Saturday, January 11

Tag: black

Glass Ceiling Hard To Break – ‘My Vote Will Be Black’ A Wave Of Afro-Brazilian Women Ran For Office In 2020
No Comments
POLITICS

Glass Ceiling Hard To Break – ‘My Vote Will Be Black’ A Wave Of Afro-Brazilian Women Ran For Office In 2020

Messages urging Afro-Brazilians to support Black candidates filled social media in the days before Brazil’s Nov. 15, 2020 elections. “Do not forget your masks, your identification, a pen and that you are BLACK!!!” “This Sunday my vote will be Black.” A Facebook post before Brazil’s election promising, ‘This Sunday my vote will be Black.’ Facebook People of African descent make up 56% of Brazil’s population and just 17.8% of its Congress. But Black political participation is surging in Brazil, especially in local government. Some 250,840 Black Brazilians ran for city council this year, up from 235,105 in 2016. When the winners take office, Afro-Brazilians will make up 44% of city councils nationwide. Afro-Brazilian women also saw significant firsts in the 2020 election, winning 14% of c...
Read More
The First Black Person To Head The NAACP A Century Ago, James Weldon Johnson
No Comments
SOCIAL JUSTICE, VIDEO REELS

The First Black Person To Head The NAACP A Century Ago, James Weldon Johnson

In this moment of national racial reckoning, many Americans are taking time to learn about chapters in U.S. history left out of their school texbooks. The early years of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights group that initially coalesced around a commitment to end the brutal practice of lynching in the United States, is worth remembering now. An interracial group of women and men founded the group that would soon become known as the NAACP in 1909. A coalition of white journalists, lawyers and progressive reformers led the effort. It would take another 11 years until, in 1920, James Weldon Johnson became the first Black person to formally serve as its top official. As I explain in my forthcoming book “Nonviolence Before King: The Politics of Being...
Read More
Almost Two-Thirds Of Older Black Americans And Even More Latinos Can’t Afford To Live Alone Without Help
No Comments
Journalism

Almost Two-Thirds Of Older Black Americans And Even More Latinos Can’t Afford To Live Alone Without Help

Older Americans who want to live independently face serious economic challenges. Half who live alone don’t have enough income to afford even a bare-bones budget in their home communities, and nearly 1 in 4 couples face the same problem. Those numbers add up to at least 11 million older adults who are struggling to make ends meet, a new analysis shows. The numbers are worse for older people of color. Dramatically higher percentages of Black, Latino and Asian older adults live on incomes that don’t meet their cost of living, even with Social Security. That can mean skipping needed health care, not having enough food, living in unhealthy conditions or having to move in with family. These disparities often reflect lifelong disadvantages that add up as people of color encounter structural ra...
Read More
According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS

According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster

I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated aging on a cellular level. Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health. These findings highlight how stress from racism, pa...
Read More
Many Black Women Aimed For The White House, Before Kamala Harris
No Comments
POLITICS

Many Black Women Aimed For The White House, Before Kamala Harris

The vice president-elect of the United States is the American daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. With Joe Biden’s projected presidential win over Donald Trump, Sen. Kamala Harris breaks three centuries-old barriers to become the nation’s first female vice president, first Black vice president and first Black female vice president. Harris is also of Indian descent, making the 2020 election a meaningful first for two communities of color. Harris wasn’t the first Black female vice presidential aspirant in American history. Charlotta Bass, an African American journalist and political activist from California, ran for vice president in 1948 with the Progressive Party. Before she was Biden’s running mate, Harris was his opponent in the Democratic presidential primary. She is one of m...
Read More
Combating Disinformation Targeting Black Communities
No Comments
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Combating Disinformation Targeting Black Communities

Since 2016, organizers have identified campaigns sowing falsehoods about the pandemic and the presidential election and have worked to counteract them. Earlier this year, Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor saw a friend arguing on Twitter about Black identity. Aiwuyor noticed that the Twitter account her friend was fighting with was a new one, with zero followers and also wasn’t following anyone else. She told her friend he was probably arguing with a bot or troll. The revelation stopped the online debate in its tracks: her friend stopped engaging with the suspicious account. When Aiwuyor tells others that infuriating online debates could be with bots or trolls, those incendiary exchanges begin to come into focus, and lose some of their power. “They are happy to hear they haven’t lost their min...
Read More
For More Than 60 Years The Black Church Has Been Getting ‘Souls To The Polls’
No Comments
POLITICS, Religion

For More Than 60 Years The Black Church Has Been Getting ‘Souls To The Polls’

At Black churches up and down the U.S., religious slogans have been supplanted with another message in the run up to Nov. 3: Vote! The landscape of the 2020 general election has been dotted with efforts by the Black Church – churches that have traditionally had predominantly African American congregation – to encourage voter registration, mobilization and protect against efforts to suppress the vote. Under slogans including “Souls to the Polls,” “AME Voter Alert” and “COGIC Counts,” Black denominations and national bodies such as the Conference of National Black Churches have partnered with civil rights organizations including the NAACP in a concerted effort to increase voter turnout among African Americans. The push comes amid deliberate tactics to make it harder for Black and Latino A...
Read More
Suburbia Is No Longer All White President Trump — And Black Suburbanites Are More Politically Active Than Their Neighbors
No Comments
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Suburbia Is No Longer All White President Trump — And Black Suburbanites Are More Politically Active Than Their Neighbors

President Donald Trump has tweeted up a storm about how his Democratic challenger Joe Biden wants to “abolish suburbs” and institute programs that would bring impoverished criminals into the suburbs, where they will destroy the “suburban lifestyle dream.” In the final stages of his campaign, Trump has made an explicit appeal to suburban women: “So can I ask you to do me a favor? Suburban women, will you please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood,” the president said at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in mid-October. I am a political scientist who studies race in America’s suburbs; my book “African Americans in White Suburbia: Social Networks and Political Behavior” was published in 2017. I contend that Trump’s tweets are not about the actual suburbs. Instead, they are meant to e...
Read More
Black Licorice Spooky And Dangerous Side
No Comments
SELF

Black Licorice Spooky And Dangerous Side

Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, it was reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact. I have a longstanding interest in how chemicals in our food and the environment affect our body and mind. When something seemingly harmless like licorice is implicated in a death, we are reminded of the famous proclamation by Swiss physician Paracelsus, the Father of Toxicology: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” I am a professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology and author of the book “Pleased...
Read More
Gifted And Talented Black, Latino Or Native American Students Are Often Overlooked In Schools
No Comments
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Gifted And Talented Black, Latino Or Native American Students Are Often Overlooked In Schools

About a decade ago, I was working with a large, urban school district on creating a gifted and talented program that would include all kids, regardless of their race or income. In this district, Black children and children from poor families were rarely identified for gifted education services. These services include enrichment, special classes and focused projects intended to help students excel in areas in which they show signs of exceptional potential and talents. I visited one school, near a prestigious university in an upscale neighborhood, where 48% of all students received services for gifted and talented students. There, about 50% were white, 22% Black and 12% Asian. Few were being raised in low-income families. At another school I visited a short 10-minute drive away, no student...
Read More