The Republican party has defined their shifting landscape as whatever Donald Trump wants. The party that once flag waved like a queen at the Miss America Pageant is siding with despots, dictators, and malevolence. The silence was deafening—to steal a phrase—when the presumptive nominee for President in the GOP encouraged the greatest enemy of peace around the world, Vladimir Putin, to attack our allies. Their treachery has gotten so bad they are theorizing about a hair-brained conspiracy that Taylor Swift is a Pentagon psyop. The Party is being consumed by the silly, senseless, and sinister. Things we once accused people of hearing through their eye-teeth or the beany on their tinfoil hats are now common doctrine in the Republican party.  

Stolen elections despite numerous officials from both sides of the aisle disavowing the notion. Two poll workers now owed nearly 150 million dollars (as a result of a successful defamation suit) against a lawyer for the former president because he saw the passing of a piece of candy as a covert plot to steal the election from Donald Trump. Time and time again, we hear that Republicans, in their private moments and the cloakrooms of Congress, say that they know Donald Trump is laughable. Their fear of Mr. Trump and the fear of being voted out of office not only lacks integrity but is cowardly.    

Yesterday, it was reported that the fifty-eighth Superbowl was the most-watched TV show in history. The annual spectacle was punctuated with flags, flyovers, and, finally, football. The collective and common viewership of football was a moment of American unity. Millions of Americans downed chicken wings, pizza, and beer late into the night. No matter who you were rooting for, the excitement was palpable. Once the game ended, conservatives went into high gear, criticizing everything from Andra Day singing Lift Every Voice and Sing to singer/dancer Usher’s halftime show. Finally, they yelled rigged because Taylor Swift’s boyfriend [Travis Kelce] won—what undoubtedly will be— another gaudy diamond-encrusted ring.  All the things conservatives used to adore were there. The fighter planes flew over after a 50-yard-long flag was unfurled on the field. The military color guard was at attention, with 62,000 fans standing in unison (hats in hand over heart), saluting the National Anthem, even bringing Chiefs player Chris Jones to tears. Most of all, there was football, violent collisions, bombs and blitzes, broken bones, and a snapped Achilles tendon.

Yet a lithe blonde songstress whose popularity outdistanced the game was cause for agita by right-wing media. Mr. Trump chimed in, claiming he was responsible for her great wealth and success, imploring her not to endorse President Joe Biden. Of course, the GOP wants us to believe that Tay-Tay and her Swifties are all empty-headed teenyboppers just high on life. They further stated that a celebrity should not have this sort of influence. Of course, the leader of the Republican party is an alleged billionaire, with repeated failures in business and a phony educational business school. Oh yes, his claim to fame was not his talent, unlike Taylor Swift, but pretending to be a billionaire controlling the fate of other celebrities. So, while the Republicans follow a Shifty ex-president, dare I say, Ms. Swift will shake it off. Maybe Mr. Trump should try another reality show and be voted off the island for good.

Vote Against Guns

Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
In their pre-Super Bowl program, CBS, in collaboration with the NFL, featured a segment reflecting on the activism of NFL players following the murders of George Floyd and Michael Brown and the all-too familiar list of names that we’ve come to know by heart. For the life of me, I cannot find the video, even after reaching out to CBS. The tightly produced piece brought back memories, and it also left me with a  feeling of profound sadness. It reminded me that I truly thought that the massive, hitherto unseen-in-its-scope, protests nationally and internationally would have an impact on the powers-that-be, and that the end product would be a sophisticated national police force that would respect the lives and rights of the citizens of this country. While it was good to be reminded of the players who were willing to sacrifice for the greater good, the production missed the mark for me. I found it to be largely self-congratulatory and celebratory, even; suggesting as it was, that we had made significant strides and that the problem was largely solved. There was no sense of urgency.

The idea that over-policing and police brutality are largely contained is false. Nothing could be further from the truth:

Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 101 civilians having been shot, 6 of whom were Black, as of January 25, 2024.

Do you remember the massive protests in the wake of  the execution-style murder of teenage Michael Brown? Remember members of Congress participating in the  “hands up, don’t shoot” demonstration? Remember the sights of doctors & nurses doing lie-ins; students walking out of classes to show solidarity? Remember the hard, self-sacrificing work put in by members of our group, Support the Dream Defenders, working with a sense of urgency to draft bills that we then sent off to civil rights organizations, members of Congress, celebrities, and anyone we believed could shake the needle even a little? I remember. 

Reflecting on those times, I realized that I truly believed that messages were being sent that would be received by those who could make a difference. I remember feeling/hoping that “good cops” would see what was happening and would begin to police their own. And yes, we had some successes. We tinkered around the edges of the problem and we got some concessions. And then it got worse.

In 2014, the year Michael Brown, little Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner were killed, cops killed 1047 people.

In 2020, the year Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd and Louisville cops took out Breonna Taylor, cops killed 1152 people.

According to Mapping Police Violence website, US cops killed a whopping 1349 people in 2023.

In the year that cops killed 1349 people, there were no major nation-wide protest. And while the brutalization of Tyre Nichols got some national attention, the conversation quickly devolved into the issue of “trauma porn” rather than the act of violence itself.

Police killed more than 1,300 people in 2023, a year that saw several high-profile cases including the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, the shooting of an environmental activist who was protesting the construction of a police and fire training center near Atlanta and the death of a Virginia man who was "smothered" in a hospital. There were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours, according to the report, which is primarily based on news reports and includes data from state and local government agencies.

What we missed (1):

Two cops respond to a call from a senior living complex. Friends of a 67-year-old blind, suicidal woman are concerned that she might hurt herself. When the cops got to her apartment, they found the door locked which she refused to open. They, of course, kicked down her door and “found [her] shouting from under the covers of her bed, asking the officers who they are and telling them to leave.” Cops claimed they pulled the covers off her and saw a gun. The result of this “welfare check” is that they ended up firing 15 shots at a 67-year-old blind, suicidal woman in her bed. Fifteen shots.

What accounts for lack of interest?

1) Are we tired of fighting for something that seems unachievable in this lifetime?  Hmm… maybe. But we just cannot afford the luxury of becoming complacent.

2) The BLM movement has been largely defanged. Much as they did to ACORN, the right wing succeeded in demonizing BLM. True, the documented greed and overreach of some prominent members of the leadership group didn’t help, but there is no denying that Fox and its affiliates, combined with lazy journalism, succeeded in their mission to delegitimize BLM. They are no longer a potent force. The voices of NAACP and other prominent civil rights organizations seem muted.

3) The backlash against the “Defund the Police” slogan. Not only did right wing types successfully use the slogan against us, but there was also vociferous pushback from within our own communities. It pushed us on the defensive and forced us to put precious time and energy into explaining. The forward march sputtered and lost its momentum.

4) The right’s mission to go after CRT, woke, and DEI gained traction and picked up speed. The Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling had its intended effect. The narrative became that we’ve already achieved racial justice and that police brutality was no longer an issue. 

5) The pushback against Black trauma porn. While there is legitimate concern about the effect of showing Black bodies being brutalized, not showing the result of the trauma has not eliminated the trauma itself. The conversation surrounding BTP eclipsed that of police accountability and overpolicing.

What we missed (2):

55-year-old Mario Bonilla was considered missing and endangered.

"When [cops] encountered the individual, he got out of the vehicle. He was armed with a weapon. He was given verbal commands to drop that weapon. He did not. Instead, he charged at the deputies, causing one of the deputies to fire his weapon," BSO spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright said.

He died on the scene.

Reflecting on the Super Bowl, seeing the league that banished Colin Kaepernick for daring to use his earned platform to advocate for justice, now portraying themselves as champions against injustice, felt sorta surreal to me. The job is far, far from being done. The end zone is nowhere in sight and there ought to be no spiking of the ball. The fact that they’d dare to suggest that there was any reason to celebrate, makes me wanna think that this is just another attempt to dilute and or derail the movements for change.

What do you think?

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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How America has made it harder for Black people to marry. VOX: Why the marriage rate is falling faster for some

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Romantic relationships are in a weird place right now.

Sure, I have anecdotal evidence; I could open my phone and see a dating app horror story in any one of my group chats.

But I don’t have to take you through the dating woes of DC 30-somethings because data supports this too. Statistically, things are shifting. According to Pew Research, back in 1980 about 6 percent of Americans aged 40 and over had never been married. Now that number sits around 25 percent. If you’ve looked at the op-ed pages of any major newspaper, you’ve probably seen the hand-wringing about this falling marriage rate.

If you are or know a single person, this probably doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. But as I was looking at the numbers, one thing did surprise me: just how much lower the rate is for Black people. It’s always been lower, but the gap is now huge.

Back in the ’70s, a little over 20 percent of Black women had never been married. Now it’s nearly 48 percent.

Why do Black people get married less, and why does it matter?

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Washington’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict appears to be hurting the president’s credibility among African Americans. Foreign Policy: Is Biden’s Gaza Policy Alienating Black Voters?

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In the beginning of January, in an attempt to boost political morale among his most loyal constituency, Biden made an appearance at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina—where nine Black Americans were gunned down by a white supremacist shooter in 2015. At this sacred site, it was fitting that Biden spoke about domestic issues such as racism and political violence. Unfortunately, Biden’s foreign-policy woes followed him to the pulpit, where he was interrupted by protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Churches like Mother Emanuel AME play a key role in shaping the voting decisions of the larger Black community. More and more members of the clergy are speaking out from the pulpit against Biden’s support for Israel. A recent New York Times article revealed that over the past several months more than 1,000 Black pastors—ranging from conservative Southern Baptist churches to progressive nondenominational congregations in the Midwest and Northeast—have called for an end to Israel’s offensive operations in Gaza as well as the release of all hostages held by Hamas. As in other parts of the American public, much of the momentum behind Black faith leaders’ calls for a cease-fire is coming from younger congregants.

THE GROWING DISCONTENTMENT with Biden’s handling of the conflict was in some ways foreseeable. A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace survey of Black American opinion on the conflict conducted in October 2023, long before the death toll in Gaza had mounted, already revealed that 95 percent of Black Americans rejected the idea of “unwavering support” for Israel. Furthermore, while most Black Americans (65 percent) did not feel any worse about Biden in this early period of the conflict, Black Americans under the age of 30 were 33 percent more likely to report feeling worse about the president compared to the rest of respondents.

As one pastor in the swing state of Georgia stated, “It’s going to be very hard to persuade our people to go back to the polls and vote for Biden.” This comes on the heels of polling that reveals that Black voters’ approval rating for Biden in recent months is down nearly 20 percentage points. It is more and more difficult to view the mounting number of civilian deaths and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza as being in line with the human rights commitments Biden ran on in 2020.

The dip in enthusiasm for Biden is in part related to a feeling of Black-Palestinian solidarity among some of these disaffected Black voters. For others, lackluster support for Biden could also be a function of a limited appetite for yet another U.S. entanglement in the Middle East. For instance, the same Carnegie survey revealed that a quarter (24 percent) of Black respondents felt that the United States should not be involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict and that only 33 percent would be willing to send troops to the region if Israel is attacked by a neighboring state.

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Adil Meléndez Márquez received call from bodyguards 20 minutes after Sir Henry Brooke award from Alliance for Lawyers at Risk. Thje Guardian: ‘Very afraid’: Colombian human rights lawyer loses security after winning prize

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“I’m very afraid,” says Colombian lawyer Adil Meléndez Márquez, the day after being presented with an award in London honouring human rights defenders.

Meléndez is no stranger to death threats, because of his work on cases related to Colombia’s decades-long civil war, environmental justice and corruption, but things have just got a lot scarier. With bitter irony, 20 minutes after receiving the Sir Henry Brooke award from the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk, his bodyguards called him to say that they had been stood down from, leaving him without protection.

In an interview with the Guardian in London, Meléndez said he is a rarity in Colombia, a human rights lawyer who hails from among those he represents. He is Afro Colombian and works predominately on cases for Afro Colombians and Indigenous communities, often in areas under the control of paramilitaries rather than the government. He was kidnapped when he was 12 so has first-hand experience of the violence which blights the country and has received threats since becoming involved with Movice (movement of victims of state crimes) in 2006.

After receiving threats Meléndez took a case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights – an organ of the Organization of American States – which, in 2009, ordered Colombia to provide him with protection. For the first eight years this amounted to three personal bodyguards and a bulletproof car, then the bulletproof car was removed and later one of the bodyguards, leaving him with two until last week, he says.

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The 40-group collective behind the march is protesting against ‘constitutional coup’, as alleged by the opposition. Protest over election delay postponed in Senegal after government ban

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A protest march scheduled for Tuesday against Senegalese President Macky Sall’s controversial move to delay this month’s presidential poll to December has been postponed after authorities banned it, organisers said.

Elymane Haby Kane, one of the organisers of the march, told AFP news agency he received an official letter from local authorities in the capital, Dakar, that the march was banned as it could seriously hamper traffic.

“We will postpone the march because we want to remain within the law,” said Malick Diop, coordinator of a collective that called the protest. “The march was banned. There’s a problem with the route so we will change this.”

Mobile internet coverage was also restricted, just as it had been on the day of the parliamentary vote.

“Due to the dissemination on social networks of several subversive hate messages that have already provoked violent demonstrations… mobile data is suspended this Tuesday 13 February,” the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Energy said in a statement.

Sall’s decision to push back the February 25 vote plunged Senegal into a crisis that saw clashes between protesters and police in which three people were killed.

The Aar Sunu Election (Let’s Protect Our Election) collective, which includes some 40 civil, religious and professional groups, had called for a rally in Dakar on Tuesday at 15:00 GMT.

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During the carnival season, groups of bate-bolas roam the streets of their neighbourhoods in elaborate costumes. The Guardian: ‘United in extravagance’: Rio’s working-class carnival ball-slammers

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In the middle of the night, dozens of masked figures burst on to a street in a blaze of colour, each clutching a stick from which hangs a rubber ball. As they prance through a crowd of raucous onlookers, they repeatedly slam the balls against the ground with a dull thud that gets lost in the crackle of fireworks overhead.

These are Rio de Janeiro’s bate-bolas, or ball-slammers. In the working-class suburbs, a world away from the glitzy Sambadrome parades and beachside street parties, it is these clown-like figures who reign over the pre-Lenten revelry, delighting and frightening in equal measure with their mesmerising costumes and playful antics.

