What's New

May 2008

Legislative Black Caucus hold press Conference announcing 2008 Legislative Priorities. See Photo

April 2008

Sacramento Bee Story on Torture Hearing and Resolution

Statement: 40th Anniversary of Assassination of  Martin Luther King Jr.

October 2007

Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas' Health Disparities Town Hall Reveals Second Class Medicine Tri-Caucus Petitions Governor to Address Gap in Minority Health

Sacramento, CA— During a town hall meeting held at the Capitol on Tuesday, October 30, health experts from across the nation revealed alarming statistics regarding health disparities for communities of color in access to care, quality of service and health outcomes.

"The American health care system lacks cultural competency and provides second-class medicine to communities of color,' said Dr. Randall Maxey, past president of the National Medical Association and a specialist in kidney disease. "African Americans are 12 percent of the population, but 70 percent of the patients with kidney failure. Every person of color faces racism and ignorance in medicine."

From heart disease and diabetes to breast cancer and mental health services, studies show a wide gap between the quality of care that minorities receive and that received by whites, experts said.

"I believe that the quality of health care is a social justice issue," said Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (26th District), who convened the town hall along with members of the Tri-Caucus.

Following the town hall, the Tri-Caucus sent a letter to the Governor calling on him to include strategies to eliminate health disparities in his health care reform proposals.

"California is on the cutting edge of a diverse America, and it doesn't have a health care system that is capable of providing health care for its growing minority population," said Gary Puckrein, PhD and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum.

Puckrein's report punctuated the studies presented by health experts in diabetes, internal medicine, renal failure and cardiology. Among the disparities they cited were:

• Minorities receive lower quality health care than whites even when they are paying for the same health insurance.
• Private health insurance plans spend twice as much on whites than on communities of color.
• African Americans are 13 percent less likely to undergo coronary angioplasty and one-third less likely to undergo bypass surgery than are whites.
• Among preschool children hospitalized for asthma, only 7 percent of black children and 2 percent of Hispanic children, compared with 21 percent of white children are prescribed routine medications to prevent further hospitalizations.
• The length of time between an abnormal screening mammogram and the follow-up diagnostic test for cancer is more than twice as long for women of color than for white women.
• Blacks and Latinos are almost twice as likely to have diabetes
• The percent of African Americans receiving mental health care is half that of whites.

Known treatments are being ignored or under utilized.

August 2007

California Legislative Black Caucus Examines Poverty Conditions Among Predominately African American Private Security Officers

LBC Calls on Real Estate Industry to End Double Standard in Building Security

"Separate and Unequal: How Corporate Real Estate Can End Poverty Conditions in Building Security" a study specific to California, was released today by the Legislative Black Caucus. The study was prepared for the caucus by the Stand for Security Coalition of clergy, congregations, and community leaders.

A full-time security officer earns less than half the income necessary to live above poverty conditions as set forth by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Security officers would need to work nearly 100 hours a week to reach the self-sufficiency standard set by the EPI.

"The corporate real estate industry is encouraging dead-end jobs and is not meeting their responsibility to the officers who protect their property nor to California businesses and the public who deserve a stable, professional security force," said Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally, LBC Chairman.

"Real estate corporations should commit to turn these dead-end security jobs into good jobs for tens of thousands of predominately African American workers who comprise the security industry workforce," said Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass, LBC Vice-Chair. "The real estate industry’s double standard when it comes to security has a huge impact on our communities."

If corporate real estate leaders would agree to pay security officers the same wages and benefits as the janitors it would bring an estimated tens of millions of dollars back into the state’s economically challenged neighborhoods and lift thousands of security officers and their families out of poverty.

"Security officers are the only workers in commercial real estate high-rise buildings without decent wages and access to quality, affordable health care - whereas building engineers, window washers, parking attendants, janitors and others receive full employer-paid family health care, career ladders and wages you can raise a family on," said Faith Culbreath, President of SEIU SOULA Local 2006 representing 4,000 private security officers throughout Los Angeles County. SEIU represents nearly 10,000 security officers statewide. "Only the security workers - who are predominately African American - are being left behind."

Click here to read the report.