"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

No vote, no voice if you're poor, scatterbrained

By Esther J. Cepeda

If you’re happy to break one law, then you’ll surely break another, right? You’ve jaywalked so you’re a good candidate for committing an armed robbery.

That’s the exact logic being used to defend the ridiculous scheme to limit voters in Missouri and approximately 20 other states across the country by requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.

That state’s proposed constitutional amendment, which if passed could go into effect as early as August, could keep approximately 240,000 unregistered Missouri-dwelling U.S. citizens from voting in the most interesting Presidential election of the last several decades.

Why? Fear the estimated "12 million" illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. who were bold enough to break federal immigration laws but are too terrified of getting deported to seek medical care or report crime might get it in their minds to commit voter fraud by giving a municipal system all their contact information for a shot at electing a president from a pool of candidates too terrified to broach the subject of immigration.

Already the elderly, the disabled, those who can’t afford – or choose to not to – drive and haven’t gotten around to sitting at their secretary of state facility for most of a day to get an official photo identification card, have been denied their right to vote in seven states. By decree of the U.S. Supreme Court, no less, who upheld Indiana’s photo-ID requirement law on April 28th.

The argument: according to the Justice Department, of forty voters indicted for registration fraud or illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, twenty-one were non-citizens. Also, anyone could easily forge an electric or phone utility bill or paychecks, which are just some of the many forms of ID currently used to register voters.

If you buy into that, then why not note the reported tens of thousands of native-born Missourians who were kicked off Medicaid in 2006 because they couldn’t find their birth certificates to argue that more U.S.-born people will be screwed out of their voting rights than impostors? It’s better to deny suffrage to people who live on the margins of society – or are simply prone to misplacing things – than take a chance on "illegal Irma" blackening the ovals?

On the other side of the conspiracy theory coin are rumors that the Republicans are masterminding a scheme to keep the ethnic minorities – assumed to lean Democratic – from voting them out of office in droves as they vote the country’s first African American into the "White" House.

How about the theory that photo ID voting restrictions are designed to counteract the backlog of 930,000 citizenship applications that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently promised to process by September 30th because about nine thousand almost-new Americans sued USCIS in order to get them to do things "the right way." The letter of the law demands the decision to grant citizenship be made within 120 days of interviewing the applicant, after all.

I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume the people who make these laws up aren’t malevolent but instead simply ignorant.

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that the well-to-do bureaucrats who propose laws simply can’t imagine a world in which you don’t have mommy or daddy drive you to the DMV on your sixteenth birthday for a driver’s license? Is it really too hard to imagine people of certain means not having a clue how hard it is to navigate replacing a lost birth certificate when you don’t read well or have a disability?

No harder, I guess, than imagining legislators so stupid they actually believe droves of illegal aliens are going to throw the next election.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Prostitution's Hidden victims: boys

By Esther J. Cepeda

That "dirty old man" who pays cash to use women as disposable sex toys may have started out as a bewildered, ten-year-old boy.

Of the many shocking revelations meticulously documented in the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation’s report "Deconstructing the Demand for Prostitution" released late last week, the most heartbreaking and disturbing was that among men who frequently pay prostitutes for sex, many had their first sexual experience paid for by a close relative – at as tender an age as ten.

In 2006 and 2007, a team of twelve male and female project interviewers from CAASE and a group called Prostitution Research Education set out to look into the minds of Chicago men who pay for sex from the estimated 16,000 to 25,000 women in the city who sell their services. They advertised their study on Craigslist, Chicago After Dark, and the Chicago Reader, and eventually spoke for two hours each with 113 men ages 20-71.

Their "average" john was 39 years old, only slightly more likely African American than Caucasian, overwhelmingly college-educated and making over $40,000 a year, with a girlfriend or wife at home. A little over half of them bought sex from once a month to several times in one week, soliciting women on the internet, in person, and through escort services alike.

The average age of their first purchase was 21 with the jaw-dropping age of ten pulling down the average. These stark numbers – 29% of these guys’ first time ever was paid and 17% had that first experience on a dad’s dime – round out the tragedy.

"We have to do a lot better job of talking about exploitation and violence toward women just to counteract the overwhelming glamorization of prostitution in this country," study author Rachel Durchslag told me last week. "One thing we need to do is talk to young men about this issue. Moms and dads don’t want to talk to their sons about this but with one quarter of our participants reporting they had their first paid experience before the age of seventeen, it tells me we have to talk to dads about how to bond with their sons with some healthy masculinity instead of based on exploitation and domination."

