Tuesday, January 13

Tag: black

Homes in Black and Latino neighborhoods still undervalued 50 years after US banned using race in real estate appraisals
VIDEO REELS

Homes in Black and Latino neighborhoods still undervalued 50 years after US banned using race in real estate appraisals

Racial inequality in home values is greater today than it was 40 years ago, with homes in white neighborhoods appreciating $200,000 more since 1980 than comparable homes in similar communities of color. Our new research on home appraisals shows neighborhood racial composition still drives unequal home values, despite laws that forbid real estate professionals from explicitly using race when evaluating a property’s worth. Published in the journal Social Problems, our study finds this growing inequality results from both historical policies and contemporary practices. In the 1930s, the federal government institutionalized a process for evaluating how much a property was worth. Often called redlining, this process used neighborhood racial and socioeconomic composition to determine home valu...
Far from being anti-religious, faith and spirituality run deep in Black Lives Matter
AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

Far from being anti-religious, faith and spirituality run deep in Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matters (BLM) has been portrayed by its detractors as many things: Marxist, radical, anti-American. Added to this growing list of charges is that it is either irreligious or doing religion wrong. In late July, for instance, conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan tweeted that BLM was “incompatible” with Christianity. He isn’t alone in that belief. Despite receiving the backing of diverse faith leaders and groups, BLM has been attacked by sections of the religious right. One evangelical institution felt compelled to issue a statement warning Christians about the movement’s “Godless agenda.” Other evangelicals have gone further, accusing BLM founders of being “witches” and “operating in the demonic realm.” Joining conservative Christians are some self-proclaimed liberals and ...
African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces
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African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces

From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are coming down by the dozens. In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee Circle, home to a 130-year-old monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It’s now a new community space where graffiti, music and projected images turn the statue of Lee from a monument to white supremacy into a backdrop proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. This isn’t a new phenomenon. I’m a historian of celebrations and protests after the Civil War. And in my research, I have found that long before Confederate monuments occupied city squares, African Americans used those same public spaces to celebrate their history. But those African American memorial cultures have often been o...
What is intolerance fatigue, and how is it fueling Black Lives Matter protests?
VIDEO REELS

What is intolerance fatigue, and how is it fueling Black Lives Matter protests?

Protesters remain on the streets demanding equality and justice for Black Americans. What they’re feeling, I believe, is something I call “intolerance fatigue.” As a race scholar, examining the history of social justice movements, the phrase is new, but the concept isn’t. In 1962, during the civil rights movement, activist Fannie Lou Hamer sought to register to vote in her home state of Mississippi. When she was allowed to address the Democratic National Convention in 1964, Hamer told how she and her fellow activists were shot at, fined, arrested and brutally beaten in jail simply for trying “to register to become first-class citizens.” Fannie Lou Hamer’s powerful testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She spoke for millions in another speech that year, in which she declar...
Mary McLeod Bethune The Most Famous Black Woman In The World
AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

Mary McLeod Bethune The Most Famous Black Woman In The World

Mary McLeod Bethune founded a college, defied the Klan, advised presidents, and like my grandmother, was a fierce warrior for justice. Born in 1914, Dovey Johnson Roundtree was subject to the double barriers of institutionalized racism and sexism, but rose from poverty to become a distinguished champion of civil and women’s rights. As a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during WWII, she helped desegregate the US military. She went on to become a crusading lawyer, winning a landmark bus desegregation case in 1955. As a minster in the 1960s, she was in the vanguard of women ordained as leaders in the AME church. In her memoir, Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights, Roundtree describes how the support of community, mentors, and family nurtured her career. In this excerpt, Roundtre...
How a heritage of black preaching shaped MLK’s voice in calling for justice
AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

How a heritage of black preaching shaped MLK’s voice in calling for justice

The name Martin Luther King Jr. is iconic in the United States. President Barack Obama mentioned King in both his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance and victory speeches in 2008, when he said, “[King] brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial…to speak of his dream.” Indeed, much of King’s legacy lives on in such arresting oral performances. They made him a global figure. The name Martin Luther King Jr. is iconic in the United States. President Barack Obama mentioned King in both his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance and victory speeches in 2008, when he said, “[King] brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s M...
Sick of Black Friday? Help others Buy Nothing
SELF-CARE

Sick of Black Friday? Help others Buy Nothing

In 1992, the Seinfeld episode “The Pitch” featured this conversation between the main characters: JERRY: And it’s about nothing? GEORGE: Everybody’s doing something, we’ll do nothing. JERRY: So, we go into NBC, we tell them we’ve got an idea for a show about nothing. A show about nothing may seem ludicrous, but what about a Black Friday that involves making no purchases? Yet, the Buy Nothing Project, founded in 2013, is a contrasting movement in an era when Black Friday is viewed as a day to buy everything. The Facebook-anchored project focuses on sharing existing items with others as a way to: ‒ Get to know neighbors and others within a community. ‒ Keep unwanted items from ending up in a landfill. ‒ Meet specific needs of others. ‒ Provide gently used or new items that can be given a...
AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

Tips for Black entrepreneurs from media mogul Byron Allen

This week, media mogul, Byron Allen, broke the internet with a viral interview on The Breakfast Club. The CEO of Entertainment Studios dropped numerous gems for success and told his incredible story of building an empire from his kitchen table. That hard work has paid off, as this Tuesday, Allen was inducted into the 2019 Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. Allen doesn’t mince words: Black people may have been “blackballed” from the day they were born, but they can still succeed. He tells young entrepreneurs not to be afraid to speak out and dream big. “You cannot live in fear. You were born Blackballed. You know you’ve been positioned to fail and you have to recognize where you are.” These are five other gems from Allen’s interview that remind us to pursue our greatness and know our ...
Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment
VIDEO GAMES

Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment

As audiences have embraced on-demand video services, algorithmic feeds, and an ever-growing number of digital “things to do,” our collective attentions have become hyper-fragmented. Yet we know that audiences actually love shared live experiences. Jeopardy is more fun watched with others. Movies are funnier in a packed theater. It’s hard to enjoy sporting events that happened hours earlier The durability of this appeal spans generations: Boomers watched the moon landing together, Generation X witnessed the end of M*A*S*H, and millennials recently collectively viewed (and complained about) the ending to Game of Thrones. Each generation might prefer different content, but we all love to watch it together and live. There’s no better proof of these two points than the recent #FortniteBlackout...
TECH

Black Friday just came early for the smart Instant Pot with Wi-Fi and Alexa

Well what do we have here, bargain hunters!? If you’ve been toying with the idea of getting an Instant Pot or you have an old model in desperate need of an upgrade, today is definitely your lucky day. The Instant Pot Smart Wifi 6 Quart Multi-use Electric Pressure Cooker is pretty much the cream of the crop, offering all the cooking modes you love as well as Wi-Fi connectivity so you can control it with an app on your smartphone or even with Alexa. It’s worth every penny and more at its normal price of $150, but it just got the biggest discount we’ve ever seen! Here’s the key info from the product page: REPLACES UP TO 8 KITCHEN APPLIANCES: Combines 8 kitchen appliances in 1 with 13 smart programs to save you space, including: pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice/porridge cooker, yogurt ma...