“It’s our escape valve … When you slam the ball, you let out this cry, you release this energy, you let everything out,” said Bruno Nicolau Agnelo, 39, who 20 years ago founded a bate-bola group in Nilópolis, a satellite city north-west of Rio.

“Bate-bola culture helps us create bonds of friendship, brotherhood. We consider ourselves a family,” Agnelo added of his group of 140 men who roam the streets during carnival to the sound of favela funk music, clad head to toe in voluminous outfits and feathered masks – part of a tradition whose roots date back to medieval Celtic rituals in Portugal, researchers believe.

Some groups carry ornate parasols instead of a ball, and a growing number of women are also getting involved in what was originally a male pastime. Agnelo’s band, named Bombardeio do Paiol (Bombardment from Paiol) after their neighbourhood’s old gunpowder factory, has a sister group called the Bombardettes.

“It’s a culture that ends up mixing and combining different elements, and adapting over time,” said Gustavo Lacerda, a cultural producer who has studied Rio’s bate-bolas. “Today, the bate-bolas [exist] in multiple forms … but they are united in their extravagance.”

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis had a Perry Mason moment in a Georgia courthouse yesterday when she appeared ready to testify in what seemed unbeknownst to her district attorney subordinates. Fani Willis set the tone for her testimony the moment she asked for some defense exhibits to be made available to her after taking the stand. Minutes before she all but demanded to take the witness box, the assistant district attorneys were in the middle of making a motion to squash her need to testify. DA Willis purposefully strode to the stand in a manner that any Black person in America has seen, from a strong, determined Black woman, and your first thought is—uh-oh!

Ms. Willis testified she had to move out of her home and worry about the safety of her elderly father, who lived with her, as well as her children. She is under constant threat and has been living under security scrutiny to ensure her safety. So, with all the sturm and drang surrounding Donald Trump, the thought that someone would purposely put themselves in the crosshairs of the violent Trump cult is absurd. But that is precisely what the myriad of lawyers for the eighteen defendants in a Rico case brought by Ms. Willis is asserting. The crux of the hearing is that two very successful lawyers, one who was in private practice and the other having just left a judgeship—aside from also having a private practice of her own before running for District Attorney, were so hard up for money that Fani Willis indicted the former president to get Fulton County to bankroll her love life.

That scenario would not even pass the smell test of a bad Hollywood soap opera. What can be called into question was Ms. Willis and the man in question, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, crossing their professional lives with pleasure. Romances between attorneys are nothing new in courtrooms,à laMarcia Clark and Christopher Darden in the O.J. Simpson murder case. Obviously, to anyone willing to read or listen to the lawyers for the eighteen people charged with trying to change the election results, the hope is that the public, along with the media, gets caught up in the minutia of salacious allegations of sex, money, and romantic getaways swaying the public, hence a future jury’s mind.

The righteous indignation of DA Willis yesterday was rife with anger, pointed denials, and admonished one of the defense attorneys, saying, “So I would ask you not yell at me.” At one point, Willis contemptuously dropped the exhibits handed to her when she took the stand, characterizing them as “lies.” She successfully sparred with the attorneys, and the repetitive nature of the questions [so] annoyed Judge Scott McAfee he told one lawyer, Harry MacDougald, to essentially sit down. All the drama and pointless harangue of the defense lawyers was recentered when Willis stated what the case is really about:

“You’ve been intrusive in people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,”Willis said, gesturing to the defense table. “I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

Despite the collective defense attorneys' efforts to make Fani Willis into a gold-digging trollop bent on fleecing the state of money to finance her tawdry affairs, Ms. Willis shut that down with one short statement, “I don't need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion.”

Vote Against Guns

by Michael Strickland 

A chilling effect ... that's what research calls much of the experience of faculty of color like myself on predominantly white campuses. From aggression to microaggression to indifference, the challenges can be daunting. And as my mother, the late Dr. Dorothy Strickland said to Eric Cooper, one of her most successful former doctoral students:

"I know there were [and are] many others who did not even survive."

That is one of the many reasons wy I am excited that The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute of Leadership, Equity, and Justice (Proctor Institute) is just released  “Achieving Equity: A Toolkit for Racially Inclusive Faculty Hiring.” The toolkit shines a light on the lack of representation in the racial and ethnic makeup of faculty and calls for action from institutions of higher education to see growth.

While colleges and universities have been lauded for increasing student diversity, these same institutions have failed to achieve any comparable diversity among their faculty. In 2017, of the nation’s full-time, tenure-track and tenured faculty, only 3 percent each were Black men, Black women, Hispanic men, and Hispanic women. Only 6 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander men, 5 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander women, and 1 percent were American Indian/Alaska Native.

Born out Revolution U: Dismantling Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring, a two day event held in June 2022 and Marybeth Gasman’s book Doing the Right Thing: How Colleges and Universities Can Undo Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring, the toolkit empowers readers to confront their institution’s faculty hiring practices and break down traditional barriers to promote equity and justice.

“When crafting this toolkit, we wanted to develop something that left readers with actionable steps to have a lasting impact on higher education,” shared Gasman, Executive Director of the Proctor Institute and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. “It was designed for not only leaders in higher education but anyone passionate about the representation of people of color among faculty.”

The authors emphasize the importance of restructuring and rethinking search processes, using data in faculty hiring, holding faculty members accountable for the search committee process, and pushing leaders to foster equity in the hiring processes.

"Revolution U was an innovative and enriching experience fostering important conversations surrounding the need for more equitable faculty hiring practices. We hope that this toolkit serves as a guide for faculty and administrators looking to enact change on their respective campuses nationwide,” shared Rebecca Perdomo, Senior Research Associate (by courtesy) at CMSI and co-author of the toolkit.

They highlight the importance of addressing excuses that lead to underrepresentation in academia and challenging traditional definitions of quality. They recommend concrete strategies for creating a diverse applicant pool, focusing on inclusivity rather than exclusivity, requiring well thought out search committee training, and confronting anti-Blackness in faculty hiring.

“Achieving Equity” serves as a guide for academic leaders committed to creating racially inclusive and equitable learning environments.

Find the toolkit here.

This week (Fri. Feb. 16 & Sat Feb. 17) Vice President Kamala Harris represented the United Staes of America for her third time, at the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Just before she was to deliver her remarks, news broke that Aleksey Navalny had died in a Russian gulag in Siberia.

Before I begin today, we’ve all just received reports that Aleksey Navalny has died in Russia. This is, of course, terrible news, which we are working to confirm.

My prayers are with his family, including his wife, Yulia, who is with us today.

And if confirmed, this would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality. Whatever story they tell, let us be clear: Russia is responsible.

And we will have more to say on this later.

As President Biden and I have made clear over the past three years, we are committed to pursue global engagement, to uphold international rules and norms, to defend democratic values at home and abroad, and to work with our allies and partners in pursuit of shared goals.

However, there are some in the United States who disagree. They suggest it is in the best interest of the American people to isolate ourselves from the world, to flout common understandings among nations, to embrace dictators and adopt their repressive tactics, and abandon commitments to our allies in favor of unilateral action.

At 21 minutes, VP Harris is interviewed by Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, Chairman of the MSC. She answers questions about Israel-Palestine and the Global South. I highly recommend watching the interview, in addition to VP Harris’ remarks.

After her speech on Friday, VP Harris also met with President Isaac Herzog of Israel, Prime Minister Al-Sudani of Iraq, Prime Minister Robert Golob of Slovenia and Members of Congress.

Saturday, VP Harris met with Chancellor Olaf Scholtz of Germany and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. 

After their meeting, VP Harris and President Zelenskyy held joint press conference. 

As always, VP Kamala Harris, is ready and she’s “got it”.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 am ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

The legacies we receive, the legacies we leave

Commentary by Chitown Kev

On February 23, 1993, I walked into the shelter I was living in, drunk as usual. Very drunk.

I knew that the man who was the overnight manager in the shelter, V.G., was sober and was encouraging me to stay sober but this night wasn’t it. I was such a nuisance and, dare I say, a threat to the safety of others in the shelter that V. called the police.

The police came, talked to me, and then I started fighting with them; at one point I even got a punch in. The policeman kindly brushed that punch off and he and his partner both picked me up and carried me out to the squad car and to another night in the lock up on Addison and Halsted, two blocks down the street from Wrigley Field.

By February 25, I was in detox. When I got out of detox 5 days later, scared shitless, I ran into V. on the el. We talked, not so much about my very obvious problems, but about some difficulties he was having.

V. passed on sometime ago. He was such a stalwart to the community of Rogers Park and Evanston for so many reasons that the alderman and a few other public officials were at his funeral.

I could never measure or payback or even name precisely the hope that V. gave me. I do remember something that he said often. 

“Always think about what you would like for your legacy to be.”

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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In Texas, one of the nation’s most sweeping bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives took effect Jan. 1. The Grio: Texas ban on university diversity efforts provides a glimpse of the future across GOP-led states

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The dim lighting and vacant offices were the first clues.

Other changes struck Nina Washington, a senior at the University of Texas, when she returned to her favorite study spot from winter break. The words “Multicultural Center” had been taken off the wall, erasing an effort begun in the late 1980s to serve historically marginalized communities on campus. The center’s staff members were gone, its student groups dissolved.

“Politics, behaviors and emotions are returning to the old ways,” said Washington, who as a Black woman found a sense of community at the center.

The void in the heart of the nearly 52,000-student campus is one of many changes rippling across college campuses in Texas, where one of the nation’s most sweeping bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives took effect Jan. 1.

At least five other states have passed their own bans and Republican lawmakers in at least 19 states are pursuing various restrictions on diversity initiatives, an issue they hope will mobilize their voters this election year.

With over 600,000 students enrolled at more than 30 public universities across the state, the rollout in Texas offers a large-scale glimpse of what lies ahead for public higher education without the initiatives designed to make minorities feel less isolated and white students more prepared for careers that require working effectively with people of different backgrounds.

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After a short trial, a Texas judge ruled that Barbers Hill school officials are not violating a new state law prohibiting hair discrimination. The Texas Tribune: Judge says Texas school district can punish Black student for length of his hairstyle

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A Texas judge on Thursday said the Barbers Hill Independent School District can punish a Black student who wears his hair in long locs without violating Texas’ new CROWN Act, which is meant to prevent hairstyle discrimination in schools and workplaces.

The decision came after a monthslong dispute between the district and Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School who has been sent to in-school suspension since August for wearing his hair in long locs. Legislators last year passed a law called the Texas CROWN Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair texture or protective styles associated with race. Protective styles include locs, braids and twists.

But the Barbers Hill school district successfully argued it can still enforce its policy that prohibits males from wearing hair that extends beyond eyebrows, earlobes or collars even if it’s gathered on top of the student’s head.

Judge Chap B. Cain III issued the ruling after a short trial in which lawyers for opposing sides argued over the legislative intent behind the CROWN Act. Lawyers for Barbers Hill said lawmakers would have included explicit language about hair length had they intended the law to cover it. Allie Booker, representing Darryl George and his mother Darresha George, said protective styles are only possible with long hair.

“You need significant length to perform the style,” Booker said. “You can’t make braids with a crew cut. You can’t lock anything that isn’t long.”

George exited the courtroom in tears, walking alongside his mother and several lawmakers who co-authored the CROWN Act.

“As I was walking down with Ms. George and Darryl, you could sense the anger, you could sense the confusion,” said Candice Matthews, the statewide chair of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats. “Darryl told me, with tears in his eyes: ‘All this because of my hair?’”

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The Academy Award winner takes on the political icon in the new film from John Ridley. The Grio: Regina King plays Shirley Chisholm in new trailer

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A first look at Regina King’s turn as Shirley Chisholm is finally here. Netflix just dropped the trailer for “Shirley,” the upcoming biopic based on the life of the first Black congresswoman.

“I have something to tell you,” Chisholm proudly declares to her congressional intern Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges) at the trailer’s start. “I am running for president.” The trailer whisks us back to 1972, during Chisholm’s trailblazing presidential campaign. “I am paving the road for a lot of other people looking like me to get elected,” she says in the clip.

Written and directed by John Ridley, the film boasts a star-studded supporting cast around King. In addition to Hedges, Lance Reddick, Christina Jackson, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Terrence Howard all fill out the ensemble of the film, which by the looks of the trailer, does not shy away from the various challenges Chisholm faced as the first on her political journey.

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Hogg Hummock filed a lawsuit against McIntosh County and five commissioners but A state N amendment prohibits litigation against naming individual government officers as defendants. Associated press: Attorneys for Georgia slave descendants urge judge not to throw out their lawsuit over island zoning

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Attorneys suing a Georgia county over zoning changes that they say threaten one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants asked a judge Tuesday to let them correct technical problems with their civil complaint to avoid having it dismissed.

A lawyer for coastal McIntosh County argued the judge must throw out the lawsuit because it clashes with a 2020 amendment to Georgia’s state constitution dealing with legal immunity granted to state and local governments.

Residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community sued in October after county commissioners voted to weaken zoning restrictions that for decades helped protect the enclave of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island.

The zoning changes doubled the size of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock. Black residents say larger homes in the community will lead to property tax increases that they won’t be able to afford. Their lawsuit asks a judge to declare the new law discriminates “on the basis of race, and that it is therefore unconstitutional, null, and void.”

The legal arguments Superior Court Judge Jay Stewart heard Tuesday didn’t touch on the merits of the case. Instead, they dealt purely with technical flaws in the lawsuit filed by attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center and whether those problems warrant a complete dismissal.

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A 122-page report released this week pokes serious holes in the former First Lady's testimony of the events that took place on the night of her husband's death. BBC: Martine Moïse - Wife of Haiti's murdered president charged over his killing

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A judge in Haiti has charged the widow of murdered President Jovenel Moïse in connection with the assassination of the former leader on 7 July 2021. Martine Moïse, who was injured in the attack in which her husband was killed, is one of dozens of people charged following a two-year investigation.

According to a legal document leaked by a Haitian news site, she is accused of "complicity and criminal association". Neither she nor her lawyer have so far commented on the specific charges.

Ms Moïse has, however, used social media in recent days to denounce "unjust arrests" and what she said was a "never-ending persecution". It is not known where she currently lives.