Up until now, the conversation about the fallout of pay-to-play has been focused on the female part of the prostitution equation. The facts in this report, found on http://www.caase.org, point to the serious need to intervene in the lives of very young men today in order to make a difference in the lives of women and men – both those involved in prostitution transactions and those hurt by after-effects like sexually transmitted diseases, the pain of betrayal, and the inability to have healthy relationships – for generations to come.

That’s a tall order in a society where young boys and girls are constantly bombarded by images of ultra-sexual women, and pimp culture has become so mainstream you can buy pre-packaged costumes at your local Halloween supply store. The same society where parents scoff at the idea of their 8^{th-graders learning about condoms in health ed. classes.}

"Absolutely young women are growing up with unbelievable amounts of pressure to be sexual but that’s only half of the equation. Prostitution not only harms women in communities but harms men as well," Rachel said, citing the guilt, shame, and real remorse the men in the study expressed to their interviewers after having the opportunity – in many cases for the first time in their lives – to talk openly about their behavior and feelings out.

Calling all moms and dads: get over your embarrassment about the "sex talk." Your sons and daughters need you to have frank and open heart-to-heart conversations about sexual health and responsibility, today. Sexual victimization for either gender can happen early but it’s never too late to do everything possible to avoid it.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Cynic’s guide to pink ribbons

By Esther J. Cepeda

I like breasts as much as the next guy – even more, maybe – they feed babies, provide shock absorption, and are pleasing to look at. No downside, right? Well, not unless they get cancer. Many have.

The race to their cure has become a global, multi-billion dollar philanthropic and cultural phenomenon – and that’s how I came to be annoyed by pink ribbons.

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay annoyed, but who could have blamed me when last week on one day alone I ran across “breast cancer awareness” batteries at the 7-Eleven, a “Think Pink” accessory pack for a kids’ portable video game at Circuit City, and a pink ribbon Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation street-sweeper!

“Come ON!” I thought, “How many ways can marketers make money off women’s breasts?!” That was followed immediately by my standard, “It’s not even the number one killer of women in the U.S.!” That would be heart disease, followed by cancers (lung!), strokes, lung disease in general, and Alzheimer’s disease, just FYI.

And it’s not even October yet, but aahhh, close to Mother’s Day.

But rather than remain peeved at the preponderance of pink in my life, I instead bowed to the temple of what will go down as one of the strongest consumer brands in history –one that actually saves real women’s lives – the Susan G. Komen For the Cure breast cancer awareness foundation, and its pink ribbons.

Google ‘em if you want, you know the story: 25 years, a promise between two sisters, the Y-Me Race for the cure, etc. I blew in a call to ask them if they felt their message was becoming diluted because of the marketing blitz, if people are getting tired of it all.

“We have tested, informally, in various ways and found that both men and women are still very open to the messages,” Caroline Wall, Manager for Cause Marketing Operations told me yesterday. “We’re trying to engage all different types of niches and consumer groups…whether it be Kitchen Aid mixers, or Major League Baseball, or Garth Brooks.”

I became interested in the success of the brand not realizing the power of the pink to pervade different cultures and languages. And not realizing how desperately that’s needed.

I was thinking along the lines of targets to sell products to, after all, the pink ribbon peddled 58 million green dollars – 20% of Komen’s revenue – in 2006, according to one Los Angeles Times article. And yes, there have been some unscrupulous logo users, which Komen actively roots out, and certainly no shortage of critics of the success of the campaign. But back to those “targets.”

“We don’t want to pigeon-hole anyone but there are opportunities to have an ‘in’ with a particular population, for instance, the African American and Latino communities through product placement,” she said, noting that black and Hispanic women get diagnosed way later than Caucasians.

The numbers: breast is the most common cancer in African American women and the second leading cause of cancer death among African American women. It’s the most commonly diagnosed and the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic/Latina women.

Consider my cynical mouth shut.

Mother’s day breast-health support buyer beware, yes you can look on their web site to make sure the pink products you want to purchase will fulfill Komen’s mission of funding research for a cure. Shop smart and find a balance but don’t automatically buy into the backlash.

