Minorities are sweet

If there is something that terrifies minority communities more than child support legislation, news that they're building more prisons or the odd chance that there could one day be a draft in support of George Bush's adventures in Arabia . . . Then it's the fact that minority health concerns are grossly underreported. Seriously, more people know that Paris Hilton is pretending to give up sex for a year than the fact that diabetes and heart disease are huge killers in minority communities for those of us (more than a dozen or so) who manage to avoid dying of AIDS or gang/drug violence.

Anyway, it's worth noting that Alonzo Washington and his kids have made progress in publicizing the prevalence of diabetes in the African-American community. Kamaal, Malcolm and Alonzo Washington are soon to currently appear in the pages of People Magazine (August 21, 2006 edition on page 51 - The one with Brad Pitt on the cover) promoting their comic book series that deals with diabetes awareness in a way that Spawn was probably too brooding to even think about . . . Meanwhile, diabetes and heart disease also run rampant in the Latino community and there are probably a few people working on the problem but they are no match for my Grandma who keeps on frying up extra servings of bacon for me to "snack on" (no joke) and serving greasy tamales like there was some kind of shortage in sight. Sadly, in most minority communities food = love and the impact of chronic health conditions are seen merely as a fact of life and not the result of genetic predisposition, the crap corporate America keeps shoving down our throats and overall subpar access to health care. While that might represent some misunderstanding on the part of people of color, I still blame white people.