Haitian media have lamented the fact that while the lengthy legal document charges 51 people, it fails to identify who ordered and financed President Moïse's assassination.

The 53-year-old was shot dead on 7 July 2021 at his private residence on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince by a group of mainly Colombian mercenaries.

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In addition to funds, the security mission also needs equipment. the mission is expected to have 2,500 officers fielded from Kenya, Jamaica, The Bahamas and other Caribbean and African nations. Miami Herald: U.S. looks to galvanize support for Kenya-led armed mission to Haiti among G20 ministers

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The deployment of an armed security mission to a crisis-stricken Haiti will be discussed this week on the sidelines of a gathering of foreign ministers from the world’s 20 richest nations in Rio de Janeiro.

The two-day gathering opened on Wednesday in Brazil, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a two-hour meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the capital of Brasilia, asked for help with Haiti. Brazil led the last United Nations peacekeeping mission to Haiti, and Haitians and others have been watching to see if the South American nation will once more volunteer to help.

Lula has said the problems in Haiti stretch beyond security, and so far he and other South American leaders have been reluctant to volunteer police or military personnel for a non-U.N. multinational security support mission for Haiti to be led by Kenya. Nevertheless, Brazil is joining the U.N. and the United States in hosting a high-level discussion on Thursday on the margins of the G20 ministerial meeting. It is being called “Rising to the Challenge on Haiti,” and the goal is to galvanize support for both the Multinational Security Support mission and the dire humanitarian situation.

In October, the U.N. Security Council approved the Multinational Security Support mission, nearly a year after Haiti requested the international community’s help. But the effort has been stalled by a legal challenge in Kenya, where the High Court in Nairobi ruled that the country’s offer to send 1,000 of its police officers to help Haiti’s beleaguered national police put down gangs is unconstitutional.

Kenyan President William Ruto has said his government is appealing the ruling. He also is working with Haitian officials to address the court’s concerns. Last week, some of those issues were addressed during a three-day meeting in Washington where officials from the U.S., Haiti and Kenya dealth with the parameters of the force and decided on its structure.

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“There’s nothing inherently wrong with Black people. There is something very, very wrong with the systems that we are forced to live under or within.” VOX: How weathering affects Black peoples’ health

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As many as 77 percent of women will have fibroids in their lifetimes, but we don’t know what causes them. This also means that we don’t know what’s behind fibroids’ racial disparities. Black women are more likely to experience symptoms because of their fibroids, and they are two to three times more likely to have them reoccur once they’re removed. We’re also more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age.

Doctors have theories about why that is. Some researchers think genetics are a factor; others think it could be chemicals we come in contact with. And some think it could be a phenomenon known as weathering.

Weathering is a term coined by researcher Arline Geronimus. It was not without controversy when it was first introduced, but more of the medical community points to it as a factor for a number of health disparities for Black Americans.

Dr. Uché Blackstock, the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, explores this and other systemic failings of the health care system in her book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine.

“Essentially, it’s this idea that dealing with the chronic stress of everyday racism causes a wear and tear on our bodies that prematurely ages us,” she says. “That actually makes us as Black folks susceptible to developing chronic diseases like heart disease, like autoimmune diseases, and also like fibroids.”

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

Malcolm X was murdered on this day in 1965. J. Edgar Hoover had instructed the FBI office in New York City to “do something about Malcolm X” in 1964.

x

#OtD 21 Feb 1965 Malcolm X, instrumental speaker and activist of the American civil rights and Black power movements, was assassinated while preparing to address a crowd of supporters in New York month https://t.co/Wdgp5jvB5Hpic.twitter.com/Feo4WnopNs

— Working Class History (@wrkclasshistory) February 21, 2024

Formerly a member of the Nation of Islam (NoI), Malcolm X publicly split with the organisation due to issues such as NoI leader Elijah Mohammed failing to approve action to respond to police attacks on Black Muslims in Los Angeles. Instead he founded his own mosque, as well as the secular Organization of Afro-American Unity. Already a target of both the police and FBI, NoI activist Louis Farrakhan also declared Malcolm to be "worthy of death".

On February 21, Malcolm stepped up to speak at the Audubon ballroom when he was shot. Mujahid Abdul Halim, a NoI member from New Jersey was apprehended fleeing the scene with a clip from one of the murder weapons, and admitted his participation in the killing.

However, two other Black Muslims from the Harlem mosque were subsequently arrested and convicted of the crime: Khalil Islam and Muhamad Abdul Abdul Aziz. This was despite a lack of evidence and the fact that they, and Halim, protested their innocence. In an effort to win the freedom for Islam and Aziz, Halim even filed affidavits naming his four co-conspirators – all from the New Jersey mosque. But prosecutors repeatedly refused to reopen the case.

After the case gained new attention following the 2020 release of a Netflix documentary series on the murder, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr agreed to review the case. The review revealed that evidence suggesting Islam and Aziz were innocent had been withheld from the defence, in part following pressure from FBI director J Edgar Hoover. Their convictions were eventually overturned in November 2021.

America shrouds its theocracy for the most part. We do let it slip out by invoking the name of God on our other god, money, and at the end of oaths to the Constitution. For example, a new president’s last promise at 12:01 pm on Inauguration Day is, “So, help me, God,” although those words are only required in the Vice-President’s oath. It is not widely disputed that the founders wanted separation of church and state, but there is little dispute that America, for many years, has adopted a pseudo-theocratic stance; Congress begins every session with a prayer, and one swears a promise of truth on a religious book of doctrine in court. I was reminded of this Wednesday when an Alabama court declared a petri dish a womb. They further ruled that anyone disturbing the dish is guilty of wrongful death. Reasonable people can disagree, but the disturbing part of the ruling was the words of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker (his real name), who wrote, “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,”in his concurring opinion that invoked the Book of Genesis.   

The conservative members of the Supreme Court—via Justice Samuel Alito—stuck their gavels in the air, gauging the judicial wind, and then leaked their ruling a month before overturning 50 years of precedent in the Roe v. Wade case. Justice Clarence Thomas also tested the climate of change. Under cover of Roe, Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that the justices “should reconsider” all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell”— referring to three cases having to do with contraception, same-sex relationships, and marriage essentially overturning fundamental privacy, due process, and equal protection rights. 

Unsurprisingly, after this takeover of family and women’s rights in America, Republicans face- planted over the backlash. For the first time in American jurisprudence, the High Court reversed a right to equal protection, and this astounded Republicans, women particularly, fought back and fought back hard. Hoping to duck and cover behind red states, voters in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio overwhelmingly turned away initiatives to further restrict a woman’s right to choose. Even in Virginia, where rising GOP star Governor Glen Youngkin tried to thread the needle with an adjustment from a 6-week to a 15-week abortion ban, it was roundly rejected.

America has rediscovered Maya Angelou and her brilliant but simplistic observation: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” The translucent religiosity of the religious right on the Court would have women stay married, stay quiet, and incubate—no matter what. Today, the conservatives added another color to their rancid rainbow: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. So not only would women and families be forced to procreate, but they must not take any steps to control the size of their families with birth control and stay in a union that may be toxic, violent, and dangerous, maybe until death parts them.  All hope abandon, ye who enter here is supposedly the inscription on the gates of hell but perhaps it will be the new inscription on the entrance of the Supreme Court.  

Vote Against Guns

The media seems dead set on being complicit in normalizing Donald Trump’s betrayal, racism, xenophobia, and ignorance of foreign and domestic policy. Instead of an honest analysis of what Donald Trump says, they play both sides of the game and find like-minded minorities to back up their misguided efforts to make the abnormal normal. When Donald Trump stood before a crowd and said because of the lighting, he could only see “the black ones,” African American congressman Byron Donalds was on TV with Kristen Welker Sunday to say he agreed. When Donald Trump says black people identify with him because of his mugshot, black conservatives like Dr. Ben Carson nod and applaud him dutifully. “These lights are so bright in my eyes that — I can't see too many people out there,” said Trump. “But I can only see the black ones. I can't see any white ones. You see.” His comments were greeted with raucous laughter and uncomfortable applause from the Black Conservative Federation.

The Sunday talking heads made mention of the blatant racism in his statements—past and present, and turned to visibly angry black pundits to vent before the familiar we have to leave it there—end of conversations. In 2016, the media got so used to letting Donald Trump frame his opposition with nicknames and insults that they treated the campaign like a comedy club roast. The TV ratings became the enemy of fundamental analysis. The current iteration of that is the term ‘Never Trumpers.’ 

Donald Trump has coaxed the media into turning the term Never Trumper into an opposition ad hominem attack on him, not worthy of further examination. Countless numbers of times, political talk hosts start questioning Republicans—who oppose Trump—with the phrase as a Never Trumper…. That immediately brands any facts they bring to the table as just meaningless political rhetoric. So, when Nikki Haley states that Donald Trump has proven to be a chaotic loser, it is immediately dismissed, although true.

Understandably, Mr. Trump's rivals were considered just playing politics. When the opposition moved to people who worked intimately with him, the press chose to label them as Never Trumpers as well.  Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie worked so closely with Mr. Trump in the 2016 campaign he, according to Christie, caught COVID-19 from the former President and nearly died. Yet the man who has known Donald Trump for over 20 years and at one point called him friend says Trump is  “a liar,”“a coward,”“a con artist,”“a spoiled baby,” and “a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog.” When View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked steps away from the former president, daily, when asked if Trump should be re-elected, said, “He is wholly unfit to be in office.”

The so-called Never Trumpers number among them the former president of the RNC, Michael Steele, GOP strategist Ric Wilson, former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), longtime neoconservative writer Bill Kristol, and former congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL). None of the aforementioned people are tree-huggers or snowflakes. Although one may be vehemently opposed to their political positions, none can be accused of being un-American. The next time someone is dismissed as having Trump derangement syndrome or being a Never Trumper, ask yourself: Why?

Vote Against Guns

Tuesday, Feb.20, VP kamala Harris visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing In America Tour.  The headline for this event was Delivering Clean Water and specifically to Pittsburgh, PA, the replacement of lead water lines and improvement of drinking water infrastructure.

Can you believe that in the United States of America that it is still not necessarily guaranteed to all people to access clean water?

And so, I am here today to announce some of the work we have been doing together over many years that is righting this wrong. Because I think we all believe that every person in America has a right to clean water.

Yes, it’s an infrastructure matter, but it is also a public health matter. 

So, we have invested billions of dollars to remove every lead pipe in our nation, including right here in Pittsburgh. And today, I am proud to announce that President Biden and I are dedicating $5.8 billion in federal dollars — (applause) — to help remove lead pipes and to fund clean water projects across our country, which includes more than $200 million for Pennsylvania.

And you are well on your way to replacing every lead pipe here in the next 24 months. (Applause.)

So, today’s additional investment will help accelerate that work and it will also help upgrade other water infrastructure. 

So, when President Biden and I talk about why we do what we do, it is to deliver in a way that is about real results for real people.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 8:05 minutes.

Before her speech, VP Harris met with Black Mayors and Black Clergy from around Southwest PA. 

Excellent local coverage of VP Harris’s visit, from Pittsburgh Union Progress: 

After her speech, VP Kamala Harris conducted an in-person interview the New Pittsburgh Courier editor and publisher, Rod Doss, who asked Harris to address recent critical comments by Charlamagne Tha God (should rather be “Charlatan The Grifter”). Read the article for VP Harris’ response (she took it all in stride) as to the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration to date and the stakes in the election.

As to referring to Charlamagne Tha God’s opinion on anything, I can’t help but include a couple of Tweets: 

First off, VP Kamala Harris has spoken with him more than once and this is their most recent exchange: 

And then, VP Harris was off to a surprise visit:

Thursday, Feb.21, VP Kamala Harris continued her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour”, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, heading a roundtable conversation with medical providers, patients, reproductive rights advocates, and state and local leaders (including Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Debbie Stabenow and Congresswoman Hillary Scholten).

Notice to Blue States:

VP Kamala Harris: The people of Michigan cannot sit back and take comfort without also understanding that elections matter and that there is a full-on, concerted effort to pass a national ban, which would mean the people of Michigan would not be as safe.

After the roundtable even, VP Harris made a surprise visit to Della Soul Records:

Finishing off the week, VP Harris delivered remarks at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting. 

I think this is one of the few remaining professional organizations among elected leaders, where there is meaningful bipartisan work that is happening, and I thank you for that. 

And as Vice President, I have worked closely with many of you on issues like infrastructure, emergency response, and clean energy, and on two issues that I will address briefly today, access to capital (for small businesses) and maternal mortality.

I don’t need to tell the governors and the leaders here America’s small businesses employ tens of millions of workers and generate trillions of dollars for our economy every year.

Small-business owners are business leaders, and they are civic leaders. And so, building on work that I helped lead in the United States Senate, we have increased the access to capital for the small businesses of America.

President Biden and I are giving a total of $10 billion to states across our nation to invest in small businesses.

When the President and I took office, only three states offered 12 months of care. And so, I issued a challenge to every state in our nation: Extend Medicaid postpartum care from2months to 12 months.

And thanks to the leaders in this room, the governors, in this room, so far, a total of 44 states have answered that challenge -(applause) — yes — including, as of today, Alaska. And two more states are in the process of extending coverage. And so, we — we call on the remaining states to do the same.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 14:05 minutes.

VP Kamla Harris and President Joe Biden continue to deliver for the people. We need to deliver the votes for them and for a majority in BOTH Houses of Congress, so their good work can continue.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published at 8 am ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

Note: I may be a little late for the comments after posting today as I will have just arrived back in Copenhagen, Denmark. I will respond ASAP. Thank you all!

“Black History is American History”

Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez

As we approach the end of the shortest month of the year, and corporations and organizations say goodbye to “Black History Month” till 2025, I’d like to point out that while the struggle to expand what was initially “Negro History Week” into *gasp* an entire month was successful, it is imperative that we fight to include our history into what is being taught to children, teens, and adults as well —all year round.  This has been and will continue to be one of the goals of Black Kos. See this 2022 story: We cover Black history all year round, not just for Black History Month

Also, last year I wrote this mini-rant and have not changed how I feel:

Black Kos: You don't have to be Black to learn, teach, and honor Black History/American History

None of us — should be ignoring what is happening not only in Florida, but in all the parts of the U.S. that house people who embrace and tout MAGA, KKK, and Nazi terrorist ideologies. If you are not-Black, you have even more responsibility to fiercely fight back along with us who are, since we.did.not.make.this.shit and we are not gonna be able to fix it and steer a path to sanity alone. Ultimately, unless you take on the battle as yours, you will eventually be harmed even more than we are.

