Talking to Advocate Extraordinaire Harry Belafonte
2004; Wolters Kluwer; Volume: 26; Issue: 20 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1097/01.cot.0000292964.23186.88
ISSN1548-4688
Autores ResumoWhen I was arranging interviews for the column about the COMPARE registry (OT 9/10/04), the public relations folks handling the prostate cancer project's so-called rollout at the National Medical Association meeting in San Diego wanted me to speak first with Harry Belafonte who, as a prostate cancer survivor, was attending the meeting to discuss his personal battle with the disease in an effort to raise awareness. He launched into what would become an hour-and-a-half discussion that took us through a fascinating social history of 20th century America as seen through the eyes of a man who'd started life as an impoverished and disenfranchised child in Harlem, and who then participated in some of the seminal social and political events that helped shape this country during that time. Mr. Belafonte's longtime role as a leading social, political, and civil rights activist offers a rich historical context for the evolution of today's cancer advocacy movement. I asked if he considered himself a patient advocate or a man who had experienced prostate cancer (diagnosed 8 years ago when he was 69) and just wanted to share the experience with others. “Both really,” he said, in a thoughtful and measured manner that characterized his conversation. I have looked at the peculiar phenomenon that so much information is being disseminated, and there is still such a low threshold of responsibility being expressed by many in taking care of health. Eric Rosenthal founded the NCI-designated Cancer Centers Public Affairs Network; works with Vital Options International TeleSupport Cancer Network and The Group Room cancer radio show as senior correspondent and news features editor; has organized conferences about the media and medical/cancer communications issues; and is a member of the NCI Director's Consumer Liaison Group, a 15-member chartered federal advisory committee that advises and makes recommendations on issues relevant to people with cancer, their families, and the cancer advocacy community. “This is particularly sensitive from my own perspective in terms of my experience in the black community,” he continued. Not just in the issue of prostate cancer, but in all other instances that plague us, and in some instances that plague us more than other groups, whether it's diabetes or hypertension or heart attacks. ‘What Impedes Us as a Group?’ In my social advocacy, I need to examine what is it that impedes us as a group, what keeps us from moving forward, and what is it that denies us access to those things that we are entitled to? And among them, health care was a very, very important issue. “It was one thing to work for voting rights and work for civil rights and for other rights, but these are things that are in your control, in your ability to make a difference. In looking at how to make a difference in all of this, I was thrown back to a place when I was growing up.” Mr. Belafonte said that after fighting for Brown vs. Board of Education to get blacks into the school system, civil rights activists looked for affirmative action to help exploit this newfound freedom and access. But he noted that blacks, as a group, never had such experiences in health care. His mother, he related, was a single parent and domestic worker, and these women were often tired, overworked, stressed, and deeply anxious, often leading to immune and body deficiencies. It was very hard for blacks to get health care in those days, he said, since most institutions were white and the few that treated blacks were overcrowded. For his mother, going for medical care meant she had to miss a day of work—very costly for a family already living hand to mouth.Figure: Harry Belafonte's longtime role as a leading social, political, and civil rights activist offers a rich historical context for the evolution of today's cancer advocacy movement. (This photo was taken last year after a concert in Sweden when he spoke to the head of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights.)And she would often have to return to the health care facility, because indifferent staff would run out of time and she'd need a new appointment. During clinic visits, his mother would suffer indignities and insults, Mr. Belafonte said, noting that he thinks culturally that left her and others similarly treated with negative thoughts and myths regarding health care. “Our relationship to the health care system was almost inconsequential to other choices,” he said. “If you have to go there and find all these problems, then why bother? You suffered economic deprivation when you got there, and they weren't going to take you anyway, so you found some other way to seek healthcare.” ‘Dr. Anthony Radio Show’ That other way for his mother was through a radio show, “Dr. Anthony,” Mr. Belafonte reminisced fondly. “My mother was very faithful to ‘Dr. Anthony.’ Because trying to get into the health care system was so abusive, so distant, and so intangible, we lived medicine by the radio.” Over the years, though, he became quite committed to health care, especially for himself and his family, Mr. Belafonte said, and it was through a routine doctor's visit that he discovered his prostate cancer through a PSA that continued to rise despite two negative prostate biopsies. Sanofi-Synthelabo Connection Mr. Belafonte volunteered that although Sanofi-Synthelabo had underwritten his trip to the National Medical Association (NMA) meeting, he didn't sponsor the company and didn't have a product relationship with them. “When they came to me through the NMA and offered me the opportunity to speak, I said no, this is what I'm interested in,” he said. “I need you to use your resources to help me get into the community where the unheard can hear me. I need you to help me.…this isn't about just going into those highfalutin' places.” The NMA forum was very important to him, he said, since he rarely had been able to get a group of successful black Americans gathered together in this medical context. He told the physicians and surgeons that he'd seen them at the golf courses of the world, and at theaters and celebrations, but he now had the opportunity to speak with them collectively about social problems, and he wanted to give them this point of view. “You need to be more committed,” he said, “to stop dealing with your elitism and get more socially connected. I don't want to hear what you say from your Beverly Hills perspective, but rather from the eyes of the community.” ‘Responsibility to Take Care of Themselves’ He also speaks about blacks' historical perspective to health care to inner-city communities, telling his audiences they have a responsibility to take care of themselves. “I don't just want to talk to black intellectuals,” he said. I want to tell men they have to shake their concerns about seeing doctors…they have to speak to their homophobia…to their machismo…to their sense that it doesn't make any difference. I just don't want to sit on television and make a sound-bite announcement about how important tests are. I think that information is being amply distributed. What we don't do is get into the mechanisms and hurdles that affect us socially—that makes us more responsible. “I say to a lot of black men, I don't care what your problem is, you've got to stop practicing black genocide on yourself. We're killing off ourselves as a people. Our obesity, our hypertension, our smoking, all things we do that we have control over to change. We've got to become more actively responsible in making choices.” Mr. Belafonte said it was necessary to look at the broader social mechanism to make a difference, noting “that mechanism exists, and it is something that is often most demonized, which is government.” In the Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. He said he'd never forget when his friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in a moment of frustration: “Look, these institutions exist. They are part of our reality. We can moan and distance ourselves all we want but that won't add up to change. You've got to get inside these institutions. You've got to get to the table, and once you're in that place you'll be able to use two weapons—our intellectual resources and our capacity to articulate our cause and mission. And the fact that we have moral truth on our side makes us invincible. But you have to get into the room to apply both of them…and the task is not to oppose or conquer, but your mission is to win all these people to our cause.” Those are words that still resound powerfully when applied to advocacy, not just in the narrow world of cancer, but for all issues affecting human society. Bio in Brief Harry Belafonte's passionate endeavors in social, political, and civil rights activism have of course existed parallel to his career as a legendary singer, actor, and producer, with numerous accomplishments including Emmy (for “Tonight with Harry Belafonte”) and Tony (“John Murray Anderson's Almanac”) awards; the first album (“Calypso”) ever to sell more than a million copies; the Peace Corps' Leader for the Peace Award; the National Medal of the Arts; the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2000); and longtime and ongoing work as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF—the United Nations Children's Fund; as well as the endower of the Belafonte Foundation of Music and Art and Head of the Urban Peace Movement. 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