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When it comes to your monthly expenses, your energy bills represent a significant outlay. The combined total for your gas and electricity can be sky high, especially if you don’t know how to economise. One of the simplest ways to minimise your expenditure is by becoming more energy efficient. Not only is this beneficial to your bank balance it can also have some huge advantages for the environment and your carbon footprint too. So, how can you cut your costs and your consumption in just a few simple steps? Here are four top tips to help you.

Later this month, my wife and I will celebrate our five year anniversary. Which feels like an accomplishment. Not because getting and staying married makes you any specialer than those who ain’t either of those things, but because I think we know each other well enough now to make a pragmatic decision on whether to escape. And there’s been no escaping (yet)!

With this anniversary comes some pressure. Year Five is one of the years that’s recognized by the greeting card industry and shit, so you know it’s a big deal, as what we’re supposed to buy, what we’re supposed to do, which animal we’re supposed to sacrifice, etc., are less questions than commodifiable goods. According to the Internet, there’s a standard gift (wood), a modern gift (silver), a preferred flower (daisies), and a gemstone (turquoise). Which together sounds like we should just buy each other Infinity Gauntlets.

I’m not too worried about that, though. We’ll figure it out, and like with the rest of our marriage, if all else fails, we’ll just eat some zinc pills. What really concerns me—and has concerned me for our entire relationship—is that I still haven’t quite figured out how to address my in-laws, and I feel like I probably should know that by now.

Now, my father-in-law doesn’t live in-state, and I only see him a few times a year, so this isn’t as pertinent with him. But my mother-in-law lives five minutes away. We see each other multiple times a week, and also occasionally correspond through text messages and phone calls. And when any of that happens, the following thing also happens:

***Mother-in-law comes over***

Her: Hello!

Me: Hi! How are you today?

Her: Great! How are you?

Me: I’m splendid!

***I need to call my mother-in-law to confirm what time she’s coming over to babysit***

Her: Hello!

Me: Hey ... I was just calling to confirm the time for tonight.

Her: Does 7 still work?

Me: Yes ma’am. It does. Thank you!

This—the excited greetings without a name or some sort of honorific accompanying them—doesn’t seem to bother her. I doubt she’s even noticed. But, while it doesn’t really bother me either—I’m fine with keeping things as they are—it just seems ... odd. Like this is something I should’ve figured out by now.

As I see it, there are four possible options here:

1. I can call her by her first name, which seems too informal. (And by “too informal” I mean “like some white people shit.”)

2. I can call her Ms. + her last name, which seems too formal.

3. I can call her Ms. + her first name, which feels performative and blaxploitationey.

4. I can call her “Mom,” which, um, no. I just don’t feel comfortable with that.

(Interestingly enough, reason #4 is actually one of the tens of thousands of reasons I neglected to jump in during last month’s “Auntie” wars. I don’t call anyone “Auntie” or “Uncle” except my actual aunts and uncles. And as much as I appreciate and adore my mother-in-law, my mom is dead, and I just can’t call someone else that.)

Now, I imagine many of you are reading this and thinking “Um ... why don’t you just ask her what she’d like to be called?” And yes, that’s the best answer. The smart answer. The adult answer. BUT IT’S BESIDE THE ENTIRE FREAKIN POINT BECAUSE THE SORT OF PERSON WHO HAS SOME MILD ANXIETY ABOUT HOW TO REFER TO A WOMAN HE’S KNOWN FOR SEVEN YEARS IS ALSO THE SAME SORT OF PERSON WHERE “EASY” ANSWERS LIKE “Just, you know, ask her” AIN’T EASY AT ALL! Also, an extensive four-person survey I did on Gchat and Slack 10 minutes before writing this proved that there are at least two other people not sure what to call their mothers-in-law, which officially makes this an epidemic. (For what it’s worth, both of the men I asked are in the same boat as me, while the women were both like “You’re running out of things to write about, aren’t you?” Maybe there’s a there-there.)

Again, though. We seem to have a good system now, so there might not even be a need to change. (And, now that I think about it, I don’t remember her ever calling me “Damon.” Maybe she’s writing a blog about it too.)

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

Queen Sugar’s fourth season has not disappointed one bit. Not that I expected it to, but the writers continuously find new ways to hit us with shit we absolutely did not see coming. This week’s episode was no different. I had enough moments that elicited a physical reaction in episode 4, “Skin Transparent,” that I decided that 1) I had to write about it; 2) the only way I could write about it was to recap it in GIFs. Buckle up, Buttercup: Nova Bordelon has leveled up the trash game to new heights.