One of the beautiful things about Black Kos, is the bridges that are built here each week, between some of the Black members we have at Daily Kos and those committed folks who are majority not-Black, who come here and engage in the comments section. Thank you, you know who you are. Here’s hoping more readers will de-lurk, and introduce themselves.  

You cannot feed, bathe, or coo over it, but you can be jailed if you purposely or accidentally touch it incorrectly. Last week, an Alabama court ruled that a petri dish is a womb, and if you trip or spill your Pepsi on a Zygote while transporting it from one place to another, you can go to prison. Yes, yes, I understand the science(well, some of it, anyway) and that a zygote is a stage below a diploid that eventually evolves into an embryo, but you get the point. My example was somewhat of an exaggeration, but it is still frighteningly too close to the truth. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker, in his concurring opinion, promised the wrath of “holy God” would punish anyone who destroyed an embryo. Because of the separation of church and state, court rulings are supposed to be guided by law, not the idea of a man (or woman) in the sky. The party, who for years chastised liberals for playing God, now thinks it is wise to speak for God.    

What is next?

Are we going to lock Junior up because he spent a little too much time in the bathroom with a bottle of lotion and the latest copy of National Geographic? Is a teen impregnated by her uncle or father going to be chained to a bed until she gives birth? If all these things sound improbable, remember it was not long ago that pro-choice advocates told women that conservatives would never take legal-safe abortion off the table. It is a proven winner for them in elections, they preached. Well, they caught the car, and instead of putting on the brakes, they jumped in the driver's seat and accelerated. The latest salvo—the in-vitro-fertilization ruling in Alabama—has them befuddled and backtracking. The lesson to be learned is that the debate for Republicans is not about children; it is about controlling the baby-makers.

It should not be surprising that a group of old white men raised in an era where putting an aspirin between a woman's or girl's knees was considered birth control is lost trying to play a doctor on TV with an issue that should not be a subject of legislation. When former Senator Claire McCaskill ran for reelection in 2012, one of the issues that swayed her reelection over her opponent,  the late former Rep. Todd Akin, was abortion. Akin made his case by using the now infamous phrase legitimate rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,”said Akin. Recently, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) held up the promotions of countless deserving servicepeople because he believed that military members traveling to get abortion services should not be allowed or funded. When asked about the IVF ruling in his home state, Tuberville, obviously ignorant of the science, waffled and issued incoherent doublespeak. 

When the GOP voted to stop a program that lifted millions of children out of poverty and is constantly looking to cut food and health programs for living children, it is obvious their opposition to women’s health care is not about babies but controlling women's bodies.

Vote Against Guns

The Israeli government lobbed a symbolic bomb into a group of starving and desperate Palestinians yesterday. The day started with the news of throngs of hungry Palestinians, ostensibly lured into an area (promising food) and then shot, bombed, and run over by retreating vehicles when the plan went awry. The lure was not a promise of safe travel or a ceasefire; it was food, not enough to feed the masses but enough to fight for. When the chaos that anyone with half a brain could predict happened, the Israel Defense Forces used the ensuing melee to justify the killing of 104 civilians, at last count, and the wounding of hundreds. The import of this is that it happened about three days before a ceasefire agreement—on the hopper, had a chance for fruition.

Over the next day or two, the requisite statements of investigations into the atrocity and remorse will be repeated on the cable news show into the Sunday gabfests. I fear the upshot will be no ceasefire. Instead, we will get more of the disgusting same, the continued holding of hostages by Hamas and nightly video of broken and bleeding bodies on the floors of what used to be functioning hospitals in Gaza. President Joe Biden warned his Israeli counterpart soon after October 7 of making the same mistakes of America after 9/11, losing public support and the moral high ground. In response to Netanyahu’s staunch pushback, ‘“You carpet-bombed Germany, you dropped the atom bomb, a lot of civilians died,”’ said Netanyahu. Mr. Biden countered, “Yeah, that's why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn't happen again ... don't make the same mistakes we made in 9/11. There's no reason why we had to be in a war in Afghanistan.”

With his [Trump] apparent affinity for dictators and despots, it is not beyond reason Netanyahu is working against a ceasefire and, like the Republicans in Congress—on the border, is working in concert with Donald Trump to get him back in the White House. I do not believe it is a stretch to think that Donald Trump would allow Netanyahu to carpet bomb Gaza off the face of the Earth. While the Republicans in Congress and the Courts dither with the integrity and safety of our freedoms and kids—who could be defending a NATO country in a ground war, the Israeli right-wing is close to losing the support of lifelong defenders like me, for the entire nation. After yesterday’s attack on innocents, many of whom have been reduced to scrounging for food and medicine, one cannot help but have their loyalties challenged.

I am old enough to remember the support from Jews in the Civil Rights movement. For years, I have resisted my friends and colleagues who have shouted about genocide and apartheid when it comes to Israel’s right-wing policy toward the Palestinians. The solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict is complex, but what is simple is that every nation deserves freedom as a human right. That does not exclude people surviving repressive regimes from within, like the Palestinians, from not having the same rights. Few would argue that Hamas and its leaders are not terrorists robbing their people of resources so that they might live extravagantly in places like Qatar. Just as we have to separate the free people of Israel from its right-wing leadership, the same situation is true for Palestine.

Hamas has indeed been inexplicably elected as the representative government of Gaza, but some would argue that Netanyahu's brutality can be characterized as terror as well. Playing tit for tat is a useless exercise when women, children, and the elderly are the innocent pawns. Most of the civilized world reacted with righteous anger after the heinous attack in Israel on October 7 by Hamas. Reports and concrete evidence of burned babies and parents and children slaughtered in each other’s presence sent shivers down the spine of morality. Collectively, just like after 9/11, the world said go get ‘em. Until logic overtakes anger, the intervening time is why there are rules of engagement in war. Some of you may not remember the My Lai Massacre. The men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, led by Lieutenant William Calley, slaughtered a village of more than 300 unarmed civilians made up of women, children, and the elderly in Vietnam. That massacre became a seminal moment for resistance to the Vietnam War. When the details were revealed, the young people finally said no more. Members of the National Guard gunned down American college kids at Jackson State University and  Kent State University. Slaughter is not a byproduct of war; it is a feature. As horrific as those incidents were, there were Americans who still supported the actions of the American government. For them, the residents of My Lai were guilty of being Vietnamese, and the Jackson State and Kent State students were guilty of being right.

Will the killings of civilians in Gaza City yesterday become the latest My Lai, or will it be chewed up and spit out like a useless piece of cud? History is like a pebble dropped in a pond. The ripple never goes away; it only spreads. If Benjamin Netanyahu is not careful, the ripple pattern of the world’s abandonment will wash up on the shores of Israel like a tidal wave.

Vote Against Guns

VP Kamala Harris kicked off the week, convening with voting rights leaders in Washington. DC (Tuesday, Feb. 27). In her introductory remarks, VP Harris announced a four part strategy to protect the freedom to vote and three days of national action:

The first part is the work the President and I have done to charge every federal agency to do all they can to make sure that every American has the information that they need to know how they can vote when they are eligible.

HHS, Health and Human Services, will start emailing information on how to register to vote to everyone who enrolls in the ACA, the Affordable Care Act. And last year we had 21 million people. So, we’re talking about a significant number of people.

The first email was actually sent last Friday. The Social Security Administration will display signs from Vote.gov. …, which are approximately 1,200 offices around the country, which receive, on an annual basis, about 6 million visitors.

The Department of the Interior will participate in that the national parks will display Vote.gov information at park entrances and visitors centers. (There were 325,498,646 visits to National Parks in 2023 — not all being US citizens of voting age, but that’s a large number. LP).

Second, we have been doing work to promote voter participation for students. And, for example, we have — under the federal work study program, now allow students to get paid, through federal work study, to register people and to be nonpartisan poll workers.

Third, we are doing work on behalf of our administration to protect election workers. 

We have, to that end — in terms of protecting election workers — through the Department of Justice, created the Elections Threats Taskforce, which has held over 100 events to train local officials to train election workers.

Fourth, we are continuing with all the leaders here and with all the other work with the leaders here to fight voter suppression laws. 

And then, of course, many of us will be in Selma on Sunday to commemorate Bloody Sunday, to remember the great John Lewis and Amelia Boynton and so many others, and to issue a call, yet again, for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

And I’m also pleased to announce today that we will declare three national days of action, together with the leaders here, where we can continue to do our work that is about uplifting communities, strengthening coalitions, strengthening communities around their power and ability to lead in their own communities.

And so, those three national days of action for voting will be Juneteenth, the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and, of course, National Voter Registration Day. 

I quoted much of VP Harris’ speech because simple bullet points don’t cover the scope of these efforts to GOTV and because these efforts have gone under the radar. Information is power and the Biden-Harris administration is doing all they can to inform voters of their rights, to fight for voters rights and to GOTV.

Prior to this meeting, Vice President Harris joined President Biden in a meeting with the Big 4. However, my main focus this week will be on her efforts in supporting voting rights and GOTV.

In continuance of the GOTV push, VP Harris conducted an interview with Solomon Jones on Monday, Feb. 26, that aired on Tuesday, Feb. 27, A conversation with Kamala Harris on fixing racial disparities through the power of the Black vote. While her recorded interview is embedded in the story, here’s the link for ease of access :

February is Black History Month. Listen to VP Kamala Harris:

We celebrate Black History as America’s History, not just this month but every month.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with staff before taking a photo in honor of Black History Month.

Thursday, Feb. 29, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted HBCU students and graduates.

Friday, Mar. 1, VP Harris closed out the Biden-Harris Administration’s fourth Investing In America tour, in Durham, NC, announcing more than $90 million dollars for historically underserved entrepreneurs in North Carolina. From her speech on Historic Black Wall Street:

Thus far, we have invested more than $3 billion in the entrepreneurs and small businesses here in North Carolina. And that investment has included billions of dollars in small business loans for thousands of small businesses in North Carolina.

When I say small businesses, I am including in that group entrepreneurs, those who have extraordinary ideas, often that involve technology, with an eye towards what we need to do with the climate crisis and things of that nature; startups. 

The investment of $3 billion also includes millions of dollars from the Economic Opportunity Coalition that I launched in 2022. And this is, again, testament to the leaders who are here who are private-sector investors and are matching and working with us through federal investments to reach a capacity that is extraordinary in terms of pooling together these federal dollars with these private investments.

And that brings me, then, to today, where we are announcing a new investment of $92 million primarily for early stage startups here in North Carolina. (Applause.)

And we are talking about clean energy companies, we are talking about AI, we are talking about technology companies in general.

An separately, many here may know, the President and I, from the beginning of our administration, made a pledge, which we are on track to meet, to increase by 50 percent federal contracts to minority-owned businesses.

And ultimately, yes, this is about the right thing to do. It is a good thing to do. But ultimately, it makes economic and financial sense for us to do this work. Because the bottom line — and, yes, the bottom line, I speak in economic terms — is that this produces an extraordinary return on investment.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 5:00 minutes.

After her speech, VP Harris participated in an organizer training with students: 

Topping off the week, Vice President Harris was in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

Prior to her commemorative remarks, VP Harris addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

So, before I begin today, I must address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act.

As President Joe Biden said on Friday, the United States is committed to urgently get more lifesaving assistance to innocent Palestinians in need.

And the Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. (Applause.) No excuses.

As I’ve said repeatedly since October 7th, Israel has the right to defend itself. 

Hamas cannot control Gaza, and the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel must be eliminated. Hamas is a brutal, terrorist organization that has vowed to repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is annihilated.

And given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire — (applause) — for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.

This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in. This would allow us to build something more enduring to ensure Israel is more secure and respect the right of the Palestinian people to dignity, freedom and self-determination. (Applause.)

Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal.

Let’s get a ceasefire. Let’s reunite the hostages with their families. And let’s provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza. (Applause.)

I will now address the occasion for our gathering today on this hallowed ground on the foot of the Edmund Pettis Bridge, where 59 years ago, on a cold Sunday morning, 600 brave souls set out from Selma.

Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, they marched for the freedoms that were theirs by birth and theirs by right: the freedom to vote, the freedom to live without violence or intimidation, the freedom to be full and equal members of our nation.

Freedom is fundamental to the promise of America. Freedom is not to be given. It is not tot be bestowed. It is ours by right. (Applause.)

And the power behind the promise of freedom has always been in the faith of her people and our willingness to fight for freedom, be it on the fields of Gettysburg, in the schools of Little Rock, on the streets of Ferguson, and on this bridge right here in Selma. (Applause.)

And today, we know our fight for freedom is not over, because, in this moment, we are witnessing a full-on attack on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms, starting with the freedom that unlocks all others: the freedom to vote.

Fundamental freedoms are under assault. The freedom to vote. The freedom from fear, violence and harm. The freedom to learn. The freedom to control one’s own body. And the freedom to just simply be.

What kind of country do we want to live in?

Do we want to live in a country of freedom, liberty and justice — or a country of injustice, hate and fear?

We each have the power to answer that question with our voice, with our feet, and with our vote.

Watch the full speech below or read the full linked text. It’s a must see/read.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 25:20 minutes.

VOTE and GOTV!

Reminder VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

Your friendly neighborhood PSA: Be on the lookout for election disinformation

Commentary by Chitown Kev

Today is March 5, 2024, Super Tuesday, the day where elections will be held in 15 states in contests ranging from presidential primaries to statewide and municipal elections to ballot initiatives and probably, quite literally, to dogcatcher.

Today is the culmination of a lot of GOTV efforts and also to misinformation and disinformation campaigns. So here is a friendly neighborhood reminder that Black people are the specific targets of disinformation campaigns.

Marianna Spring/BBC Panorama and Americast

The fake images of black Trump supporters, generated by artificial intelligence (AI), are one of the emerging disinformation trends ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Unlike in 2016, when there was evidence of foreign influence campaigns, the AI-generated images found by the BBC appear to have been made and shared by US voters themselves.