“There are still over 200,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer every day in this country,” Caroline said, “and they would say they’re not tired of hearing about it."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Feeling the Pain

by Esther J Cepeda

If you live in Chicago, or any other world-class city like New York or LA, you have a unique civic pride, a knowing that wherever your travels may take you – the South Pole, New Guinea, or Beijing – anyone you bump into will know where you’re from.

Rarely do you encounter someone in Guam who will respond to “I’m from Chicago” with “Oh, isn’t that where the schoolchildren get killed on their way to school?”

That doesn’t make it any less true.

The harsh reality is that thirty-four Chicago Public School children died violently in 2007, at least that many are gone so far this year, and we haven’t even begun to imagine how many more will be claimed by New Year’s eve.

The million dollar question is what to do about it. Everything has been put on the table: SWAT teams have been deployed, gun laws proposed, anti-violence curriculum put in schools, even trained ex-gang members have trickled into the streets to help “mediate” turf battles. But no silver bullet, if you’ll pardon the pun, has put a dent in the tensions roiling neighborhoods all over Chicago.

The politicians and the church leaders have had their say about what it will take to end the carnage. Look at “Letters to the Editor” pages in Chicago you’ll see the general public weighing in, mostly heaping blame on “careless parents.” They’ve all got good points, we’ve heard them all before.

Since innovative solutions are in order, I thought I’d ask for one from a different kind of expert. I called up Marco Marsen, aka the “Billion Dollar Problem Solver,” a marketing wiz for the likes of myriad successful corporations, “one of America’s top Out-of-the-Box thinkers,” and author of “Why We Haven't Won the Wars on Poverty, Drugs or Terror" to get a different take on things.

Now don’t get too excited, he didn’t have “an answer,” but did throw out the beginning of one. It goes a little something like this: we need to start caring.

“We’re all in this together,” he told me recently, while on tour for his new book The Lion’s Way. “But the people who live in poverty, the people who don’t have health care and have to choose between getting a tooth treated and paying the rent – they’ve been forgotten.”

“Whether you like it or not, the people who are pulling the triggers are the victims of all the failings of us as a society,” he says, “The feeling of ‘I don’t have any choices so I’m going to take matters into my own hands’ is what’s driving this.”

Marco thinks we Americans – who claim to live in the greatest country in the world –

consider those who lash out in our inequitable society a problem we have no part or responsibility in.

And he’s right. How many of us have thought: “‘I’m’ never part of the problem, so ‘I’ can never be part of the solution.”

We’re all worried about our wallets and the economy, but not overly concerned about who dies in the “bad parts of the city.” Its human nature: the gas tank bill is in your face, while dead children on the 6 o’clock news is sad, but doesn’t affect your life past the sound-byte. Unless you live in those “bad parts” of the city, that is.

The actual impact of what happens in those “bad parts” affects us as members of our society in immeasurable ways – spiritual, emotional, economic – that message just hasn’t hit home yet.

“I don’t blame people – why would anyone want to feel the pain?” Marco says, “But at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”

From the Billion Dollar Problem Solver: not an “answer,” just the beginning of one: we need to start feeling the pain.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Twenty-dollar Cheetos

Can Global Food Shortage + Obesity Epidemic = better nutrition?

By Esther J. Cepeda

Food prices are through the roof. It's gettin' ugly out there: Australia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Haiti are all facing severe food shortages.

But why leave the Americas? Millions of Mexicans took to the streets last year because the Sponge-Bobian fantasy that cars running on corn would save the world drove the humble tortilla into caviar-land.

Too "third world" for you? How about the rice restrictions at Costco - ahhh, now they're hitting us where it hurts! You don't pull basics from overly-lit suburban temples of excess without grabbing a headline or two.

But where some see another kick to the groin of our ailing economy, I have a grand vision: the Twenty-dollar Cheeto.

First some facts: according to the Endocrine Society of America and the Centers for Disease Control, obesity is "the number one health threat facing America." Based on numbers from 2004, they say obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually and costs the U.S. nearly $122.9 billion bucks. Think globally, and we’re talking over 1 billion overweight adults and 300 million clinically obese. Ouch.

And corn prices - you could pick up 56 pounds for $2 in January 2006, by January 2008 the predictions looked closer to $5 per bushel, according to the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service. Meat that starts out as cows and pigs eat...well, you get the picture.

Which brings me back to my fantasy: the twenty-dollar Cheeto.

I loooove Cheetos, who doesn't? Poor people who buy their food at the corner store love 'em, working class folks who get groceries from the food shelter love 'em, rich people who didn't fill up at Charlie Trotter's love 'em.

Now take higher demand and lower supplies of corn products, add it to the US and Mexico - the numbers 9 and 19 fattest countries in the world, according to the World Health Organization - factor in a plunging economy and 24-hour news cycles, and that equals a prime teaching moment for getting people to eat healthier.

Inexplicably, spokespersons for the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Health Department, the American Heart Association and the few med schools I called hadn't even considered the possibility that the challenge of global food scarcity might be a perfect opportunity.

But never mind the policy wonks, the wheels have already started turning at food banks and pantries.

These are the people who beg the industrial food complex for left-over mac-n-cheese, canned ravioli, and pretzels to give to people who can't afford it otherwise. People like the good folks at the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

"Rising costs for food is affecting everything we do," Bob Dolgan of the GCFD told me. "Our most recent numbers show we're up 12% over last year - it's really affecting our pantry and soup kitchens."

But like me - worried the processed, packaged food the poorest of our communities swallow in even greater amounts during an economic downturn creates more health problems in later years - Bob sees the up-side. And GCFD had already decided to wean themselves off the corn.

"With higher costs for food producers we're relying less on donations and more on fundraising. But that lets us control the nutritional value of the products, so we're actually purchasing more fresh fruits and vegetables."

Bob didn't want to speculate what sort of ultra-effective nutrition education campaigns this conundrum could spur, instead we took a moment to savor the possibility of the twenty dollar Cheeto - so delicious, so expensive. A lunchtime staple today, a pleasant, distant memory running through the minds of 1.3 billion thinner bodies tomorrow.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Marching to a different drummer

By Esther J. Cepeda

It’s that time of the year, folks.

The time when thousands of mostly-Hispanic defenders of immigrants’  rights will declare to non-Latino America how much they love and want to stay in the United States by marching around major cities bearing the flags of their homeland.

Yes, the time when the same people who will press you on the myriad ways immigrants thanklessly toil for this country, working endless hours in fields, restaurants, and factories, will skip work to parade through the streets en masse to call attention to their very existence.

Yep, the time when the same parents who look you in the eye and tell you they came to the U.S. to give their children hope for a bright future through the benefit of an American education will pull them out of school to stroll down crowded streets chanting “Si se puede” in the name of federal immigration law reform.

Yes, “yes they can.” But they shouldn’t.

In 2005 hundreds of thousands of Hispanic across the country, infuriated by the proposal of the Sensenbrenner bill which would have criminalized any one aiding illegal immigrants, rose up seemingly out of nowhere to say: “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!”

It is two years later; nothing and everything has changed, but the usual suspects are at it again – minus the fanfare. And actually, some of the usual suspects are nowhere to be found this year.

“Luis Gutierrez, he’s hiding, he says he’s going to be in Washington,” march mastermind Jorge Mujica of the March 10 Coalition, told me yesterday after a pre-manifestation press conference. “No Hillary, no Barack, either.” Mr. Mujica didn’t want to get too specific but did add, “Some Democrats told us not to march because it’s an election year, and we shouldn’t interfere with the democratic process.”

Really? After an unprecedented amount of hype was given to the effect of the “Latino vote” on the never-ending presidential race? Interesting.

Still, not to be denied, and despite America’s collective yawn on the immigration issue because of the tanking economy, the organizers of this year’s May Day marches have decided the show must go on.

This year’s indifference is what we would have seen last year had the Feds, in their infinite wisdom, not decided to raid a discount mall in the heart of Chicago’s extremely Mexican Little Village community, offering a national stage for activists to literally weep and gnash their teeth in the streets and on camera. No such luck this time.

Fast forward to 2008: march fatigue has clearly set in. Let’s face it, after the swift failure of immigration law reform last July – now dormant until well after the next American President is in place – it’s time to be more constructive.

Yes in 2005 the sleeping giant awoke, people came out of the shadows, and everyone who hadn’t noticed that their Chop Suey, escargot, and sushi is cooked by Mexicans paid attention. But it’s time to give it a rest.

This Thursday, making sure the kiddies don’t miss any reading time at school and demonstrating how much you want your job by actually showing up should be the order of the day.

Making Bob and Jane Smith burn several gallons of four-dollar gas while idling in their SUV as a few thousand rabble-rousers clog intersections yelling “march today, vote tomorrow” slogans isn’t going to change the laws any time soon. It’s been proven time and again.

“Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com