Friday, March 7

Journalism

Oprah denies White House ambitions even as the buzz grows louder
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Journalism

Oprah denies White House ambitions even as the buzz grows louder

Minutes after giving a rousing speech at the Golden Globes Awards that promised “a new day” for women, minorities and the downtrodden, Oprah Winfrey said she has no ambitions to run for president. In a brief interview backstage at the event, Winfrey was told that “Oprah 2020” was circulating on Twitter, and asked whether she planned to run. “I don’t -- I don’t,” the 63-year-old billionaire said. The drumbeat was well underway. “She. Is. Running,” said John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine. “Oprah. 2020,” said Shaun King, the Black Lives Matter activist. The host of the Golden Globes, late-night comedian Seth Meyers, jokingly urged Winfrey to run in his opening monologue, noting that President Donald Trump had reportedly decided to make his bid for the office after he was the but...
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California cities try offer help for minority, low-income marijuana entrepreneurs

Reese Benton’s life has been shaped by the war on drugs. Her mother used crack and died of an overdose when Benton was 16. Her father sold drugs and is currently in prison, on year 20 of a 25-year sentence. “I was a statistic. I was not supposed to make it,” said Benton, 41, who is from San Francisco. But she did. Today, she is a successful hairdresser, styling some of the wealthiest people in the Bay Area. She is also an entrepreneur: Last year, she opened a delivery service for medical marijuana. And now that California legalized the drug for all adults over 21, Benton, who is black, is getting assistance from the city of San Francisco through a program designed to help people whose lives were affected by a crackdown on drugs that disproportionately affected minorities get into the l...
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Ignorant Republicans Didn’t Know That No Black People Willingly Served The South To Keep Themselves Enslaved

The South continues to lie about the Civil War. They’ve done it for eons, with the most prominent lie being that, somehow, the war was not about slavery. Now, they want to put that nonsense into public schools – all under the guise of “honoring” the black people who served in the Confederate Army. There’s just one problem with that: Historians can find absolutely no record of black people willingly serving as Confederate soldiers. According to Walter Edgar, who is the head of the Institute of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, says of the situation: “In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer bec...
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Shop Here, Not There: Science Says Reducing Inequality Is Almost That Simple

New research shows that shuttling even 5 percent of consumer transactions to poorer neighborhoods can reduce income inequality by up to 80 percent. Imagine heading out to run errands at all your usual places, and your phone’s “equity app” has a better idea. Siri might say: “Buy your groceries at one of these other stores, just as close as your regular store.” Or: “There are three coffee shops within 2 miles. You haven’t tried this one before.” We already get shopping suggestions when we bring up Google Maps, especially when our smartphones are transmitting our GPS coordinates. A similar type of computation is happening behind the scenes at Facebook and Twitter, whose targeted ads can sometimes be scarily on point. But what if, instead of just boosting sales, those suggestions coming fr...
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The Elite Is Not Who You Think It Is—It Might Be You

To most, the Occupy movement is best characterized by the slogan “We are the 99 percent.” Indeed, a year before Occupy sprang to life, the top 1 percent held roughly 35 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent held about 1 percent. But the data tell a more complex story, and the bifurcated way that we define “elite” may need adjustment. As senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Richard Reeves describes in his new book, Dream Hoarders, that while the top 1 percent overwhelmingly receives a disproportionate share of economic gains, the upper middle class is also "hoarding" resources. Families in the 80th to the 99th percentiles—or those earning at least $112,000—have made out pretty well over the past 35 years. Since 1980, incomes for the top 1 percent skyrocketed, a...
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Media face challenges in rush to sexual misconduct reckoning

Talk-show host Tavis Smiley isn’t just angry at PBS for firing him on sexual misconduct charges. He’s angry about his depiction in the media. Smiley believes that if he hadn’t talked publicly about romantic relationships with subordinates at his company, the behavior that led to his downfall, the public would make little distinction between him and those who have been accused of sexual assault or rape. Conflation of different forms of misbehavior — the idea itself is controversial — is one of the issues facing media organizations covering the fast-moving story of sexual misconduct that went into overdrive with investigations into Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s behavior. “The media is painting with too broad a brush,” Smiley said. “We have lost all sense of nuance and proportionality...
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How to Get Wealthy If You’re Black

Forget all those slow outdated ideas about how black people can become wealthy by working hard and climbing the corporate ladder, investing in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, and owning a home. While those are safe investments for retirement and can help you increase your net worth, who wants to wait until they're 60 years or older old to receive the earnings from those turtle-like investments? Of course, you should keep contributing the maximum to your 401(k) to the point where your company stops matching, as well as maintain your planned contributions to your Roth IRA. But if your like me you want the what I call, "Now Money!" If you analyze the Forbes Richest Americans and The Black Economy's Wealthiest Blacks lists you may be disappointed to find out none of those included became weal...
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Are Our Exercises Aging Us?
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Journalism

Are Our Exercises Aging Us?

Do I look younger because I'm black? To answer this complicated question, it would be cool to let you know why I am addressing this question. A while back I was asked by a client why I look younger than my age, this client had concluded that me looking younger had to do with my background or race. So, I said that's interesting because I know quite a few people of the same race that don't look younger than their years. She believed that there were always "exceptions to the rule". This got me thinking and observing closer and I discovered that this was in fact not the case. If anything it was coincidental that a certain number of black people she had met did look youthful. I even argued the fact that dark skin hid certain blemishes or wrinkles that lighter skin didn't. Which was true, an...
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