by timuin | Dec 18, 2018 | Uncategorized
By Theodore R. Johnson, Slate Just as Presidents Day weekend kicked off, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted the Russian organization Internet Research Agency and 13 Russian nationals for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. The fact that Russia meddled in one of our most treasured democratic processes isn’t a revelation—it’s been well-known and confirmed that Russia waged information warfare on the American public to influence our voting behavior. But the new indictment gave new detail about how Russia brought online an old tactic it has long depended upon: good ol’ fashioned racism. Russia used the U.S. history of racial oppression and its persistent challenges with systemic racism to manipulate (or at least attempt to manipulate) Americans’ electoral choices. And this wasn’t a simple add-on tactic to a larger influence operation. Rather, it’s in keeping with several decades of Russian efforts to use the United States’ treatment of its black citizens as a counterpoint to the American narrative of freedom and equality. The major difference today is that social media marketing allows Russia to do with efficiency and scale what it could never do with Cold War–era print and radio propaganda. In other words, fanning the flames of America’s racial tensions is as Russian as vodka and blini. to read more of this article, tap this...
by timuin | Dec 14, 2018 | Uncategorized
from “newsrap Nancy Wilson, a genre-spanning, Grammy-winning singer whose career spanned more than 50 years, died Thursday at age 81. Her longtime manager made the news public. Born in 1937, Wilson grew up in Ohio and began her music career shortly after high school in 1956, working for Rusty Bryant’s Carolyn Club Big Band. Moving to New York City in 1959 on the advice of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, she began playing clubs while supporting herself as a secretary, and was signed to Capitol Records the next year. (to hear one of her classic songs, tap here:https://detiptv.com/#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0) Though she started out in Jazz, she performed in multiple genres including R&B, Broadway, and pop throughout her long career and resisted categorization, preferring instead to call herself a “song stylist.” She became famous in 1962 through a collaboration with Adderley, an album called “Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley” that produced the hit single “Save Your Love For Me”. In 1964 and 1965, Wilson had four albums make Billboard’s top ten, a run that notably included her most successful hit, “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am,” which peaked at #11 and won Wilson her first Grammy award for best rhythm and blues recording. Wilson made numerous television appearances throughout her career, and hosted her own series, The Nancy Wilson Show in 1967 and 1968. Other television appearances include “I Spy,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Sammy Davis Jr. Show,” “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “The Cosby Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” and more recently, “Moesha,” and “The Parkers.” She also appeared in Robert Townsend’s 1993 film “The Meteor Man” as well as the film...
by timuin | Dec 8, 2018 | Uncategorized
by Tim Moore/UIN The Board of the Charles Wright Museum of African American History held their annual community meeting on Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018. This was an opportunity to list their accomplishments for the year and layout what is planned for the coming year. They also discussed the financial standing, their search for a new president, and answered questions about an upcoming exhibit. There were passionate, yet cordial, discussions about a proposed Thomas Jefferson exhibit, the direction of the museum, and the makeup of the Board of Directors. The museum board seems to be composed of about 20 people, all with extensive corporate backgrounds. One of the criteria for membership to the board was being able to make a $10,000.00 payment/donation to the museum. It was not clear if all of the people had made that payment. David Rambau, a writer TV producer and community activist, made an observation that was serious food for thought. Of the museum’s $6.9m budget, they receive about $2 million from the city and another $200,000 from memberships. This totaled about a third of their operating budget, if each of the board members paid their $10k. Mr. Rambau rationalized that if this is the case, there should be more representation on the Board from the community who, as taxpayers, contribute to the $2m plus the MAAH spends during the year. The Board makeup was one of the primary concerns of the community groups. This is important because they determine the direction of the institution, and the types of exhibits offered. The proposed Jefferson Story is clearly one with opposing views. The Board apparently...