We open up with Nova outchea sad that nobody is returning her calls and apparently the only person who wants anything to do with her is Young Protegé, Micah West, who apparently is also on the outs with his boo because he’s going full light-skinned and you never go full light-skinned. 

Charley and her new boo Romero (I’m not sure he’s really a new boo anymore) legit got up a whole-ass clinic in like a week. They’re efficient as hell.

And because Charley is a mix between Olivia Pope and apparently Clarence Avant, she both managed to find out who sent Micah those threatening letters AND the person is now in police custody.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

It’s mid-July, which means it’s almost August, which means it’s almost fall, which means it’s almost that time of year when everything dies, which means you’ll soon be contemplating your own dwindling mortality and inevitable death. Since we don’t have much time left, we need to spend as much of it as possible living our very best alive-ass lives. Apparently, there’s a whole entire Megan Thee Stallion-inspired movement devoted to doing exactly that. (There’s also a thing called a City Boy Summer, which to me sounds like you just work at an inner-city non-profit.)

But what if you can’t really deal with all of that Hot Girl/Boy Summer heat because you’re experimenting with a new charcoal-based deodorant and you’re not that comfortable being overheated around crowds yet? What if things like “moving your lips while talking to people” just seems too time- and energy-consuming? How do you live your best midsummer life then? Fortunately, I’m currently in the midst of an Appropriately Chilled Kombucha Boy Summer, and I can share some tips on how to be more like me.

1. Drink all the kombuchas, even the ones that come in bottles.

“Wait,” I can hear you asking “there are kombuchas other than the ones that come in bottles?” This is the sort of question I’m here for because if you were already living your best Appropriately Chilled Kombucha Boy Summer, you’d already know you can get kombucha on tap. You wouldn’t even step foot twice in an establishment that didn’t have it. But, if you want to continue to slum with bottled kombuchas, both the Watermelon Wonder and the Guava Goodness flavors of GT’s KOMBUCHA are the best.

2. Randomly do 20 pushups before going to an event.

Although doing this adds absolutely, positively nothing to your look, you’ll feel like your muscles are a bit bulkier than usual, which will make you walk around with your chest out and your head high as everyone (in your head) admires the musculature you (don’t) possess. You might even offer to grab things off of shelves, so people will think, “Wow. That kombucha boy with the brolic forearms is also quite magnanimous.”

3. Wear shirts while in public.

4. Record yourself doing the laziest possible workout at the gym, and then post it to social media with a hashtag like #itsGodsfault or #blamehim.

If your work out of choice is basketball—like mine is—don’t actually record yourself playing in an actual game. But wait until everyone leaves, and see how many threes you can make in an empty gym with no defense as I did!

5. Say things like, “Are you sure that’s filtered?” and “Maybe a rug would add more heat to this room” and “Does that Uber has a changing table?”

6. Watch Euphoria.

Don’t even tell people anymore that you only watch it because it comes on after Big Little Lies and you’re too lazy to change the channel. I mean, you are too lazy to change the channel. That’s true. But even a slightly more energetic you would still watch.

7. Sleep for 13 hours a day.

Steve Harvey caught some heat for saying that rich people don’t sleep eight hours a day, but he was right! If you’re rich with appropriately chilled kombucha, you don’t even get out of bed unless it’s to restock.

8. Rock crooked sunglasses when at parties.

Of course, if you’ve developed a sunlight sensitivity over the past several years—like I have—the sunglasses are practical. But when people see you, they’re not going to think, “Look at that guy with the sunlight sensitivities.” Instead, it’ll be “Look at that Appropriately Chilled Kombucha Boy living his best life. I bet he has TSA PreCheck.” And if the glasses also happen to be crooked, then they’ll think, “I know that Appropriately Chilled Kombucha Boy ain’t a pimp, but his glasses have a lean. I bet he’s carrying a Container Store gift card in his wallet.”

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

Unless lawsuits against it are successful, the Trump Administration is planning to carry out immigration raids of homes and workplaces across the country starting on Sunday (July 14), reports The New York Times. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will target at least 2,000 people who have been ordered deported but remain in the country. The raids may also capture people in their proximity such as children. 

