black…MYstory

After reading and hearing more about the mysterious death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson, my mind was spinning at the thoughts of the type of brutality she must have suffered at the hands of her attacker(s).  More disturbing was the fact that it could have been a fellow soldier or soldiers that did this to her.

What the LaVena Johnson case seems to shed light on is an ugly truth about the military — sexual assaults of female military personnel are wildly prevalent.

Recently, doctors for a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area testified in front of Congress that some 41% of female veterans seen there said they had been victims of sexual assault while in the military.

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office may put that number even higher, across the board.

“At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault.”

In looking at the numbers, Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, stated it most profoundly:

“Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.”

Women soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen are expected to risk life and limb in service to their country.  However, these threats should not be coming from fellow military personnel.

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This is something that should cause us, as black people, to seriously consider issues of health.

A mutation BCRA1 gene is known to increase the likelihood of breast cancer in women. A study was recently done that look at the prevalence of this mutation and the results were enough to raise some eyebrows. The study looked at women of different ethnicities with breast cancer. What it was looking for was the percentage of women with breast cancer who also had this mutation. In Hispanic women, 3.5 percent of patients had this mutation. 8.3 percent of Ashkenazi Jewish women had this mutation. 2.2 percent of non-Hispanic white women and 0.5 percent of Asian-American women also had this mutation.

Overall, black women, right now, only comprise 1.3 percent of cancer patients with this mutation. However, among those diagnosed before age 35, 16.7 percent of those studied had the mutation. This clearly shows that there is real risk, of which black folks should be concerned.

This study also highlights the reality of medical racism. Consider the words of the following two researchers:

“Traditionally, studies have focused on white women,” said Esther John, a research scientist at the cancer center and lead author of the study. “There is a great need to study racial minorities in the United States.”

Although testing for the BRCA1 mutation has been available for a decade, it has not been applied much to minority populations, said Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, professor of medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago.

“A lot of young women die of breast cancer because they’re not even aware that lump in their breast could be cancer,” said Olopade, who wrote an editorial accompanying the paper in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association. “If you know you’re at high risk, you’ll get that evaluated.”

Honestly, the first woman I ever knew with breast cancer was a white woman who I considered the salt of the earth. So, at least viscerally, I know the toll this disease can take on women and their families (Note: men can develop breast cancer, too, and we need to be diligent, as well). However, it is clear that the research of this disease needs to be better funded and more comprehensive to be more inclusive of patients of all colors.

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Okay, I’m about a day late getting this to you but, last night, NBC Nightly News began a week-long series on African-American women. In it, they are examining the progress of black women in terms of education and careers, familial relationships, politics and health.

This sounds like it could actually be a pleasant alternative to the media images of black people that are normally splashed across television screens. Therefore, I encourage you to check it out and give NBC your feedback on this coverage. Perhaps they can be inspired to be more inclusive in their coverage in the future.

At any rate, I think I’ll be checking it out.

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