by timuin | Dec 5, 2018 | Uncategorized
Written By David Dennis Posted November 26, 2018 Emantic “EJ” Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr. is a hero. Jemel Roberson is a hero. Bradford Jr., an active duty serviceman, was gunned down by police while trying to save lives endangered by a gunman at an Alabama mall on Thanksgiving night. Roberson was gunned down by police while apprehending a man who fired shots into a Chicago nightclub. He was wearing a uniform with the words “SECURITY” emblazoned on the front. In any scenario, two legally armed men being killed by cops while trying to save civilian lives would be a rallying cry for the NRA. But it isn’t. And you know why: Bradford Jr. and Roberson are Black. And the rhetoric that galvanizes groups like the NRA doesn’t apply to Black people. In theory, using that logic, the NRA should be outraged by the deaths of two legally armed men fulfilling their civic responsibilities as gun owners in accordance with NRA beliefs. But the NRA isn’t really about gun rights for the sake of gun rights. The NRA is about gun rights as medicine for the disease of non-whiteness. The NRA doesn’t want all people to have guns; the NRA wants white people to have guns to use against non-white people. The only time the NRA invokes Blackness is to threaten Black activists or use “grieving black mothers” as a means to misdirect legitimate criticisms of its policies. In order to believe that Bradford Jr. and Roberson were good guys with guns, one has to believe that they are first good guys. But that goes against what the NRA stands for...
by timuin | Dec 1, 2018 | Uncategorized
by Lorenzo Tanos New research suggests that interbreeding between early humans and Neanderthals was not the rarity scientists had once thought it was, but rather a more regular occurrence over several thousands of years. In a study published Thursday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, a pair of researchers from Temple University explained how the interbreeding started about 75,000 years ago — not long after early humans moved out of Africa and into Europe and certain parts of Asia. There, the early humans first encountered Neanderthals. As noted by History, earlier studies had suggested that most modern humans have about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA as a result of interbreeding between the two species. While a number of papers had suggested in recent years that modern humans, with the exception of those whose ancestors never left Africa, got their Neanderthal DNA from occasional encounters with the extinct hominid species, the researchers behind the new study stated otherwise. Said research team suggested that the early humans who populated Eurasia after leaving Africa interbred with Neanderthals at “multiple points in time” over a span of 35,000 years.to read more of this article click...
by timuin | Nov 14, 2018 | Uncategorized
Kimberly Foster,HuffPost Opinion Mon, Nov 12 2:44 PM EST When I went to bed on the night of the 2018 midterm elections, I was heartbroken. Yes, the Democrats had taken back the House of Representatives, but the candidates I had been most invested in ― Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and Beto O’Rourke ― had lost. I knew O’Rourke, despite his magnetism, probably wouldn’t get it done. My hopes were much higher for Abrams and Gillum. The polls conducted on their races showed these exceptional Black candidates tied or ahead leading into Election Day, a seeming miracle to me as a daughter of the South. I knew, though, that Abrams and Gillum were up against tremendous structural obstacles. Obstacles that political wit and charisma might not help them get over. Abrams’ contest against Brian Kemp, who as Georgia’s then-secretary of state would oversee his own election, was especially troublesome. In August, Abrams called Kemp “a remarkable architect of voter suppression” because of his department’s history of removing Georgians from voter rolls, rejecting high numbers of registrations and closing or moving voting sites. By Tuesday night’s end, neither Abrams or Gillum had the votes to claim victory. Gillum conceded by urging his supporters to continue fighting for their seat at the table. Abrams, however, refused to give in. to read more of this story, click here: ...