One of them was Mark Kaye and his team at a conservative radio show in Florida.

They created an image of Mr Trump smiling with his arms around a group of black women at a party and shared it on Facebook, where Mr Kaye has more than one million followers.

Unlike Ms. Spring, I have no doubt that there are yet-to-be revealed foreign influence campaigns attempting to dissuade Black voters that are in operation in places like St. Petersburg, Russia or Macedonia as well as home-grown efforts spearheaded by MAGA and even within Black communities

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of campaign group Black Voters Matter, said there appeared to be a resurgence of disinformation tactics targeting the black community, as in the 2020 election.

"There have been documented attempts to target disinformation to black communities again, especially younger black voters," he said.

I show him the AI-generated pictures in his office in Atlanta, Georgia - a key election battleground state where convincing even a small slice of the overall black vote to switch from Mr Biden to Mr Trump could prove decisive.

A recent New York Times and Sienna (sic) College poll found that in six key swing states 71% of black voters would back Mr Biden in 2024, a steep drop from the 92% nationally that helped him win the White House at the last election.

Mr Albright said the fake images were consistent with a "very strategic narrative" pushed by conservatives - from the Trump campaign down to influencers online - designed to win over black voters. They are particularly targeting young black men, who are thought to be more open to voting for Mr Trump than black women.

(Younger Black generations are also more likely to be susceptible to health disinformation campaigns, for example.)

Whatever the domestic or foreign origins of these disinformation campaigns, their goals are the same: to suppress the electoral power of Black voters. The advent of an age of artificial intelligence has made disseminating misinformation and disinformation just that much easier.

Brandon Tensley/Capital B News

Campaigns to mislead Black Americans and ultimately suppress their votes aren’t new. But as the 2024 elections draw closer, advocates across the U.S. — especially across the South — are preparing for what they believe will be even more intense and sophisticated efforts to deceive, including artificial intelligence-generated voice clones that mimic public figures and dish out false information.

“The way I see it,” explained Sarah J. Jackson, a presidential associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, “[the environment today] is the new literacy test. Those old literacy tests were designed to be impossible for most people to pass. In some ways, what we’re seeing now is a media literacy test: How do you know which information you’re getting from Facebook or X or even robocalls is legitimate?”

To push back against these schemes in the absence of robust federal intervention, advocates are starting to increase their presence in vulnerable communities and make sure that voters understand the perils of disinformation.

In the face of a relentless MAGA movement to suppress the Black vote, a mainstream media needing to create a semblance of a horserace, and the scarcity of media literacy programs, the presence of advocates combating disinformation within communities is needed...but these advocates cannot be expected to do all of the work in combating disinformation nor should they. We all have to play a part in those efforts.

The preservation of our democracy demands that effort.

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Regina Lawless, who left Instagram/Meta in August, thinks more Black women will decide to be their own boss rather than enter a traditional workplace. Associated Press; Black women struggle to find their way in a job world where diversity is under attack

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Regina Lawless hit a professional high at 40, becoming the first director of diversity and inclusion for Instagram. But after her husband died suddenly in 2021, she pondered whether she had neglected her personal life and what it means for Black woman to succeed in the corporate world.

While she felt supported in the role, “there wasn’t the willingness for the leaders to take it all the way,” Lawless said. “Really, it’s the leaders and every employee that creates the culture of inclusion.”

This inspired her venture, Bossy and Blissful, a collective for Black female executives to commiserate and coach each other on how to deal with misogynoir, a specific type of misogyny experienced by Black women, or being the only person of color in the C-suite.

“I’m now determined to help other women, particularly women of color and Black women, to see that we don’t have to sacrifice ourselves for success. We can find spaces or create our own spaces where we can be successful and thrive,” said Lawless, who is based in Oakland, California.

Many women in Lawless’ group have no workplace peers, making them the “Onlys”— the only Black person or woman of color — which can lead to feelings of loneliness or isolation.

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A new report from the National Urban League highlights progress, but also underscores how elusive economic equality is. Market Place: The racial wealth gap, 60 years since the Civil Rights Act

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The National Urban League is out with its latest assessment on the State of Black America. The report measures racial inequality in U.S. society and the economy: employment, health care, housing, criminal justice and much more.

This year’s report comes out an even 60 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Marc Morial is president of the National Urban League. He spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio, and the following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: Your report shows that racial economic inequality has, in some ways, widened in some areas. The report cites data that in the year 2000, a Black man earned 75 cents for every dollar earned by a white man. And then by 2024, this goes down to 71 cents — 75 cents to 71 cents. That seems like the wrong direction.

Marc Morial: It is the wrong direction. And it underscores that while progress has been made in opening doors, economic equality, economic parity in this country is elusive. If you look at many of our urban communities, Chicago being one, the decline of manufacturing, the decline of blue collar jobs and the continued persistence of both explicit and implicit bias in hiring and promotions. You can never discount that.

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Lounge was created as “a love letter” to Washington D.C.'s Black gay community and highlights decades of Black queer spaces. The Grio: A new nightclub continues a long legacy for Washington D.C.’s Black gay community

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On a recent Saturday night, it was crowded in Thurst Lounge. Music boomed from two dance floors with separate DJs in the new nightclub on 2204 14th St. NW in Washington, D.C.

In December, Thurst opened its doors with co-owners Shaun Mykals and Brandon Burke at the helm. The duo built their reputation on “Thursday Bliss,” an open-mic night originally hosted at the legendary jazz establishment Bohemian Caverns. They quickly outgrew the space.

Of their newest venture, Burke said the name pays homage to the unique Black experience in D.C. and the “traditional spelling [of thirst] when it comes to quenching the thirst for communities for the Black gay experience; but also we wanted to pay homage to our roots as the creators of Thursday Bliss. So we use ‘u’ to do that — and then not to mention, we’re off of the U street corridor in D.

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Days before the anniversary of Blood Sunday, Butler holds “Modern-Day Voting Discrimination in Alabama" event in Montgomery. The Grio: Sen. Laphonza Butler of California calls for increased voter protections

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U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler on Friday said that democracy is at risk, urging for voting protections to be enforced ahead of the presidential election in November.

The California Democrat made the call in Montgomery, Alabama, at a hearing about protecting voting rights for Americans, particularly those in marginalized communities.

“The very sense of our democracy is at stake” if protections are not honored, Butler told theGrio.

“We must continue to do everything that we can to strengthen the franchise for voters and voters of color all across the country.”

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“It’s time to bring an end to a two-tiered system of justice in our country in which a person’s income determines whether they walk free or whether they go to jail,” says Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights. The Grio: Mississippi police unconstitutionally jailed people in majority-Black city for unpaid fines, Justice Department says

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A Mississippi police department in one of the nation’s poorest counties unconstitutionally jailed people for unpaid fines without first assessing whether they could afford to pay them, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

The announcement comes amid a Justice Department probe into alleged civil rights violations by police in Lexington, Mississippi. The ongoing investigation, which began in November, is focused on accusations of systemic police abuses in the majority-Black city of about 1,600 people some 65 miles (100 kilometers) north of the capital of Jackson.

In a letter addressed to Katherine Barrett Riley, the attorney for the city of Lexington, federal prosecutors said the Lexington Police Department imprisons people for outstanding fines without determining whether the person has the means to pay them — a practice that violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Riley did not immediately respond to a phone message Thursday.

“It’s time to bring an end to a two-tiered system of justice in our country in which a person’s income determines whether they walk free or whether they go to jail,” said Kristen Clarke, the department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. “There is great urgency underlying the issues we have uncovered in Mississippi, and we stand ready to work with officials to end these harmful practices.”

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Regional prosecutor says he received reports of deaths in three northern settlements as jihadist violence flares. BBC: Burkina Faso attack: At least 160 killed in village raid

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Homes and the local market were burned during the raid on Solhan in the early hours of Saturday morning. No group has said it was behind the violence, but Islamist attacks are increasingly common in the country, especially in border regions.

The UN chief said he was "outraged" by the incident.

António Guterres "strongly condemns the heinous attack and underscores the urgent need for the international community to redouble support to member states in the fight against violent extremism and its unacceptable human toll," his spokesperson said.

On Sunday, a total of 160 bodies were recovered from what local officials in Solhan described as three mass graves, AFP news agency reported.

"It's the local people themselves who have started exhuming the bodies and burying them after transporting them," an unnamed local source said, according to AFP. The number of people killed in Solhan has increased from earlier reports of about 132 deaths, and there are concerns that the death toll may rise further.

Following the news of Saturday's attack, the Burkinabe President Roch Kabore declared three days of national mourning, writing in a tweet that "we must stand united against the forces of evil". He described the attack as "barbaric" and said that security forces were trying to track down the perpetrators.

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Attack on two prisons comes amid outbreak of violence as PM in Kenya trying to salvage UN-backed security force. The Guardian: Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of dangerous inmates escape

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Haiti has declared a three-day state of emergency and a night-time curfew after armed gangs stormed the country’s two biggest jails, allowing more than 3,000 dangerous criminals, including murderers and kidnappers, to escape back on to the streets of the poor and violence-racked Caribbean nation.

The finance minister, Patrick Boisvert – who is in charge while the embattled prime minister, Ariel Henry, is abroad trying to salvage support for a UN-backed security force to stabilise Haiti – said police would use “all legal means at their disposal” to recapture the prisoners and enforce the curfew.

Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal was to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return.

The emergency decree was issued after a deadly weekend that marked a new low in Haiti’s spiral of violence, and which has led the US to advise its citizens to leave “as soon as possible” and Canada to temporarily close its embassy.

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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

Not so long ago in America, people would argue about how to act on facts. Now, we argue about the facts. When it was proven that cigarettes are a carcinogen, we put warning labels on the package. Speed limit signs are along your route on Interstate 95 because regulating speed makes us all safer. Believe it or not, there was once an argument about whether seatbelts or child car seats were needed to save lives. In all those instances and others, the facts were the decider, and even the opponents set aside their feelings. It sounds insulting to call Trump supporters cultists, but when you ignore facts, are self-humiliating, and relinquish the ability of independent thought, I have no other word for it.

Pundits and financial experts told the world of an impending United States recession well into the first two years of the Biden Administration. The speculation was not if it would happen; but when it would happen. Manufacturing construction is on the upswing, inflation has cooled, GDP is outpacing all expectations, and the United States leads the world in COVID-19 recovery. Feelings overshadow facts in poll after poll, with people saying the country is headed in the wrong direction. The perpetual question of Joe Biden’s age, despite not one proven instance of a significant policy affected by his advanced years, permeates every story.

Republicans would have you believe that the “crisis” at the border is existential but refuse to accept a bill addressing the problem because it will give Joe Biden a win. “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,”said Representative Troy Nehls (R-TX).The GOP effort to scare the American people about the black and brown menace backfired spectacularly a week ago. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) wrote in an X post of New York City crime rate and Joe Biden, [I] Hope @JoeBidenenjoyed going out for ice cream in NYC while the rest of the city is afraid of crime and migrants. Despite Republicans painting “liberal cities” as hotbeds of rape and murder, empirically, New York City has become one of the safest places in America, but don’t let facts get in the way of one’s feelings.

The Hill, a right-leaning publication, wrote that in 2020, eight of the ten highest murder rates were in red states. Mississippi led the way with a rate three times that of California and four times higher than New York, purportedly the bluest state in America. It also cannot be lost that homicide rates were 40 percent higher in the 25 states that former President Donald Trump won compared to the 25 won by current President Joe Biden. So, the feeling that Donald Trump and gun-toting red states are safer, held by conservatives, flies in the face of facts. So, in the next news report of the world on fire and Joe Biden too old to lead, ask for some facts; that may soothe your feelings.

Vote Against Guns     

With the barrage of numbers coming at you during the coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries, one might be tempted to place a bet with one of the many sportsbooks you see advertising during sporting events. I waited to see Kevin Hart in a bathrobe and Ryan Fitzpatrick showing off his chest hairs, handicapping the races. It is hard to take the exit poll interviews, the talking heads, and worry warts seriously when they neglect to say one of the candidates may be a convicted felon before November. The normalization of Donald Trump, despite having instigated an insurrection—adjudicated as a rapist, cheating on his taxes(repeatedly), and so many counts and indictments, one needs a scorecard to keep up is mind-bending. At any other time in the country’s history, any of the previously mentioned incidents would ruin a campaign, and the candidate would be run out of politics-town on a rail.

It is particularly disheartening, as a black man, to see CNN contributor Van Jones dismiss freedom as an ancillary issue because steak and potatoes are higher than last year. I am the first to admit that I wince with many other Americans when the seemingly never-ending ticker tape of higher prices is spit out of the grocery store cash register. At the same time, I am smart enough to realize that stores and businesses are gouging the consumer. Early after coming out of the pandemic, corporate CEOs started to devise strategies to gouge the public and place blame on the government.

Instead of stabling the tired old nag of presidential politics, the press would race it in the Discontent Stakes because that feeds the corporate beast. As former CBS Chief Les Moonves said about Trump, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the 2016 presidential race. Later, speaking in the interview, “Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in, and this is fun,” he said.What is supposed to be the watchful eye of American democracy—the press, has become a ritual of non-sensical babble meant to keep graphic designers busy. The talking heads like to talk about the collective amnesia of voters who praise the Trump presidency, while the serious journalists on the panels smile and nod in agreement but never refresh the viewer’s memory.

The networks spent countless hours examining and broadcasting alleged and salacious details of  Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis’ sex life. A bevy of lawyers and legal analysts did everything but tell us what size panty DA Willis wears and if they are tagged Monday thru Friday. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Trump is being accused of trying to subvert an American election using threats, phony electors, and his cohorts—on video—tampering with voting machines. Of course, it brings in more eyes to screens, and I guess it is a lot more “fun” to enter the when Fani and Nathan did the deed sweepstakes. So, while the networks tried to convince their viewers—that although President Biden won 15 primaries handily, a loss in American Samoa was reason to panic. California did nominate a former baseball player[Republican Steve Garvey] to run against Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff in November for the Senate seat vacated by the death of longtime Senator Diane Feinstein. I suppose Garvey would be a favorite of former football coach Tommy Tuberville; it would give him and Donald Trump a third to have “locker room talk.”