Democracy Now reports that ICE raids will take place in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. Raids were set to take place in New Orleans but the city announced that ICE will postpone the roundups due to Tropical Storm Barry. There are lots of resources online for how to cope with raids. Here are a few of the best:

Emergency Planning

Colorlines sums up what you should do in advance of raids. » We Have Rights campaign offers a preparedness tip sheet that you can download and fill out along with helpful tips for how to store it. The sheet prompts you to list out essential information including your emergency contacts, your consulate and your child’s medication. » Immigrant Legal Resource Center has tips in English and Spanish to help prepare children for possible family separation. » National Immigration Project has a comprehensive illustrated guide to handling a number of situations. 

Know Your Rights

​​​​We Have Rights has animated videos voiced by Jesse Williams that run you through what to do if ICE comes to your home, stops you in the street or comes to your job. Languages include Spanish, Arabic and Haitian Kreyol. » The ACLU presents a range of scenarios, including being stopped in the street.  » Toward the bottom of the page, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has a list of rapid response hotlines in select cities and states. »The Immigrant Defense Project, a clearinghouse of information generated by organizations around the country, has six infrographics that show you how to deal with ICE at your door, in English and Spanish. They include a list of lies that ICEagents routinely tell people. Top ruse: ICE agents pretend to be local police. » Also from the Immigrant Defense Project are know-your-rights posters and booklets in 16 languages. ​​​​​​

Finding Legal Help

Informed Immigrant has a database of service organizations searchable by zip code and coded according to what they do, from providing legal help to connecting you to mental healthcare. » The National Immigration Law Project has a searchable network of attorneys in many states. » The ACLU compiled a list of large national organizations that provide legal help to immigrants. 

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

“Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation,” Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) tweeted yesterday (July 14) to her fellow women House representatives of color: Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Barbara Lee(D-Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.). Tlaib’s response was part of a Twitter storm unleashed on President Donald Trump following a series of racist tweets on Sunday (July 14) that included the sentence: “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

His comments were apparently directed at Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib—three of whom were born United States citizens, while Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and came to the U.S. as a teenager—and the representatives, and their supporters, did not hold back.

Over the weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials embarked on a relatively small operation to arrest immigrants of undocumented status, Reuters reports. President Donald Trump first announced the raid in June via Twitter, where he promised widespread, mass deportations of “millions” of immigrants across the United States.

Immigrants and advocates were bracing for the worst, with many expecting thousands of arrests to take place on Sunday (July 14). However, according to Reuters, “there were only reports of low-profile operations in a few cities.”

Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mary Bauer told the news agency that large southern cities like Atlanta actually saw no ICE arrests over the weekend. “Immigrants and immigrant communities all over the country are in hiding and people are living in these terrified, terrorized ways, because that is the point of this whole action, whether enforcement actions take place or not,” said Bauer.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also said there were no ICEarrests in his city. “This is a political act by this president, he’s politicized a United States government agency to help him win re-election,” he told Reuters. 

And though no immigrants of undocumented status were arrested in Miami, a representative of the Florida Immigrant Coalition posted on Facebook that some fearful immigrants were sheltering at home. “They’ve been stocking up on groceries and making plans to stay in their homes with the lights off and the blinds down,” the group posted. “Some are staying home from work.”

The news outlet pointed out that ICE arrests thousands of immigrants in a typical week, per government records. Most of those raids, however, are not posted on Twitter by the president of the United States. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for ICE declined to give Reuters a comment on the agency’s operations, citing the safety of the agency’s personnel.

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

On Tuesday (July 9), oral arguments begin in a case that could result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance. And as a three-judge panel at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans listens, a contingent of Americans—from youth advocates to physicians—are making their voices heard in support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The lawsuit at the heart of Texas v. United States​ was filed February 2018 by two Republican governors and five Republic attorneys general against the federal government. “A question at the heart of the case is whether the Affordable Care Act’s mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty remained constitutional after Congress eliminated the penalty as part of the tax overhaul that Mr. Trump signed in 2017,” reports The New York Times.

If the mandate is deemed unconstitutional, it leaves open the question of whether the rest of the ACA can function without it. In December, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth, Texas said it could not and that the entire law must be dismantled. The appeals court hearing will now decide if O’Connor’s decision should be overturned.

