Saturday, January 11

Tag: black

A Black Hole, Could A Human Enter One To Study It
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SCIENCE

A Black Hole, Could A Human Enter One To Study It

To solve the mysteries of black holes, a human should just venture into one. A person falling into a black hole and being stretched while approaching the black hole’s horizon. Leo Rodriguez and Shanshan Rodriguez, CC BY-ND   Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Could a human enter a black hole to study it? – Pulkeet, age 12, Bahadurgarh, Haryana, India However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire universe. We are both physicists who study black holes, albeit from a very safe d...
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Biden Revives Plan To Put A Black Woman Of Faith On The $20 Bill
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Religion

Biden Revives Plan To Put A Black Woman Of Faith On The $20 Bill

The Biden administration has revived a plan to put Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill after Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary delayed the move. That’s encouraging news to the millions of people who have expressed support for putting her face on the bill. But many still aren’t familiar with the story of Tubman’s life, which was chronicled in a 2019 film, “Harriet.” Harriet Tubman worked as a slave, spy and eventually an abolitionist. What I find most fascinating, as a historian of American slavery, is how her belief in God helped Tubman remain fearless, even when she came face to face with many challenges. Tubman’s early life Tubman was born Araminta Ross in 1822 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. When interviewed later in life, Tubman said she started working as a housemaid when she was 5. ...
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Black People Are 3 Times More Likely To Experience Pulse Oximeter Errors
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HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

Black People Are 3 Times More Likely To Experience Pulse Oximeter Errors

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have purchased small devices called pulse oximeters for use in their home – based on well-intentioned recommendations from health care providers and the media. Pulse oximeters are devices, usually placed on a person’s finger, used to noninvasively measure oxygen levels in the blood. Clinics and hospitals, for example, use them regularly to screen newborns for heart defects after birth. Yet pulse oximeter measurements are imperfect, particularly for Black patients. Our recent paper demonstrated that Black patients were three times more likely than white patients to have low oxygen levels that were missed by pulse oximeters. That could translate into as many as 1 in 10 inaccurate readings among Blacks. We are ICU physicians and internists with expe...
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In Atlanta The Ebenezer Baptist Church Has Been A Seat Of Black Power For Generations
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Religion

In Atlanta The Ebenezer Baptist Church Has Been A Seat Of Black Power For Generations

The high-stakes U.S. Senate race in Georgia catapulted the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church back into the spotlight. For 135 years, the church played a vital role in the fight against racism and the civil rights movement. It was the spiritual home of the civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It is now the home of the state’s first Black senator – the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at the church. As a scholar of African American religion and Christian theology, I believe it is important to understand how the Ebenezer Baptist Church has been a seat of Black power and organizing for generations in Atlanta. ‘Stone of help’ Ebenezer Baptist Church, a predominantly African American congregation, was founded in 1886, nearly 20 years after the end of the Civil War. The pa...
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A Black Engineer’s Take On Personal And Professional Inspiration – Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther Gives A Boost To Diversity In STEM
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TECHNOLOGY

A Black Engineer’s Take On Personal And Professional Inspiration – Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther Gives A Boost To Diversity In STEM

Chadwick Boseman played a superhero on the big screen, but he had a real-life superpower – the ability to inspire the next generation of underrepresented scientists, engineers and innovators. He was one of many people lost too soon in 2020, but his legacy will live on. I’m biracial – Black and white – but primarily identify as Black, in part because that’s how other people have always identified me. I’m also an engineer, scientist, educator, inventor and entrepreneur who has drawn great inspiration from Boseman. On and off the screen, he championed Black representation and embodied Black excellence. From the scientists of the fictional country of Wakanda to the supersuit he wore as the superhero Black Panther, the cinematic world he brought to life mirrors my own vision: a world of incre...
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In Swing Districts Black Candidates Can Win
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POLITICS

