Features

Jean-Bernard Poulard, M.D., likely will spend the rest of his medical career serving minority communities. “I always had it in my heart to work in Queens,” he says of New York City’s largest and most ethnically diverse borough.

Idjwi Island, the second-largest inland island in Africa and the 10th in the world, sits in the middle of Lake Kivu, a lush and hilly terrain located between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The home of an estimated 250,000 Congolese refugees, it is where Jacques L. Sebisaho, M.D., spends much of his time and energy.

If you believe the mainstream media in this country, Nigerians are among the most corrupt people in the world,” says Olakunle O. Akinboboye, M.D. “But that’s a terrible stereotype without an iota of truth.” Nigerians should have their own newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television and Internet outlets “to showcase our best and brightest,” he declares.

By the time Antonio D. Martin left Kings County Hospital Center as executive director to lead the restructuring of the $6.7 billion New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., no one called the hospital by its old nickname, “Killer County.”
“Even police officers now say they want to be taken to Kings County when they are shot,” Martin once told The Network Journal.

At its second annual roundtable with chief diversity officers, just before President Obama issued an executive order to rebalance the makeup of a federal workforce in which white men held more than 61 percent of senior-pay positions as recently as fiscal year 2009, The Network Journal got an in-depth look at the state of workplace and supplier diversity at leading corporations

 More than just a few professional athletes take seriously the notion of “giving back” to their community. Some raise money for charitable causes in their off-season by playing sports other than their own, golf and softball being the most common of these off-season outings. But in an age when bad behavior dominates news about the activities of Black sports celebrities off the field, the efforts of those who seek to uplift the lives of others seldom make headlines.

 Tawana M. Tibbs hardly considers herself a philanthropist. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing in the community,” says Tibbs, whose passion for having a positive impact on the lives of young people fuels her service to her community.

 U.S. consumer sentiment improved in early May, as optimism about jobs eased the pain of high gasoline and food prices. Economists were less optimistic about the country’s growth prospects, but they were slightly more upbeat about the job market. Their projected drop in the nationwide unemployment rate, however, obscures a depressing outlook for African-Americans, whose jobless rate remains double that of the national average. TNJ queried noted experts about prospects for Black employment, income, poverty and entrepreneurship. Here are their responses: