the time of the Maryland Primary on April 26. Of course April 26 is the date of the Primary, but April 26 is also one day before the one-year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s funeral (April 27) and the subsequent uprising (if you count the fact this is a leap year it would be one year exactly). As someone via social media put it, “I believe this timing is no accident...” No, it seems very much on purpose. It is well documented Trump encourages violence at his campaign rallies and we saw what happened when 26-year old Rakeem Jones, a Black protester, was leaving one of Trump’s events in North Carolina and was sucker punched by a 78-year old White man named
John McGraw, who later told reporters, “He deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Now, GOP operatives in the state are allegedly scrambling to get Trump to Baltimore or suburban Maryland in the midst of the one-year anniversary of last April’s uprising. Can you imagine the spectacle of Trump in Baltimore at that time? As Trump roams to and fro around the nation, spewing a toxic cocktail of half truths and whole lies, whipping up anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-government, anti-Black sentiment, one thing is abundantly clear; he will do and say anything to win. And I believe that includes coming to Baltimore right at the time we are all reflecting on last April’s uprising, and struggling to get beyond the most volatile time in our city’s history, to profit from our misery.
And if Trump does come, and there are protests and violence breaks out as it did in Chicago, I could see him wash his hands like Pontius Pilate and play the victim just as he did in Chicago. I could see him prey upon and exacerbate our tenuous collective psyche, commanding yet another news cycle with virtually no push back from “mainstream media,” at our expense. To be clear, Donald Trump has the right, protected by the Constitution, to speak in Baltimore. But, the people who love this city, those willing to transcend political, racial, social, cultural and religious lines for the greater good, have the right to shut him down.
elected school board.” As the education topic focused on sex education the candidates went temporarily silent before their responses. Gutierrez: “We will build a comprehensive sex education curriculum and we will roll it out to every school through the
problem.” Asked if sex education was taught at Green Street Academy, a Baltimore charter school founded by Warnock, he said, “I don’t believe so.” Economic Development Policy: As the debate reached its final topic of economic development, the audience was already cheering for the responses before the first question was even asked. The first question regarded Baltimore’s economic relationship with Under Amour. In January, the athletic apparel brand unveiled plans to build a multibillion-dollar, 50-acre waterfront headquarters campus in South Baltimore’s Port Covington. Mosby: “Baltimore is a working class city without the work,” said Mosby. “Under Armour needs to establish [a] manufacturing plant in Baltimore. I think this is a very unique opportunity for the city of Baltimore.” Embry: Indicated that any consideration of the project has to ensure the deal best benefits the city and the citizens. “Is it worth it for the city? Does it create jobs for local people?” asked Embry.
Sean Yoes is a senior contributor for the AFRO and host and executive producer of First Edition, which airs Monday through Friday, 5-7 p.m. on WEAA 88.9.
Debate
Continued from D1 “What we decided to do as a city, when we had the opportunity to bring this type of technology here, we said it cost too much,” said Young. “That’s crazy. It only cost $300,000.” The audience seemed to like Young’s plan, signaling approval with applause and whistling. Warnock: Among his comments on policing, Warnock called for marijuana to be decriminalized and for a “change” within the culture of the police department. “When a young person joins our police force, they need to have a shot at the top job,” Warnock said. “We need to change the culture of the police so that people feel like it’s an honorable career, as it is.” Education Policy: The debate moved on to education with a question about control of the school board. Stokes: “The current school board doesn’t represent the children it serves; 85 percent of the children are poor and Black. There’s not one member of the school board who is Black,” said Stokes. “We should bring forward a partially
“The current school board doesn’t represent the children it serves…” –Carl Stokes city starting at middle school level,” said Gutierrez. “We use the money that we find from our audits because we do not have a resource problem in the city, we have a resource management
Luwanda Jenkins Continued from D1
Hopkins University. Jenkins was working at Coppin State University during last year’s unrest. “First and foremost the university took actions to ensure their students were safe... whether it was going up to North and Pennsylvania to help with the cleanup or participating in one of the more peaceful demonstrations that were led by a number of students throughout the region” she said. “We also provided office space to one of the federal agencies that was providing federal loan assistance, I believe the college of health professions provided health related outreach services to the local community and as I recall some of the professors held panel discussions to allow students and faculty on the campus to have some discourse and dialogue around what was happening in the greater community.” When asked how she rated Cordish’s diversity at the time of the interview Jenkins said “I would give us an A+ because we have really had a strong focus for decades on including minority and women businesses when we are developing and building out projects. In terms of our ongoing operations, in terms of once we have built an entertainment district, I would give us a B because I believe there is more potential there for us with our ongoing operations and that is an area I hope to help the company lift the tide there with ongoing operations. Overall I would give us an A for our diversity efforts.”