In Swing Districts Black Candidates Can Win

During the 2020 presidential election, there was a lot of discussion about what makes an electable candidate. Is it someone who is moderate? A candidate who can turn out the base? Do other attributes of the candidate matter? In my research, I looked at one specific characteristic of potential electability: the candidate’s race. Conventional wisdom previously held that Black Democratic candidates struggled to win swing congressional districts due to racial prejudice among white voters. As a result, they were encouraged to run instead in districts considered safe because most of their constitutents were Black and were strongly Democratic. In 2018, however, multiple Black Democratic candidates ran – and won – in competitive congressional districts that had high percentages of white voters. ...
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I Spent Years Actually Talking To Them – The Reality Of Black Men’s Love Lives And Marriages Is Very Different Than What’s Usually Shown On TV
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Journalism

I Spent Years Actually Talking To Them – The Reality Of Black Men’s Love Lives And Marriages Is Very Different Than What’s Usually Shown On TV

Finding and keeping a good Black man in a relationship has become a cottage industry. From celebrities and reality TV stars to social media influencers, for better or worse, there is no shortage of relationship advice to people seeking to figure out Black men. And while much of this content is understood to be for entertainment purposes only, some of it is presented and received as legitimate and data-driven. This is a problem because too many people cannot distinguish what they see onscreen from reality. Media portrayals are often hyperbolic and sensationalized to attract public attention. Equally troubling is that the majority of academic research in this area also perpetuates many of the same, negative patterns that are common in popular culture. As a graduate student and university ...
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During An Epidemic In 1714 The Death Of Cicely, Young, Black And Enslaved Has Lessons That Resonate In Today’s Pandemic
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COVID-19

During An Epidemic In 1714 The Death Of Cicely, Young, Black And Enslaved Has Lessons That Resonate In Today’s Pandemic

What I believe to be the oldest surviving gravestone for a Black person in the Americas memorializes an enslaved teenager named Cicely. Over 1.4 million people have died from COVID-19 so far this year. How history memorializes them will reflect those we most value. CC BY-ND Cicely’s body is interred across from Harvard’s Johnston Gate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in 1714 during a measles epidemic brought to the college by a student after the summer recess of 1713. Another tombstone in the same burial ground remembers Jane, an enslaved woman who died in 1741 during an outbreak of diphtheria, or “throat distemper.” A grave marker for an enslaved woman named Jane uses the archaic ‘1740/1’ Julian calendar notation to denote her death in early 1741. Nicole Maskiell, CC BY-ND When dise...
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Why Black Diners Get Poorer Service From Wait Staff And Bartenders Than White Customers
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Why Black Diners Get Poorer Service From Wait Staff And Bartenders Than White Customers

When Black diners get poorer service from wait staff and bartenders than white customers, it’s more likely because of racial bias than the well-documented fact that they tip less, according to a new survey I recently published. To reach that conclusion, my colleague Gerald Nowak and I recruited over 700 mostly white full-service restaurant servers and bartenders to review a hypothetical dining scenario that randomly involved either white or Black customers. We then asked them to predict the tip that the table would leave, the likelihood that the table would exhibit undesirable dining behaviors and the quality of service they would likely provide the table. We also asked participants to fill out a survey to learn how frequently they observed anti-Black expressions of bias in their workpla...
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School Suspensions Lead To Lower Grades And ‘Black Flight’ Don’t Just Unfairly Penalize Black Students
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EDUCATION

School Suspensions Lead To Lower Grades And ‘Black Flight’ Don’t Just Unfairly Penalize Black Students

School suspensions are intended to deter violence and punish students who demonstrate problematic behavior. Yet, when I interviewed 30 Black high school students in southeast Michigan who had been suspended from school and 30 of their parents, I learned that many students were suspended because school officials misinterpreted their behaviors. Additionally, the suspensions led to students’ grades dropping significantly and to some parents withdrawing their children from their school districts. I published my findings in the Children and Youth Services Review and Urban Education journals as part of my ongoing research on how Black students and parents view school punishment and its impact on their daily lives. You might assume that these punitive disciplinary practices have stopped since ...
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