Essay 1853

Powerful news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The photo above features Jessica Reynolds, who broke Florida’s state record for girls’ weightlifting. The New York Times reported on the Herculean feats of girls in Florida high schools. Click on the essay title above to catch the full story.

• A federal judge ordered Big Tobacco to refrain from hawking its products overseas with terms like “low tar” and “light.” Cigarette makers have already been banned from using the labels in the United States, but they hoped to continue their misleading advertising in foreign nations. However, the judge wrote that there was no reason to believe Congress wanted tobacco companies “to tell the rest of the world that ‘low tar/light’ cigarettes are less harmful to health when they are prohibited from making such fraudulent representations to the American public.” Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man will probably seek an appeal.

• A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed the life-span gap between Blacks and Whites in America “remains substantial,” despite narrowing over the past decade. The authors wrote that homicide, HIV and infant death “continue to keep the Black-White gap unnecessarily large.” Let’s not forget the efforts of Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man.

• Add Maryland to the states offering apologies over their historical connections to slavery. The Maryland Senate voted to express “profound regret” for the state’s role in the slave trade, admitting the responsibility Maryland had in operating “the institution of slavery and its attendant evils.” One critic remarked, “It can be potentially damaging in that [the apology] concentrates attention on historical discrimination and leaves out the more modern discrimination. … If the state legislature wants to apologize for something, how about the quality of education that students in Baltimore City are getting?” Hey, you can expect that apology in the next 150 years.