Without the ACA, there would be an increase of almost 20 million people without insurance, according to Urban Institute. An additional estimated 52 million adults ages 18 to 64 could be denied coverage that they now qualify for if ACA provisions such as the mandate that people with pre-existing conditions be insured are revoked. There also would not be a cap for out-of-pocket medical costs that insured Americans would have to pay. Since the ACA was put into effect in 2014, Black and Latinx Americans have had the greatest decrease in the number of people who are uninsured. 

The fight to save the ACA is led by many groups, including the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA), which today announced a rollout of digital and print ads focused on the attorneys general who filed the lawsuit.

“President Trump may call the GOP ‘the party of health care,’ but the truth is these Republican AGs are in court this week trying to sabotage health care coverage for millions of Americans,” Farah Melendez, political director for DAGA said in an emailed statement. “These health care hypocrites are attacking the critical care people in their states rely on to go to the doctor, afford prescription medication, and take care of sick kids and family members.”

Spoilers for “Pose” follow.

On Tuesday’s (July 9) episode of “Pose”—written by series creators Janet Mock and  Ryan Murphy, who also directed the episode—viewers were confronted with the brutal reality of violence against transgender women. In an interview with Deadline, Mock and Murphy discuss the way that Candy (played by Angelica Ross) died on the show.

“We were quite sure that we didn’t want it to be necessarily anchored around the epidemic of HIV/AIDS at the time,” Mock said. “Instead, we wanted to really concentrate on the epidemic of violence that trans women are facing, not just back then but today. And we wanted to illustrate what loss looks like for this community in a very deep and impactful and grounded way.”

Per the Human Rights Campaign, 13 trans women of color (all but one identified as Black) have been killed so far this year.

“We have this duty and this burden of occupying this space on television which is so accessible to millions of people, that we needed to have our viewers that were watching, who are just being introduced to this world and to these characters, that they need to also feel that loss…someone who was beloved, someone who stole scenes and someone who had these iconic moments on the show. So, because we had all these touchstones with her for 11 episodes prior, we knew she was the right person,” Mock said.

“We spent a lot of time talking about and plotting it out and working with the actors. It’s important to talk about this issue right now in our culture when so many trans women are being killed and they’re headlines. At best, they’re on page 24 in a newspaper and then the next day they’re gone and forgotten,” said Murphy. “We didn’t want to do anything gratuitous. We wanted you to know the characters, we wanted you to be invested in them. Because I feel so many times there is the trope of ‘kill your LGBTQ characters.’ Sometimes as a plot point, as opposed to a character development point.”

Read the full interview here.

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

Every day there is a new example of how immigrants in the United States are blatantly dehumanized. It’s time we recognize this as a systemic issue and pass legislation to address one of its root causes.

This culture of hate and bias was evident most recently when ProPublica published its exposé on a secret Facebook group of about 9,500 former and current U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents. The details are enraging: Members from the group casually mocked the deaths of a detained Guatemalan teenager and a father and daughter who drowned in a river searching for refuge. They also devised plans to throw burritos at Latinx Congress members during their visits to border detention facilities. Throughout these exchanges, they used inexcusable and sexually degrading images nonchalantly. Soon after, CNN discovered a second Facebook groupof CBP officers espousing similar views. 

It is no secret that the Trump administration has fueled a White nationalist fervor across the country.  President Trump’s now infamous 2018 comment—”These aren’t people. These are animals.”—is a powerful example of how our leaders use degrading language in an attempt to justify the implementation of cruel policies. It is also no secret that racism is deeply rooted in our country’s history and more embedded in our federal institutions than we’d like to admit. 

This is why to simply treat this latest example as a case of “a few bad apples” is to completely miss the point: our U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus not only creates the conditions and the power dynamics for this kind of vile behavior to exist in the first place, but it also fuels hate. 

As the ProPublica article highlights, the process of dehumanization begins with words, but it does not end there.  Words—when weaponized as threats—translate into acts of violence. A carceral setting, such as immigration detention, that offers few protections, compounded by a sheer lack of transparency and accountability, will inevitably lead to systematic abuses of authority.  

Last year, our organization, Freedom for Immigrants, released a report documenting at least 800 complaints on abuse motivated by hate or bias in ICE detention between January 20, 2017 and June 2018. We tracked incidents of hate and bias as a result of a person’s perceived race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.  It wasn’t simply the fact that immigrants in detention were being called derogatory terms that was disturbing, but that each verbal incident we documented was followed by an action that often led to different—and more serious—forms of mistreatment. 

In fact, we documented verbal abuse that led to physical abuse, sexual assault, denial of medical services, retaliatory use of solitary confinement and denial of visits. In one case, a guard at the Bristol County House of Corrections in Massachusetts told a detained immigrant that he would “bet for him in a fight against another detainee.” The man in detention refused to fight and was consequently denied hygiene products as well as meals. When he tried to issue a complaint, the guard compared him to a monkey saying, “No one will believe baboon complaints.”

We know that stories like these are just the tip of the iceberg and many of them go unreported in the ever-growing mass incarceration of immigrants. For example, in 2017 a group of detained individuals of Iraqi origin claimed in a lawsuit that they were being called “Al-Qaeda” and “camel jockeys” and other atrocious slurs by ICE and contractors while being denied adequate food and medical care. A 2018 report found that a number of African immigrants detained at the privately-operated West Texas Detention Facility were called racial slurs by guards and subjected to arbitrary use of force, such as being pepper-sprayed. Another study along the border by the Center for Migration Studies found that anti-immigrant statements by border patrol agents often involved threats and physical abuse. One of the men surveyed recounted being shoved to the floor by an agent after he yelled at him, “go back to your country.”

Although Freedom for Immigrants’ report led to an internal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, we have not seen any improvement in the way immigrant prison guards are trained. We also haven’t seen any guards held accountable or facilities closed for being noncompliant with ICE’s own federal standards. We have actually seen the exact opposite.  

While we continue to document hundreds more complaints of abuse motivated by hate or bias, people who are trying to offer care to migrants are being prosecuted, as in the case of activists with the humanitarian aid group No More Death/No Más Muertes.

Making sure that those civil servants who have disparaged or mistreated people in their care be held accountable for their actions would be a good start, but it’s not nearly enough. Individual acts of abuse and human rights violations are symptomatic of a larger issue. The core of the problem lies in the nature of the U.S. immigration detention system, which breeds a culture of impunity and violence. 

There are a number of ways you can help right now to change this. One quick and easy way of making sure that immigrants are not being subjected to mistreatment is by donating to immigration bond funds. We, along with over 20 other organizations around the country, run bond funds to ensure that people are freed as soon as possible—especially those who are acutely suffering on the inside.  

Another way can help is by bearing witness. We run a national network of 55 visitation groups across the country that not only help break the isolation of detained individuals but also monitor the facilities for human rights violations. With over 200 ICE jails and prisons in the country that are as transparent as a wall of bricks, and with more popping up under the Trump Administration, there is a critical need for people to conduct regular visits.

After you visit a detention facility, you can call or engage with your local elected officials. Think of it this way: Who will speak up for those individuals detained in your backyard if ICE or prison guards are continuously trying to silence them? Constituents have the power to relay these stories to their elected officials and pressure them into taking action, which leads us to our next step.   

Ultimately, what we need is a complete dismantling of this shadowy network of jails and prisons, starting with putting a stop to their growth. Legislation introduced by Sen. Kamala Harris of California and U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, known as the Detention Oversight Not Expansion (DONE) Act, would help accomplish this. Not one more dollar of our taxpayer money should go toward a system that only serves to further demean immigrants.

Christina Fialho is an attorney and the co-founder and executive director of Freedom for Immigrants.

Liz Martinez is communications director for Freedom for Immigrants. 

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

The Center for American Progress released a report on Tuesday (July 9) that shows evidence of a direct connection between the lack of diversity in the teaching profession and the impact of student loan debt on Black and Latinx college graduates. 

The authors of the report point out clear barriers for Black and Latinx grads who desire careers as educators. According to the research, “studies have shown that teachers of color, and especially Black teachers, leave the profession at a higher rate than their White peers.” One crucial reason why they are often unable to maintain jobs as teachers is “the unequal student loan debt that educators of color face.” From the report:

Studies have shown that Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loan money to finance their undergraduate education. According to a Brookings Institution analysis, before they have even earned their first dollar, Black college graduates already have $7,400 more student loan debt than White graduates. For teachers, that means entering a profession that requires significant education but does not compensate well compared with other professions…. One study found that acquiring student debt reduced the probability that students would pursue lower-salary public interest jobs; this correlation was particularly acute in the education industry.