Vote Against Guns

Voices & Soul 

by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor

This is not a small voice

you hear     this is a large

voice coming out of these cities.

This is the voice of LaTanya.

Kadesha. Shaniqua. This

is the voice of Antoine.

Darryl. Shaquille.

Running over waters

navigating the hallways

of our schools spilling out

on the corners of our cities and

no epitaphs spill out of their river

mouths.

This is not a small love

you hear       this is a large

love, a passion for kissing learning

on its face.

This is a love that crowns the feet

with hands

that nourishes, conceives, feels the

water sails

mends the children,

folds   them    inside   our    history

where they

toast more than the flesh

where they suck the bones of the

alphabet

and spit out closed vowels.

This is a love colored with iron

and lace.

This is a love initialed Black

Genius.

This is not a small voice

you hear.

- Sonia Sanchez

“This is Not a Small Voice”

President Joe Biden took over an hour of the American citizens' time last night and reassured them. As much as many on the right would have liked President Biden to drool on his bib or call for a diaper change, he did not. He was boisterous; as a matter of fact, a CNN contributor complained he was too loud. He was quick on his feet and once again led more than one Republican into the trap of their own words. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled from the gallery to say Laken Riley's name. Ms. Riley was tragically murdered, seemingly at the hands of an undocumented immigrant. Not only did Mr. Biden say her name, but he also held up a pin allegedly given to him by the Georgia rep. and used the incendiary language of the right, saying she was “killed by an illegal.” The encounter again proved that Republicans are not interested in taking yes for an answer as much as they exist spoiling for a fight.

Although the president brought up the man, whose name we dare not mention, at least thirteen times, he only referred to him as his “predecessor.” Instead of reliving the literal rise and fall of the Democrats in the chamber last night, whose applause punctuated Mr. Biden’s points and the constant sway of Republicans' heads as if they were at a tennis match, substance over style hopefully guides the election in November. Joe Biden defended his economic wins last night, but his predecessor would have you believe he had the best economy ever. Of course, one might argue that the predecessor saying his economy was the best ever is reminiscent of George W. Bush, who touted how he kept us safe from terrorism (except for that one time).

The ‘Predecessor’ is defended by supporters who blame COVID-19 for his downfall. There may be some validity to that argument, but is it not the job of the man we elect as president to steward the ship during a crisis? The death of Laken Riley and the deaths of service members during the withdrawal from Afghanistan was horrid. As crass as it is to start playing a game of one-upmanship with lives, over 400,000 Americans died as a result of the Predecessor's reaction to COVID-19. The Predecessor was neither ignorant nor helpless during the pandemic, as proven by his interviews and audio tapes from the Bob Woodward book Rage. “You just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed,”Trump told Woodward,  “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

Despite all the scientific evidence, the former president stood on podiums, telling us to introduce bleach internally. It only got worse. As the daily death tolls rose, instead of relying on science and doctors, he endorsed a medication for parasitic worms—primarily used to treat horses—and hydroxychloroquine, whose main uses are for lupus and malaria. I will break the no-name policy because his name appears on four indictments, including ninety-one counts. Donald Trump never claims he is innocent. He blames racist prosecutors, Trump haters, and unhinged opponents. One CNN Republican contributor, with no sense of irony, said he was disappointed that Mr. Biden never takes the blame for his policies. Thankfully, President Biden did not normalize his predecessor by giving the boilerplate speech the GOP had hoped for. He went after him with truths and facts, something the GOP has trouble grasping. 

Vote Against Guns

Wed. ( Mar. 6), VP Kamala Harris was in Madison, Wisconsin to announce a new Executive Order on scaling and expanding the use of registered apprenticeships in industries and the Federal Government and promoting labor-management forums. VP Harris toured the construction site of a new Madison Metro Transit facility, made possible by the Biden-Harris administration’s investment in infrastructure, meeting with and delivering remarks to construction works at the site. 'Dang, I just saw the VP'.

The work that is happening here really is a wonderful example of so many of our administration’s priorities, including the important collaboration between us at the federal level and leaders at the local level.

It is also an example of the fact that when we invest in the American people, including the American worker, everyone benefits.

Apprenticeship programs for labor — and union apprenticeship programs also pay their apprentices while they are in the program, which means that people don’t have to worry about whether they have to borrow money in order to receive an education that is for the benefit of the community and its productivity.

The President has issued-  an executive order, an EO, that will direct federal agencies to explore what federal jobs we have that can be filled by the highly skilled folks who work — who have been trained in apprenticeship programs and not just giving these jobs only to people with a four-year college degree.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 17:10 minutes.

Thurs. (Mar. 7) before presiding over President Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, VP Harris met with creators and digital publishers in the first-ever influencer luncheon.

SOTU:

Fri. (Mar. 8), on International Women’s Day, Vice President Harris conducted post-SOTU interviews with CBS, ABC and NBC, before heading to Phoenix; Arizona for her 5th stop in her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour”. 

Post-SOTU interviews:

CBS: 

ABC: 

NBC: 

Fifth stop of Vice President Kamala Harris’ nationwide "Fight For Reproductive Freedoms" tour, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Look, these extremists, they’re trying to take women back to the 1800’s. But we’re not gonna let ‘em. We’re not going to let them. (Applause.)

VP Harris’ remarks start at 33:50 minutes.

While in Phoenix, AZ, VP Harris conducted an in-person interview with Univision (the first ever for a President or Vice President in a Univision radio or television studio).

Note: I have not been able to locate the broadcast on the Uforia app.

Sat. (Mar. 9) Vice President Harris headed to Las Vegas, Nevada, with Voto Latino. 

So, President Biden and I are guided by a fundamental belief. We work for you, the American people. And every day, we fight for you.

And, as President Biden made clear at the State of the Union, when we win the majority in the United States Congress, and when Congress passes a bill that reinstates the protections of Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden will sign it. (Applause.) As he made clear, we will also raise the federal minimum wage. (Applause.) We will secure a pathway to citizenship, including for Dreamers and families (Applause.) We will invest in affordable housing, affordable childcare and paid family leave. (Applause.)

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET.  Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

Dawn Staley is the ruling Queen of women’s college basketball

Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez

It’s Black Women’s history month in my book, and I decided to pay tribute today to a phenomenal Black woman in the world of my favorite sport — women’s college basketball. I’m a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) fan as well, and South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has been part of both.

I was delighted to see this tweet from our MVP Kamala Harris acknowledging Staley’s being named SEC Couch of the year, for the third time in a row:

As a child of the 60s and 70s, and near the end of the Vietnam War, I was subject to the draft and saw high school classmates leave to serve and come home in flag-draped coffins. I remember the initial reasons for entering the Vietnam conflict; most Americans initially supported the effort. With the Cold War as a backdrop, the Domino Theory, The Gulf of Tonkin, and siding with France against Ho Chi Minh played on American fears and appealed to jingoism. I was young and impressionable, so I wanted to be included in the American dream; if called, I was ready to fight. Of course, as the war dragged on and I realized black and brown boys were being used as cannon fodder, my views and mind changed. Most instrumental in that change were the words of humanitarian and former Heavyweight Champion of the world, Muhammad Ali:

Many young people do not know, and those who lived through the period conveniently forget that Ali was not a hero, nor was he the lionized figure we admire today. What he was and is admired for now was his bravery. Amid nationalistic fervor, he said no and turned out to be correct. I see parallels between the initial anger and the gung-ho attitude to defend our Israeli ally. Like in Vietnam, battles were won, but the North Vietnamese fighters always reconstituted and wore down American fire power and resolve. Walter Cronkite and the tide of public opinion changed, and eventually, the political winds blew cold. I can remember the feeling of shame by some that America had lost a war. On the contrary, America rediscovered its morality. 

The United States overshot its target; similarly, so is Benjamin Netanyahu. No one objectively blames Israel for striking back after October 7. The support for Israel that was once strong and seemed unshakable, especially in America, is waning. Israel is making the same mistake America made in North Vietnam. The battle to liberate people was marred by revenge. When innocent people are denied food and medicine, it makes it hard to justify one’s continued support.

The famous photo of Kim Phúc,the little Vietnamese girl running naked in the street, skin on fire from napalm, was seared into the minds of the American public. Even the most conservative thinkers had to say to themselves, Oh my God! Images like that consolidate thoughts. Photographs and videos have played pivotal roles throughout the 20^th Century. The grainy black and white video of black protesters trampled by charging state troopers and fire-hosed in Alabama are the visual recollections of our mind's eye when anyone mentions the civil rights era. Now we have full-color digital video of bombed-out hospitals, rubble where homes and businesses once stood, and desperate displaced residents scrambling for airdropped packages of food.

Recent stories have emerged that the falling packages crushed some people vying to get there first. The long-dreamed goal of a two-state solution seems to be no longer viable. Netanyahu wants utter annihilation of the proposed Palestinian state. The United States entered fully into the Vietnam War in 1963 after low-level involvement that started in 1959. The war between North and South Vietnam became a proxy war between the then-Soviet Union, China and its allies, and the United States and its anti-communist allies. After 20 years of war, the U.S. pulled out, and the North won. What wars like Vietnam and now Gaza should teach us, as with the incursion of the U.S. into Afghanistan—wars are not won on the ground but in the mind. Netanyahu is losing the minds and hearts of the world by turning right into a vicious, unrelenting, vengeful display of might.

Vote Against Guns

Sitting through congressional oversight hearings is like listening to Freddy Krueger drag his nails down a blackboard. I can remember when congressional oversight was just that: congressional oversight. The Left and Right asked probing questions, reports were written, and recommendations came about. Congress made it a law to put seatbelts in cars, not make American highways mimic the German autobahn, and allow people with disabilities to access sidewalks from the little dip mandated at the curb. If those things were proposed now, the first issue in a congressional hearing would be whether a Democratic or Republican president is in office. That has been demonstrated in real-time with the bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill languishing in the House of Representatives.

The bill's slow death is not because it would be ineffective or both sides did not get something they wanted but because it is a presidential election year, and the Republican nominee[Trump] wants it as an issue. The bill was negotiated by Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), James Lankford (R-OK), and Chris Murphy (D-CT). Hardly kale-eating, tree-huggers, with a former Democrat, a liberal Senator, and a conservative Senator, this group was straight out of an episode of The West Wing. Yesterday’s hearings—with Jim Jordan(D-OH)—chairing the hearing was the debacle one could expect. Of course, Jordan showed up in uniform, jacketless, tie-askew, and incessant harangue void of self-examination, shame, irony, or awareness.

At one point, Mr. Jordan launched into a lengthy diatribe about how Biden broke the law by reciting a litany of his alleged document crimes. Gesticulating and raising his tone, “So, Joe Biden knew the rules,”said Jordan, “You know he knew the rules,” he shouted at special counsel Robert Hur. “Joe Biden told us he knew the rules, so Mr. Hur, why did he break them?” Rep. Jordan wanted us to believe that after 50 years of service to his country, Joe Biden was willing to break the law, his oath, and morality for an 8-million-dollar book deal. Mr. Biden could make that amount on a one-year speaking tour as an ex-President. Of course, the hearing devolved into a series of pointless accusations, innuendo, and finger-pointing.  

The inane question from Republicans got so bad at one point that Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) suggested President Biden needed to be under guardianship as part of the effort to paint the President as mentally incompetent.“As I looked through those quotes, I harkened back to my time as a judge, and one of the things I oversaw was guardianships. And frankly, when I read your conclusions, red flags began going up in my mind because I oversaw hundreds of guardianships back in Texas,” Moran said.

I kept waiting for the questions about how we fix what has been revealed, which is becoming a routine habit of ex-executive branch members, taking home classified documents. Removing classified documents is a serious problem, but few, if any, questions even broached future fixes. Again, the seriousness of hoarding America’s vital secrets in a bathroom, garage, or ballroom stage is a problem. Donald Trump is under a 40-count indictment in Florida for lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice, to name a few. He is in the financial hole to the tune of a half billion dollars for tax fraud and defamation of his assault (rape) victim. Is that the man we want holding America’s secrets, and is there any question he would sell out his country to dig out?

Vote Against Guns

Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar

New York is a blue state. True, they’ve had Republican governors and mayors,  but there are more than twice as many registered Democrats in the state as there are any other political party.  In the last general election, Joe Biden beat the Cretin with over 60% of the votes. New York is definitely not trump’s country. How then do we come to have both New York’s Finest (cops) and New York’s Bravest (firefighters) be such ardent and vociferous supporters of the con artist from Queens? How does it happen that professional bodies, whose salaries are paid by taxpayers, do not reflect the opinions of the majority of the citizens of that state?

Letitia James, in her capacity as New York’s Attorney General, attended a NYFD ceremony to honor that body’s first Black female chaplain and this happened:

New York Attorney General Letitia James was booed and drowned out by chants of "Trump" on Thursday while delivering a speech at the New York Fire Department promotion ceremony.

While speaking at the ceremony, James is heard thanking FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh just before numerous people in the crowd are heard chanting former President Donald Trump's name.

I have no problem with them booing an elected official. They are allowed to show their displeasure. I even understand their anger. Imagine this Black Woman having the audacity to take on their dear white leader and to actually emerge victorious against him! That’s just too much to swallow! I get it. What I had a huge problem with was the prolonged chants for the former racist-in-chief. It wasn’t just one or two people shouting out the name of the maladjusted buffoon; this was several minutes of sustained chanting. How can any member of a marginalized community in New York trust any firefighter after witnessing their public show of support for an avowed racist and xenophobe?

There have been some posts on Twitter expressing surprise, and shock, even, that firefighters could be involved in an action that so reeks of racism.  I’m not surprised. I’m well aware that firefighters are drawn from the same pool as cops and that those two institutions have a shared history of systemic racism. Why would we expect that firefighters would be any less racist than cops?

A Harvard study found that, “Ninety-six percent of U.S. career firefighters are men and 82% are white.“

While Bloomberg’s stop and frisk policy has received a great deal of attention, what is less known is his opposition to the effort launched by black firefighters to end the racially discriminatory methods used to keep black and brown people as well as women out of the New York City Fire Department.  David Goldberg’s Black Firefighters and the FDNY is a fascinating work chronicling the long history of activists trying to end the exclusion of blacks from what has remained the whitest municipal agency in the city and one of the least diverse large city fire departments in the nation. But as the Vulcan Society, a caucus of black firefighters pursued a number of avenues to end the exclusion of blacks in the department, white fire fighters, under the leadership of their union, the FDNY, and, city officials launched a crusade to maintain a lily white and practically all male agency.

