Author Archive for Clare Howard

Clare Howard is the editor of the Community Word. She can be reached at communityword@yahoo.com

Racism is a health risk; CenteringPregnancy counters the risk

Centering Pregnancy

Medical research has carefully documented the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, smoking, lack of exercise and more. But the health risk of racism was largely ignored. Statistics, however, are now emerging –– African American women are at…

Healthcare system “cracking” around abortion access; “Medical Students for Choice” steps in with help

Young people today are stunned by the possibility of losing Roe v. Wade. That includes medical students who see first hand how inadequate the formal curriculum is covering female reproductive choice at most medical schools. As more states enact increasingly…

Chillicothe mosquito fogging stokes dissent

PHOTO BY CLARE HOWARD

Mike Contratto is a former military man. He’s from a military family and grew up on a military base. He’s a West Point graduate, and he’ll admonish anyone who calls him an environmental activist. He says he’s “not an activist,…

Editorial | Illinois’ anti-BDS legislation in 2015; now U.S. House rejects BDS

S.A. Shepler (c) 2019 Community Word

Support for universal basic human rights should be an easy position to defend and promote. Support for Palestinian basic human rights apparently is not. Palestinian human rights cannot honestly be conflated with anti-Semitism, but that’s precisely what’s happening. The Boycott,…

Illinois has open door for CAFOs

CAFO

Sharon Deweerth looks out the west windows of her rural Marshall County home to see the sun set on corn fields stretching to the horizon. Those fields hold generations of her family’s history of work, values and memories of rural…

Editorial | The War: Black Genocide in the Black Community

S.A. Shepler (c) 2019 Community Word

“Is genocide taking place in the Black community? Are African American males unconsciously committing genocide against themselves and their communities?” Those questions were posed by Agbara Bryson at a recent forum hosted by Bryson’s New Millennium Institute. The answers to…