The study shows that Black teachers in particular may have trouble paying off student loan debts. “Black students who trained to teach had higher median federal student loan debt in 2012 ($26,405) than they had in 2008 ($22,699),” the report indicates. Additionally, Black teachers on average earn less money than their White peers. 

The study points out that “while research demonstrates the importance of increasing teacher diversity, the teacher workforce in public schools is still overwhelmingly White, with 82 percent of teachers identifying as White.” But students of color thrive when they have teachers who look like them—which means would-be teachers aren’t the only ones suffering. Black students score higher on standardized tests, have better attendance and are suspended less often when they have at least one teacher of the same race.

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

Accusations of abuse against detained migrant children are coming out of Arizona, NBC News reports. Nearly 30 statements from young people in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “include allegations of sexual assault and retaliation for protests.”

NBC gathered the children’s accounts from “‘significant incident reports’ prepared between April 10 and June 12, 2019, by case managers for the Department of Health and Human Services.”

In one statement, a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala says CBP agents in Yuma, Arizona, removed sleep mats from several cells as punishment after some of the children “complained about the taste of the water and food they were given.” They were left to sleep on concrete floors. 

A detained 15-year-old girl from Honduras said that a bearded officer pulled down her underwear, put his hands under her bra and groped her during a “routine” pat down in front of others. The girl said, “she felt embarrassed as the officer was speaking in English to other officers and laughing.”

A CBP spokesperson told NBC News: “U.S. Customs and Border Protection treats those in our custody with dignity and respect and provides multiple avenues to report any allegations of misconduct.” The statement continued, “The allegations do not align with common practice at our facilities and will be fully investigated. It’s important to note that the allegation of sexual assault is already under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.”

The accounts referenced in the NBC News report were taken from children who were detained longer than the 72 hours allowed by the law.

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

HBCU Delaware State University has announced that it will soon establish a Center for Global Africa. The goal of the new center is to re-educate the descendants of enslaved people on not only their African past, but also to renew and strengthen their present connection to the continent of their ethnic origin.

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Ezrah Aharone, an adjunct professor of political science, has been the driving force behind the establishment of the center. He believes it will be a major conduit that connects scholars from HBCUs to Africa, where they will collaborate with the intellectual assets on that continent.

“The Center for Global Africa at DSU is designed to be a centralized location and agency to coordinate the diaspora involvement in the affairs of Africa,” Aharone said. “It is a coordinating institution that will involve other HBCUs, as well as corporation sponsors who will be directly involved in the economic facilitation in what we do.”

The new center already has plans to conduct an African economic development project involving asset mapping. Scholars from the center will travel to different African countries, evaluate their assets, and assist the country’s leaders in developing strategic plans for economic growth.

Faculty and students from the College of Business are also planning on contributing to the center’s efforts.

https://i0.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0yV15BHO_400x400.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0yV15BHO_400x400.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w" alt="" width="122" height="122" data-attachment-id="26488" data-permalink="https://goodblacknews.org/2019/05/03/delaware-state-university-establishes-center-for-global-africa-to-educate-descendants-of-enslaved-people-on-their-african-past/0yv15bho_400x400/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0yV15BHO_400x400.jpg?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1" data-orig-size="400,400" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Dr. Akwasi Osei" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0yV15BHO_400x400.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0yV15BHO_400x400.jpg?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1" />

Dr. Akwasi Osei, associate dean of the College of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences, was a key contributor in the initial work for establishing the center. He believes that it is a great example of the global outreach and service that is happening at Delaware State.

“The idea of the descendants of Africa helping their kith and kin on the continent is not new; it has a long history,” said Dr. Osei. “The Center for Global Africa’s activities, therefore, represent a 21st Century contribution to this noble cause.”

Marion Stokes privately recorded television twenty-four hours a day for over thirty years.

Stokes is the subject of Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, a new documentary that highlights her work as an archivist, but paints a complex picture of a woman who was brushed off as an eccentric for most of her life. For thirty-plus years, multiple tapes (sometimes as many as eight) would record concurrently across multiple televisions as Stokes personally watched two monitors at once.

Former librarian Stokes, who became independently wealthy through technology and real estate investments, began casually recording television in 1977 and taped a variety of programs, but thought news was especially important.

