By Oakland Post Staff

Last week, the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce (OAACC) announced the distribution of $63,000 in microgrants to 63 member businesses. These $1,000 grants, generously sponsored by Supervisor Nate Miley, Amazon, and the Tides Foundation, reflect the organization’s goals and unwavering commitment to empowering Black-owned businesses in Oakland.

“Our members are essential to Oakland’s economic and cultural fabric,” said Cathy Adams, president of the OAACC. “These grants are a testament to our dedication to fostering business growth and sustainability within our community.”

The microgrants are designed to provide vital support for members to strengthen their operations, invest in growth opportunities, or meet pressing needs, Adams added.

As part of this initiative, OAACC leaders are encouraging all grant recipients to inspire their communities to support Oakland-based businesses by shopping locally, sharing referrals, and following their social media pages.

For more information about the OAACC and the organization’s initiatives, please visit www.oaacc.org.

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Special to The Post

The Interfaith Council of Alameda County (ICAC) will hold its first meeting of 2025 on Thursday, Jan. 9, at the Port of Oakland, located at 530 Water St. Hosted by the president of the Port of Oakland, the meeting will run from 1-2:30 p.m. and will focus on pressing community issues including environmental justice, housing solutions, and crime and safety.

State, county, and city officials have been invited to join ICAC board members and the community to explore effective strategies for addressing these interconnected challenges across Alameda County, including ICAC’s Safe Car Park program expansion and efforts to convert trailers into shelter for the unhoused.

All are welcome and encouraged to attend and contribute to this important discussion. For more information, visit interfaithAC.org.

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By Terri Schlichenmeyer

 Author: David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, c.2024, Columbia University Press, $28.00

Get lots of rest.

That’s always good advice when you’re ailing. Don’t overdo. Don’t try to be Superman or Supermom, just rest and follow your doctor’s orders.

And if, as in the new book, “Building the Worlds That Kill Us” by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, the color of your skin and your social strata are a certain way, you’ll feel better soon.

Nearly five years ago, while interviewing residents along the Mississippi River in Louisiana for a book they were writing, authors Rosner and Markowitz learned that they’d caused a little brouhaha. Large corporations in the area, ones that the residents of “a small, largely African American community” had battled over air and soil contamination and illness, didn’t want any more “’agitators’” poking around. They’d asked a state trooper to see if the authors were going to cause trouble.

For Rosner and Markowitz, this underscored “what every thoughtful person at least suspects”: that age, geography, immigrant status, “income, wealth, race, gender, sexuality, and social position” largely impacts the quality and availability of medical care.

It’s been this way since Europeans first arrived on North American shores.

Native Americans “had their share of illness and disease” even before the Europeans arrived and brought diseases that decimated established populations. There was little-to-no medicine offered to slaves on the Middle Passage because a ship owner’s “financial calculus… included the price of disease and death.”  According to the authors, many enslavers weren’t even “convinced” that the cost of feeding their slaves was worth the work received.

Factory workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s worked long weeks and long days under sometimes dangerous conditions, and health care was meager; Depression-era workers didn’t fare much better. Black Americans were used for medical experimentation. And just three years ago, the American Lung Association reported that “’people of color’ disproportionately” lived in areas where the air quality was particularly dangerous.

So, what does all this mean? Authors David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz don’t seem to be too optimistic, for one thing, but in “Building the Worlds That Kill Us,” they do leave readers with a thought-provoker: “we as a nation … created this dark moment and we have the ability to change it.” Finding the “how” in this book, however, will take serious between-the-lines reading.

If that sounds ominous, it is. Most of this book is, in fact, quite dismaying, despite that there are glimpses of pushback here and there, in the form of protests and strikes throughout many decades. You may notice, if this is a subject you’re passionate about, that the histories may be familiar but deeper than you might’ve learned in high school. You’ll also notice the relevance to today’s healthcare issues and questions, and that’s likewise disturbing.

This is by no means a happy-happy vacation book, but it is essential reading if you care about national health issues, worker safety, public attitudes, and government involvement in medical care inequality. You may know some of what’s inside “Building the Worlds That Kill Us,” but now you can learn the rest.

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