(my bold)

Some of those firefighters who actively fought to keep their stations lily white are still serving.

Just recently, this same FDNY again exposed themselves and their white sheets:

But after the murder of George Floyd more than a year ago touched off protests against racism and violence in policing, the culture inside New York City's firehouses deteriorated beyond repair, Mr. Charles and other Black firefighters said.

White firefighters shared racist messages and memes on their phones mocking Mr. Floyd's dying moments. They gloated about how police could "legally shoot Black children." And lieutenants discussed turning fire hoses on protestors, prompting debates about whether the tactic would work, because "wild animals like water."

After several Black firefighters saw the messages and complained, the department quietly suspended nine firefighters without pay, for periods ranging from a few days to six months. One of the firefighters is set to leave the department after his suspension concludes, the commissioner said.

The sentiment expressed below is not uncommon in the firefighting community:

“But, according to station WHIO, a recent Facebook back-and-forth caught the 20-year-old writing that in a burning building he would choose to save a dog before an African American because “one dog is more important than a million [expletive],” he wrote, using the n-word.”

Racism in fire departments across the country is a feature and not a bug. They’ve been fighting to keep Black people out of serving since Molly Williams joined the company in the early 19th century… and they’ve been leaving Black people to burn even before then.

“Our duty is your protection”? A confession:

Alion said the man told him he used to be a firefighter in the 60s and 70s which he described as a “very different time.” He then said that it was very common in those days for “firefighters who look like him” to leave people that look like Alion (ahem, Black people) in burning houses and write it off as not being able to get to them. He then recalled to Alion hearing the screams of the Black people and children left in houses, cars or even stores that were set ablaze. The man said he pretended he didn’t hear it.

The old man told Alion his last straw was when it came to saving an infant. Despite making eye contact with the baby, he faked as if he was going to save them and left the child. Then, he quit the fire department. Since then, the man told Alion he still suffers with nightmares from those instances and hasn’t forgiven himself for what he’d done.

Personally, I really don’t care what happens to those who chanted for Herr Air Fraud in violation of their professional and possibly ethical codes. However, I do find it pretty sickening that a tax-payer funded organization dedicated to public service should be so loudly, blatantly, and proudly partisan.

Letitia James’s tenure as attorney general of New York will go down as one of the most consequential in the history of the state and of the country. She’s taken on and defeated one of the biggest conmen this country has ever seen. She’s knocked Andrew Cuomo off his pedestal (who took his obnoxious brother Chris with him on the down escalator). She’s slapped Wayne LaPierre and his blood-soaked NRA upside the head and all but put them out of business. From the Washington Post:

Fire in the belly. That’s what prosecutors need. James embodies all of the qualities one should expect in the people’s lawyer: fearlessness, persistence, a keen grasp of the law and the ability to recruit a skilled team. She understands that her job entails aggressive pursuit of justice. She is not one to wait passively for cases to fall into her lap, shy from controversy for fear of politicizing her office or refuse to proceed unless success is assured. She unabashedly defends her mission to the public, her team and herself.

Come to think of it, she would be a marvelous U.S. attorney general in a second Biden term.

Letitia (Tish) James deserves to be respected and celebrated. In this Women’s History Month, we salute you, Madame Attorney General. Now let the haters stew in their own misery.

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Vice President Harris, the first female vice president, has become a leading voice on reproductive rights for the Biden administration Washington Post: In history-making visit, Harris tours Minnesota abortion clinic

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Vice President Harris traveled to Minnesota on Thursday to visit a Planned Parenthood health center that provides abortions in what is believed to be the first time an American president or vice president has toured such a facility while in office.

Harris arrived at the St. Paul facility Thursday afternoon, where she was greeted by Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, and embarked on a tour. She was joined on the tour by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).

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Scruggs, who holds a doctorate in the history of art and architecture from Harvard, will gather essential pieces of African-American art ART News: Smithsonian American Art Museum Hires Dalila Scruggs as First African American Art Curator

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Dalila Scruggs joins Smithsonian American Art Museum as the museum’s first-ever Augusta Savage curator of African American art.

Scruggs has a background in both educational and curatorial roles, with experience across numerous mediums including painting, prints, sculpture and photography from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Her position is named in honor of Augusta Savage, an artist, teacher, and community art program director associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In her new role, Scruggs will contribute to the museum’s exhibition program and collecting priorities related to African American art. She will also contribute to the cross-departmental initiative “American Voices and Visions” to reinstall the museum’s collection. Scruggs begins her new position on April 22.

“I am delighted to welcome Dalila Scruggs to SAAM as the inaugural Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art,” Stephanie Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, said in a statement. “SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of African American art in the world, and I am so pleased that Dr. Scruggs will bring fresh, thoughtful analysis to these works that evoke themes both universal and specific to the African American and the American experience.”

Since 2021, Scruggs has been the curator for photography and prints at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. In 2020, she was a guest curator at the Brooklyn Museum. Prior that, she was a consulting curator at the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at the University of Alabama, an assistant curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum, and a curatorial fellow at the Williams College Museum of Art.

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How gang violence pushed out Ariel Henry — and what allowed it to fester. Vox: Haiti’s prime minister is out. Here’s how it got so bad.

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Haiti’s de facto president, Ariel Henry, announced his resignation Tuesday — the culmination of a political crisis at least two weeks in the making, but really three years or more.

Henry issued his resignation while stranded in Puerto Rico. A violent gang leader has cut off Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince from the rest of the country; blocked the main port, starving the country of food and fuel; and threatened “civil war that will lead to genocide.” But while it looks like the gang’s coup attempt was successful, that doesn’t mean its leaders have exactly wrested power from Henry. He has agreed to step down following the formation of a transitional presidential council — a long-sought but imperfect tool to hold elections and begin building Haiti’s governmental institutions.

The crisis has been unfolding, in some ways, for decades, as corrupt leaders who lack the support of the Haitian people have allied with gangs and other armed groups to protect their business interests or maintain political power. The US, France, and other powerful nations have also exacerbated the country’s instability for their material benefit or to suit their political interests — backing particular leaders at the cost of Haiti’s economic and democratic development.

Now, the country’s present political and security disaster — accelerating since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 — is at a boiling point. Armed groups, particularly the G9 alliance of gangs operating under Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, have been menacing the Haitian people with near-total impunity as the unelected Henry hollowed out what remained of the country’s institutions.

The Biden administration’s support for Henry in the wake of Moïse’s assassination, alleged to have been carried out by a group of mostly Colombian mercenaries, helped chart Haiti’s course to the current moment. Rather than working with the various Haitian-led civil society groups that came together to offer durable solutions toward democratic consolidation, the US, France, Canada, and other international actors treated Henry as the legitimate interlocutor for the Haitian people despite his extreme unpopularity and the fact that he was never sworn in to his position.

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Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso among countries experiencing outages. The Guardian:  Much of west and central Africa without internet after undersea cable failures

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The cause of the cable failures on Thursday was not immediately clear.

The African subsea cable operator Seacom confirmed that services on its west African cable system were down and that customers who relied on that cable were being redirected to the Google Equiano cable, which Seacom uses.

“The redirection happens automatically when a route is impacted,” it said by email.

Network disruptions caused by cable damage have occurred in Africa in recent years. However, today’s disruption “points to something larger [and] this is amongst the most severe,” said Isik Mater, director of research at NetBlocks, a group that documents internet disruptions around the world.

NetBlocks said data transmission and measurement showed a major disruption to international transits, “likely at or near the subsea network cable landing points”.

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The late Akira Toriyama’s manga and anime hit may not have been created for Black fans, but we made it our own anyway. Slate: Finding Ourselves in Dragon Ball

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

The long, laborious, and unnecessary(two-week delayed) judgment by Judge Scott McAfee in the Georgia election interference case was released this morning. After a three-day-long probe into the sex life of Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, McAfee ruled that she could stay on the case. The proviso is that her assistant, attorney Nathan Wade, would be the sacrificial lamb and must go. He also, the day before, squashed six of the 41 counts in the indictment for “insufficient detail.” leaving room for an appeal of his ruling, which would cause further delay. Yesterday, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon kicked the judicial-can down the road by issuing an ambiguous ruling although refusing Trump’s lawyer's motion to dismiss his case. She wrote that some of Trump’s arguments deserve “serious consideration,” but no judge has ever ruled as such in similar cases. She ruled that “rather than prematurely decide now,” objections could be raised later. This sets up a further delay of the trial later during the proceedings.

Meanwhile, in New York, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was blindsided by what turned out to be a tranche of documents—some possibly related to Bragg’s hush money case – released by the Merrick Garland-led Department of Justice, which held the reported 73,000 pages of documents until 12 days before the March 25th trial date. New York Judge Juan Merchan is now faced with granting the 90-day delay asked for by Trump's lawyers or the 30-day delay Mr. Bragg is willing to grant. Splitting this baby at 60 days seems like a foregone conclusion. In the backdrop of all of this is D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan, awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court on the frivolous assertion that a president is above the law and enjoys absolute immunity for committing a crime.  

The fact that the Supreme Court is even entertaining this nonsense must warm the cockles of Vladimir Putin’s heart. Were a court to rule in favor of absolute immunity, that would mean an American president could kill an opponent, like what Putin has allegedly done to Alexei Navalny, without consequences. Trump’s lawyers already floated that idea to a three-judge United States DC appeals court panel. One of the judges, Florence Pan, inquired of Trump's attorney, John Sauer, “You’re saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” It appears that with the tone, tenor, and absurd premise of the question, Pan fully expected an unequivocal no. Instead, Sauer answered, “He would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution,” Sauer said. “There is a political process that would have to occur under our Constitution.” He continued, “If there’s no impeachment ever and no conviction, then the official acts are immune. Period,” he added later.

If you look at America in the vastness of history, we are a baby. The judicial system has been the real cradle of democracy. Its rattling justice, sometimes screaming in the night, eventually is soothed by the milk of kindness. The judicial system gave us the 13^th,14^th, 15th, and 19^th Amendments to help correct the country’s grievous faults. It has become evident that the judicial system is no longer a credible babysitter. Splitting the baby is going to destroy the basis of American life; NO MAN OR WOMAN IS ABOVE THE LAW!

Vote Against Guns

It’s been another busy week for VP Kamala Harris. I’ll begin, midweek (Thur. Mar. 14), to highlight Vice President Harris’visit to a Planned Parenthood Clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the first ever sitting U.S. Vice President or President to visit a health clinic that provides abortion services. THAT finally got the MSM’s attention! Here are samples from NBC, CBS PBS, ABC. And, here’s an illustrative Tweet: 

So, many of you have asked why am I here at this at— this facility in particular. And I will tell you, it is because, right now in our country, we are facing a very serious heath crisis. And the crisis is affecting many, many people in our country, most of whom are, frankly, silently suffering after the United States Supreme Court took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America.

And please do understand that when we talk about a clinic such as this, it is absolutely about healthcare and reproductive healthcare. So, everyone get ready for the language: uterus. (Laughter.) That part of the body needs a lot of medical care from time to time. (Laughter.) 

Issues like fibroids- we can handle this — breast cancer screenings, contraceptive care — that’s the kind of work that happens here. in addition, of course, to abortion care.

This work includes having people here who go out and talk to young people — our young people in high schools. And sadly, in so many places around our country, Sex Ed is a thing of the past, which leaves our young people to learn about their bodies and reproductive systems on social media — often with a profound amount of misinformation, which leaves them confused as to what is happening to their own bodies.

The work that happens here is about providing assistance to women who do not live in the state of Minnesota, because, sadly, this state exists in a neighborhood, where laws have been passed to deny people reproductive health care. And so, women have to travel here.

… answering questions for someone who might be in great distress, letting her know what is available in terms of transportation, in terms of housing or a hotel, what is available to her in terms of assistance for her childcare needs.

VP Harris’ remarks and presser start at 35:00 minutes

After her tour of the Planned Parenthood Clinic, VP Harris delivered remarks at a “Women for Biden-Harris” campaign event.

As Vice President I will tell you also that I have travelled now to at least 20 countries in every hemisphere of our world. And I do believe, and I think many here know, that the measure of the strength of a democracy is based on the status and standing of the women in that country.

And, to finish up her day in St. Paul, Minnesota, VIce President Harris made a surprise visit to St. Paul's Oxford Community Center where she met with the girl’s softball team.

VP Harris’ first public event of the week was in Denver, Colorado (Tues. Mar. 12), where the main theme was the Biden-Harris administration’s investments in supporting small businesses, advancing economic opportunity, and building a strong economy for all Americans. 

Link to Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton’s article: www.denverpost.com/… 

VP Harris’ remarks begin at 7:20 minutes. 

Always supporting small businesses, while in Denver, VP Harris stopped by Ratio Beerworks:

Friday, Mar. 15, Vice President Kamala Harris convened a roundtable conversation about marijuana reform. The moderator was musician Fat Joe. Also participating were Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and individuals who have received pardons from prior marijuana convictions. 

We have gathered today, however, to address specifically the injustices that we have seen in federal marijuana policy. I have said many times: I believe — I think we all at this table believe — nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.

First, I will tell you that we have pardoned tens of thousands of people with federal convictions for simple marijuana possession.

Second, we have issued a call to action for states to pardon these types of offenses — in, particular, on possession.

Third, we have directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to reassess how marijuana is classified under the federal drug schedule.

But this issue is — is stark when one considers the fact that, on the schedule currently,  marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.

VOTE and GOTV! “When we fight, we win!” -VP Kamala Harris

Reminder; VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

BREEEEEEAKKKK!

A brief comment by Chitown Kev

OK, so...for the past few days, I’ve been waking up at weird hours, falling asleep at weird hours, doing projects at weird hours and...well, everything is just off.

I even forgot that today was Election Day in Illinois but I went out and did the deed (polling place is a block from my house and there was no line).

I just had a shot of...something and now I feel better...I think that I know why.