In 1979 during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which coincided with the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle, Stokes began recording MSNBC, Fox, CNN, CNBC, and CSPAN around the clock by running as many as eight television recorders at a time. Marion single-handedly built an archive of network, local, and cable news from her Philadelphia home, one tape at a time, recording every major (and trivial) news event until the day she died.

https://i2.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Recorder-Poster-Web_381.jpg?resize=101%2C150&ssl=1 101w, https://i2.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Recorder-Poster-Web_381.jpg?resize=203%2C300&ssl=1 203w" alt="" width="310" height="459" data-attachment-id="26499" data-permalink="https://goodblacknews.org/2019/05/05/documentary-recorder-the-marion-stokes-project-tells-story-of-marion-stokes-activist-and-archivist-who-single-handedly-preserved-over-30-years-of-tv-history/recorder-poster-web_381/" data-orig-file="https://i2.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Recorder-Poster-Web_381.jpg?fit=381%2C564&ssl=1" data-orig-size="381,564" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="-Recorder-Poster-Web_381" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i2.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Recorder-Poster-Web_381.jpg?fit=203%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i2.wp.com/goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Recorder-Poster-Web_381.jpg?fit=381%2C564&ssl=1" />The taping ended on December 14, 2012 while the Sandy Hook massacre played on television as Stokes passed away from lung disease at the age of 83. In between, she recorded on 70,000 VHS tapes, capturing revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials that tell us who we were, and show how television shaped the world of today.

“She was interested in access to information, documenting media, making sure people had the information they needed to make good decisions,” says the film’s director, Matt Wolf.

Stokes was no stranger to television and its role in molding public opinion. An activist archivist, she had been a librarian with the Free Library of Philadelphia for nearly 20 years before being fired in the early 1960s, likely for her work as a Communist party organizer.

From 1968 to 1971, she had co-produced Input, (which itself was recently recovered and digitized) a Sunday-morning talk show airing on the local Philadelphia CBS affiliate, with John S. Stokes Jr., who would later become her husband.

Input brought together academics, community and religious leaders, activists, scientists, and artists to openly discuss social justice issues and other topics of the day. Marion also was engaged in civil rights issues, helping organize buses to the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, among other efforts.

“Our vision is really aligned with Marion’s,” says Roger Macdonald, director of the television archives at the Internet Archive. “It’s really bold and ambitious: universal access to all knowledge.” Marion’s son had contacted the Internet Archive when he was trying to find a home for her tapes in 2013.

Macdonald immediately seized the opportunity. Those tapes were soon donated to the Internet Archive and are still in the process of being organized and digitized.

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/

The National Science Board (NSB) recently announced that Dr. Walter E. Massey will receive the prestigious Vannevar Bush Award. The award honors science and technology leaders who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the nation through public service in science, technology, and public policy.

Dr. Massey will receive the Vannevar Bush Award on May 14 at the National Science Foundation Annual Awards Ceremony held in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Massey, chairman of Giant Magellan Telescope Organizationand president emeritus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Morehouse College, is being recognized for his exceptional lifelong leadership in science and technology. The range of institutions he has led with distinction is astonishing — from physics, to public policy, to public and private boards, to college president.

Walter Massey’s breadth of contributions and remarkable leadership in science, technology, and education are unparalleled,” said Kent Fuchs, chair of the NSB’s Committee on Honorary Awards. “Walter has dedicated his life to serving our citizens. Through his training in mathematics and physics, and his determined and extraordinary leadership, he has narrowed the gap between science and society with an immeasurable and lasting impact on our nation.”

Dr. Massey is a graduate of Morehouse College where he studied theoretical physics. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Two overarching principles have inspired Massey’s notable career — that science and technology are necessary to sustain the nation’s quality of life and the standard of living of its citizens; and that the general public’s understanding of science and technology is a critical component of a democratic society.

Guided by these principles for more than half a century, Massey has worked to strengthen applied research capacity and science education in the United States and to increase the representation of minorities and women in science and technology.

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/

According to Variety.com, since signing a lucrative overall production deal with Netflix and after years at ABC, “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barrishas lined up his first series for the streaming giant.

Netflix has ordered the single-camera comedy “Black Excellence”from Barris, in which he will also star opposite “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” star and “Claws” executive producer Rashida Jones.

Inspired by Barris’ approach to parenting, relationships, race, and culture, the series is said to pull the curtain back and reboot the “family sitcom.” The series is reported to be similar to HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in tone.