by timuin | Oct 25, 2018 | Uncategorized
A recent analysis by Bloomberg ranked large cities with at least 250,000 residents according to the distribution of household income among individuals to see which has the worst income inequality. From being number two in three consecutive years, Atlanta took the top spot this year, surpassing the two-year number one Miami. Atlanta, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, is a home to many Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola and Delta. Despite that, the income gap has been widened by the number of low-wage retail and hospitality jobs. About one out of four of its residents are low-income, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. Moreover, affordable housing seems to be lacking in the area as luxury apartment buildings with expensive rents replaced what used to be Black neighborhoods. About 22% of renters in Atlanta proper’s Fulton County received eviction notices in 2015, resulting in a “crisis” as the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta calls it. The income gap is very well seen between whites and Blacks. While white residents of Atlanta make $80,000 yearly, Blacks in the city only make $30,000. Even worse, 80% of African-American children in Atlanta live in high-poverty neighborhoods compared to only 6% in their white peers. Because of the lack of affordable housing, wage inequity, and poverty rates, there were higher crime rates, lower educational outcomes, and Black residents were forced to leave. As a matter of fact, the city’s Black population dropped from 61 percent to 53 percent, while White residents in the city rose from 33 percent to 40 percent from 2000 to 2015. Atlanta’s new Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is trying...
by timuin | Oct 23, 2018 | Uncategorized
By Richard B. Muhammad -Final Call Black Twitter was ablaze and much of Black America was enraged after a meeting between Kanye West and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office with critics blasting Yeezy as everything from a victim of bi-polar disease to a sell-out. But there is more to the Oct. 10 encounter between a president largely reviled by Blacks and the outspoken rapper who said on live tv, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people,” over the disastrous federal failure in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan touched on one of these points Oct. 14 during a major address in Detroit to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement. “Let me talk about Kanye. I’m not one of these beat-a-man-down kinds of guy. I happen to love Kanye,” said Min. Farrakhan. “Kanye talked about the 13th Amendment and he was telling Mr. Trump that you don’t build something that is supposed to be firm and have a trap door in it unless you’re building a trap door for somebody that you want to trap. I’m going to help Kanye out with this…..to read more of this article, click...
by timuin | Oct 23, 2018 | Uncategorized
The United States, by many measures, appears to be a sick society. It has one of the highest rates of wealth and income inequality in the world. Despite being one of the richest countries on the planet it has some of the highest rates of infant mortality. Poverty among the elderly is also increasing. As a whole, the country’s health care system is inadequate; life expectancy is declining. The United States has the highest rate of mass murder by gun in the world and the highest rate of incarceration. American infrastructure is failing. There is a deep crisis of faith in the country’s political and social institutions. The environment is being despoiled by large corporations who increasingly act with impunity. Loneliness and suicide are at epidemic levels. Consumerism has supplanted democracy and meaningful engaged citizenship. White hate groups and other right-wing domestic terrorist organizations have killed and injured hundreds of people during the last few decades. America’s elites are wholly out of touch with the people and largely indifferent to their demands. Donald Trump is the president of a broken country, but he did not create this cultural sickness and pathology. While Donald Trump embodies almost all of America’s problems in human form, in reality he is a symptom of our illness, not the cause….to read more of this article, click...
by timuin | Sep 30, 2018 | Uncategorized
NAOMI OSAKA EMBRACES HER “BLACKNESS” By Tim Moore What is it about these tennis playing “Sistas”; Venus. Serena, Sloan, Madison and now Naomi. I don’t know for sure but I would bet that her Haitian father named her after superstar diva model, Naomi Campbell. I’m taking literary license here but I am sure she knows who Naomi Campbell is. Naomi Osaka ,in an interview, said that when she goes to Japan, the people are surprised when the see a “Black” girl’ Unlike Meghan Markle, she does not iron her hair to take the curls out and make it straight. Her school girl crush is Michael B Jordon of the “Black Panther”. This, in my maid would show she is proud o and embraces her Blackness. Her sheroes are Venus and Serena Williams. At least for tennis, they are excellent models. This one African American family has won ore tennis rand slams than all the countries in Asia combined. Now some may respond “but she is playing under the Japanese flag. Good question but that was her father’s decision. He calculated that his daughter would get may attention and money from the Japanese Tennis Federation than it’s US counterpart. He was right. There is plenty of competition her in the US for girls tennis. As her trophy’s ad up, she is getting more interviews. The announcers are always quick to point out her Japanese heritage. Often times, during an interview the announcer would question her on her Japanese heritage. However, she is quick to point out that she grew up in America and she is Haitian also. I am sure...