Barris and Jones will executive produce with Hale Rothstein, who has previously collaborated with Barris on his ABC series “Black-ish” and the Freeform spinoff “Grown-ish.” Barris will produce via his Khalabo Ink Society.

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/

Premier Health Urgent Care and OCC-Health Center strives to provide outstanding and efficient healthcare while curbing area youth violence.

Premier Health Urgent Care, the only urgent care facility in the Southside’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and the only Black-owned urgent care possibly in the city of Chicago has opened for business, according to the Chicago Crusader.

With a commitment to providing affordable community care, a portion of profits from the center will be donated to the Project Outreach and Prevention (POP) organization, which aims to prevent youth violence in surrounding neighborhoods by providing resources, services and education to assist teens in making better life-long choices.

Premier’s founders include board certified emergency medicine physicians Airron Richardson, MD, MBA, FACEP and Michael A. McGee, MD, MPH, FACEP and board-certified trauma surgeon and United States Navy veteran Reuben C. Rutland MD, MBA. The facility was launched in partnership with Dr. Gregory Primus, former Chicago Bears wide receiver and the first African American trained in orthopedic surgery at the University of Chicago.

“We are happy to open an urgent care in Hyde Park because the community needs it. I see so many urban professionals who either delay or go without care because of time constraints. No one has 8 hours to wait in the emergency department for a minor illness or the flexibility to wait 3 weeks because their primary care doctor is booked solid. We are here to help fill that gap,” says Dr. Rutland. “We are not in competition with the doctors’ offices or the emergency department. We are a supplement to them both, to help relieve the stress on those two facilities.”

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/

According to Yahoo! Sports, the first of what organizations intend to be an annual event will feature the North Carolina A&T Aggiesand Southern Jaguars at the Chicago White Sox Guaranteed Rate Field. It will join The Andre Dawson Classic as ways to promote HBCU schools, which are slowly watching their baseball programs fold.

Erwin Prentiss Hill, CEO of Black College Sports Group 360 (BCSG), told HBCU Sports he wants the event to “promote education opportunities to urban youth” who may not know of the schools or how to navigate the college admissions process.

 From HBCU Sports:

“Greatness comes from historically black colleges and universities. The bottom line is to get more urban youth back to our HBCU’s, so that talented young men and women can add to the legacy of our outstanding predominantly black universities.”

Baseball’s decline in lower-income communities

The cost of playing sports can add up quickly for families. It’s especially difficult to have to pay for a glove, cleats, bats and even uniform costs, now that there are fewer programs supported through park or school programs.

Participating on a travel team is even costlier and can require more shuttling around from parents, who might already be working multiple jobs to get by. Little League is so high-stakes it’s must-see TV in August.

Billy Witz covered the lack of African-American players on HBCU rosters Monday for the New York Times and noted the decline of baseball through the eyes of Bethune-Cookman athletic director Lynn Thompson. Thompson said places where he played sandlot ball in the 1960s were paved over for basketball courts and parking lots.

Recently, however, the percentage of black players on Major League Baseball‘s opening-day rosters in 2018 was the highest in six years at 8.4 percent. Between 2012 and 2017, 20 percent of first-round draft picks were African-American. Those numbers are in part due to MLB’s focus on its Urban Youth Academies that started in Compton, California, in 2006 and its Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program, launched in 1989.

“It’s been a huge investment for us,” Renee Tirado, MLB’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, said last spring. “Obviously growing the game amongst our players is a priority, so that uptick has definitely been from a concerted effort.”

Perhaps a focus on HBCU baseball will bring those numbers even higher in the coming years.

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/

Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old whose shooting death by a neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman set off a national conversation on racial profiling and the inequities in the criminal justice system, formally announced yesterday she is running for local office in Florida.

Fulton became an activist after the death of her son in Sanford, Fla., in 2012 by making speeches around the country as she worked to curb gun violence. She now she aims to do so from inside the government as a policy maker. She will contest the mayor of Miami Gardens Oliver G. Gilbert III for a seat on the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners.

Fulton is a former housing agency employee who believes a new chapter of serving the public is in order for her. “My time as a public servant began 30 years ago at Miami-Dade County. Since 2012, I have advocated tirelessly to empower our communities and make them safer,” she relayed in an Instagram post. “But the work is not done. I am proud to announce that I will run to represent District 1 on the county commission.”

Source: https://goodblacknews.org/