Need to take better care of myself…

So today…I am blowing it off. See y’all in two weeks...with a book review.

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Combating the impact that redlining and “urban planning” had on diminishing Black wealth. Market Place: Highways isolate urban communities nationwide. $3 billion from Washington aims to fix that.

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There are highways that run through cities in this country that go straight through the hearts of neighborhoods with majority-Black and Latino populations — in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and lots of other cities.

This week, the Department of Transportation announced more than $3 billion in grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act to help reconnect some of those communities.

There are many reasons why America’s infrastructure disproportionally cuts through communities of color.

“Some of it is overtly racist decisions,” said Ben Crowther, who serves as policy director for America Walks, a nonprofit supporting walkable communities. “Some of it is … highway engineers following the path of least financial resistance. These are the places where it’s cheap to acquire property because of institutional decisions like redlining that has depreciated homes in these neighborhoods.”

And those choices decades ago have had lasting consequences, said Christopher Coes, an assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation.

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Some post St. Patrick’s Day political history. The Root: The Divide Between Blacks and the Irish

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The Irish who immigrated to America in the 18th and 19th centuries were fleeing caste oppression and a system of landlordism that made the material conditions of the Irish peasant comparable to those of an American slave. The Penal Laws regulated every aspect of Irish life and established Irish Catholics as an oppressed race. Anticipating Judge Roger B. Taney's famous dictum in the Dred Scott decision, on two occasions officials with judiciary authority in Ireland declared that "the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic."

When they first began arriving here in large numbers, the Irish were, in the words of Mr. Dooley (a character created by journalist Finley Peter Dunne), given a shovel and told to start digging up the place as if they owned it. On the rail beds and canals, they labored for low wages under dangerous conditions; in the South they were occasionally employed where it did not make sense to risk the life of a slave. As they came to the cities, they were crowded into districts that became centers of crime, vice and disease.

They commonly found themselves thrown together with free Negroes. Blacks and the Irish fought each other and the police, socialized and occasionally intermarried, and developed a common culture of the lowly. They also both suffered the scorn of those better situated. Along with Jim Crow and Jim Dandy, the drunken, belligerent and foolish Patrick and Bridget were stock characters on the early stage. In antebellum America, it was speculated that if racial amalgamation was ever to take place, it would begin between those two groups. As we know, things turned out otherwise.

In 1841, 60,000 Irish in Ireland issued an address to their compatriots in America, calling upon them to join with the abolitionists in the struggle against slavery. Six months after the address, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote what may be the saddest words ever written about the Irish diaspora: "Even to this hour, not a single Irishman has come forward, either publicly or privately, to express his approval of the address, or to avow his determination to abide by its sentiments."

What explains the attitude of people whose experience in Ireland and the United States one might have thought would predispose them to sympathy with all victims of slavery and racial oppression? It was not the inevitable consequence of blind historic forces, still less of biology, but of choices made among available alternatives.

In 1834 a mostly Irish mob in Philadelphia rampaged through the black district. By the time they subsided, two black people were killed and many beaten. Two churches and upwards of 20 homes were laid waste, their contents looted or destroyed. A committee appointed to investigate the riot identified as a principal cause the belief that some employers were hiring black workers over whites.

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AD’s journey underscores the Netflix hit’s misogynoir problem. Vox: Should Black women stop going on Love Is Blind?

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Netflix’s Love Is Blind is reigniting conversations about whether the show’s unique dating experiment — courting sight unseen — benefits Black women.

Since season six of the hit show began airing on Valentine’s Day this year, all eyes have been on Amber Desiree (AD) Smith and her bumbling journey through the pods. AD quickly became a fan favorite because she was candid about her destructive choices when it comes to love. “If I see a red flag, I’m like, ‘Oh, well, I’ll just paint my nails red to match,’” AD confessed to the camera early in the season. This tragic admission informed her decision to pair up with Clay, a man who reminded her of her exes and revealed that he selected women solely based on physical appearance. The internet placed Clay in the show’s villain category once he probed AD about her looks, a major faux pas for a show titled “Love Is Blind.”

Throughout the course of their engagement, Clay earned that villain title. Commentators noted how he treated AD like a receptacle for his trauma, even going as far as laying his head on AD’s chest to be coddled like a newborn minutes into their reveal. “I’m a baby,” he told AD, as they took stock of their physical characteristics, noting that both of them were dark-skinned. Clay talked about his father’s infidelity like it was the third partner in their relationship and focused on how AD could build him up. He repeatedly expressed fear about commitment, but AD held his hand through the process. He ultimately managed to shock AD, in front of their parents and other family members and friends, when he said no to marrying her at the altar.

Outside of her relationship with Clay, AD faced additional hurdles during filming. Her castmates drew attention to her body, pointing out how “stacked” she is, and made an inside joke (“bean dip”) about non-consensually smacking her breasts, which, no need to look it up, is in fact sexual assault. Now, a year after filming, AD says that she “had such an amazing experience” on Love Is Blind. But her storyline highlights some of the sinister aspects of dating as a Black woman, and because it’s airing on Netflix, the reality is being splashed across one of the world’s biggest platforms. AD’s experience is connected to that of Lauren, Diamond, Iyanna, Raven, Tiffany, and Aaliyah — Black women whose stories came before hers on Love Is Blind — as well as to the Black women whose journeys were never shown, and even those well beyond the show’s pods.

To talk about how this show positions Black women, I reached out to “meeting and mating” sociologist Sarah Adeyinka-Skold, an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University. Adeyinka-Skold studies how “inequalities are produced and reproduced” in romantic relationships, and says that Love Is Blind viewers are naive to have ever thought that this experiment, sometimes billed as an equalizer, would help Black women have an easier time finding love. 

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We want people who didn’t experience Freaknik to relive the good, bad and the ugly,” producer Jay Allen says. The Grio: ‘Freaknik’ documentary tells untold story behind the massively popular Atlanta street party

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If you participated in Atlanta’s wildest gathering called Freaknik back in the day, then beware: You might be featured in Hulu’s new documentary about the legendary street party that became popular through folklore tales involving gridlock traffic, public nudity and highway debauchery.

Many of those images will certainly be on full display in “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told.” But the documentary isn’t just focused on the hyper-sexualized environment and public safety concerns attached to the festival birthed four decades ago. It’s also about how the iconic event started as a simple, Black college cookout that ultimately drew thousands from across the United States, defining Atlanta as a cultural and music hotbed.

“This is more about the culture. This is Atlanta’s version of ‘Beat Street’” said Jermaine Dupri, who executive produced the project with several others including Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell and 21 Savage. The documentary premiered Tuesday night at SXSW in Austin, Texas. It will stream on Hulu on March 21.

“This is our story about our contribution to the culture,” Dupri continued. “Through the music and the parties that happened during Freaknik. It’s much more than people standing on top of cars and playing music outside.”

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Jimmy Chérizier helped chase Prime Minister Ariel Henry from office. His command of the streets is likely to give him veto power over the coming transition. The Washington Post: How the gang leader ‘Barbecue’ became one of Haiti’s most powerful men

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He has been accused of crippling Haiti’s economy through extortion and blocking port terminals. His alleged leadership of and participation in slum massacres and violence have left him feared at home and sanctioned internationally. His gang’s most frequent victims are the poor residents and small business owners of the slums he controls.

But Henry, criticized for failing to contain the violence or lead the country to new elections, finally agreed Monday that he would step down once a transitional presidential council had chosen an interim leader to replace him. Chérizier was one of several forces — pressure from the United States and the Caribbean Community were others — that helped push him out of office.

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The first Black leader of a U.K. government after Gething wins the Welsh Labour Party contest. Vaughan Gething to become Wales' first black leader

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Born to a Welsh father and a Zambian mother, Mr Gething pursued a legal career before being elected to the Welsh Parliament in 2011.

The Cardiff South and Penarth Member of the Senedd (MS) is currently economy minister in Mr Drakeford's cabinet, and celebrated his 50th birthday on Friday.

Mr Starmer said Mr Gething would "lead a hopeful, ambitious Welsh Labour government, in the face of a tired and failed Tory government in Westminster".

The prime minister said on X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr Gething's election was "a chance for a new Welsh administration to focus on what matters to people in Wales".

“Today, we turn a page in the book of our nation’s history. A history we write together,” Gething said in his victory speech. “Not just because I have the honor of becoming the first Black leader in any European country — but because the generational dial has jumped, too.

“I want us to use this moment as a starting point, for a more confident march into the future,” he added.

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NPR reports from inside Haiti, as gangs unleash another day of violence in the country's capital. It comes as political groups try to form a transitional council. NPR: A glimpse of the chaos in Haiti, a country reeling with effectively no leader

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 In Haiti, there aren't many certainties in life, but chaos may be one of them.

For a country that's experienced coups, transitional governments, assassinations and gang violence over the years, the chaos of the last two weeks has reached new levels.

During that period there has been no leadership, no law and order in the capital and a dwindling supply of humanitarian aid. The country has been effectively cut off from the outside world.

On Thursday, gangs continued their rampage across the capital Port-au-Prince. They shot at the airport just as workers had begun to fix damage from previous attacks.

Local news reported that gangs had also looted the house of the national police director and then set it on fire.

The violence follows a couple of days of relative quiet and it comes just days after Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry agreed to resign, as part of a deal brokered by regional and international governments to install a transitional council that will eventually elect a new transitional prime minister.

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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

I often like to look in the rearview mirror to get one last look at the places I have visited. Whether leaving one of my sons’ homes after visiting my grandchildren or the lights of Broadway.  President Obama included all of America not so long ago, saying, “We are the change we seek.” The same man said we are not Red America or Blue America but the United States of America. Also in that mirror are impending dangers. In November, we are coming to another crossroads, and America has its blinkers on, hazard light flashing, and a foot ready to brake. We can either roll through the stop sign and crash or yield the right of way. We see unhinged and deranged examples of the Republicans in Congress and their candidate for President.

This will be a long summer of mudslinging with which few of us are familiar. Will anyone be surprised when the articles of impeachment against Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, suddenly make their way to the Senate for trial in October [surprise]? The Secretary is not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor the Constitution prescribes for impeachment, but Mayorkas is a pawn in the GOP chess game. Mr. Mayorkas is guilty, in GOP eyes, of not doing what they want, although he is a member of President Biden’s Cabinet. During his State of the Union address, Mr. Biden pointedly told Republicans, “You can’t love your country only when you win.”

If you have forgotten as I had, that all important—to the GOP caucus—Impeachment of the Secretary of Homeland Security was an imperative for our national security, according to House Republicans. Lo and behold, those Impeachment articles, vital for our protection and cannot proceed until they are forwarded to the Senate for trial, are apparently on a shelf next to Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s Bible. Republicans are on, God only knows, what page of their scare tactics playbook. The GOP whined and wheedled about the crisis at the border but, at every juncture, turned back efforts, even their own, to fix it. The effort at comprehensive immigration reform dates back to the gang of eight in 2013 when four Republicans and four Democrats hammered out a bipartisan deal. This year, an Independent, a Republican, and a Democrat worked to make a deal. Unfortunately, it is in that same abyss with Mayorkas Impeachment articles. Also, during the State of the Union, the frustrated face of GOP Oklahoma Senator James Lankford mouthing the words “That’s true” when President Joe Biden placed blame on Republicans and Donald Trump was all the confirmation of obstruction the public needed. Mike Johnson refuses to bring the bill up for a vote and is burying it beneath a mountain of hyperbolic gibberish.

Democrats, for their part, have garnered the support of the border patrol union. Although the union is not jumping for joy over every aspect of the proposal, it favors its passage. In that rearview mirror—when politics worked—former President Ronald Reagan, who signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, an amnesty bill, said that getting 80 percent of what you want is a win. “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor,”said Reagan. Former President Obama warned, “Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” It appears the Republican Party is determined to be the enemy of good government and progress. At the same time, they run in circles chasing the tail of Donald Trump—who lost a defamation suit in a rape case; Mr. Trump is set to go on trial soon in New York for using campaign donations to chase other tails. With Trump at the helm, the party and country are splintering like Lincoln logs.

Vote Against Guns

I am a fan of the press, whether in print or television. I grew up anticipating the delivery of the Washington Post before school and my great-uncle coming home after work with a copy of the Evening Star he had picked up at the local market or liquor store. I am from a family of readers. Another of my uncles read the Sunday Post from cover to cover, sometimes taking hours. He would stub out his Camels in a nearby ashtray while spilling his coffee with fingers covered in smudged printer’s ink. I, like most of my friends, would first turn to the sports pages to check on the Washington Senators, Bullets, and then-Redskins, depending on the season.

The lazy letdown of the news media bruises my soul…

If I were a citizen of the UK, I could understand the Daily Mail or the Sun papers chasing Princess Kate Middleton around and examining her family photos like the Zapruder film (back and to the left). I do not wish any harm to the princess, but why American media is devoting so much time to whether she is sick and using a body double or doctoring photos is the least of America’s concerns. I suppose the conspiracy culture of America lends itself to ignoring the obvious and not accepting the philosophical principle of Occam’s razor, which states the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements.Simply put, the most reasonable sets of facts generally solve the problem.

Meanwhile, back here in the Colonies, the press is trying its best to make Donald Trump the equivalent of Joe Biden. Their qualifications, stability, loyalty to the country, and competence are nowhere near equivalent. The Trump administration is being examined prefaced with the newest phrase, “Trump-nesia.”Elise Stefanik, the Chair of the Republican Conference, recently asked whether you are better off now than four years ago. During the Trump regime, people were wiping with coffee filters because of a toilet paper shortage. Hospitals had to order refrigeration trucks to put grandma on ice like a Sunday roast because the former President chose to ignore a health crisis, saying it would disappear in the summer.

Schools closed during the Trump administration. The Biden administration reopened schools. Small businesses closed or failed in the thousands and are in a resurgence under Mr. Biden. Unemployment reached 13.3 in May of 2020 before Mr. Trump left office. It is at 3.9 percent now. Another of Donald Trump’s advisors [Peter Navarro] went to prison yesterday, and the Trump administration is contemplating rehiring Paul Manafort, who served two years of a seven-year sentence for witness tampering and obstruction of justice, to name a few. All charges that arose from his “alleged” collusion with the Russian government.  

Admittedly, prices are up, but one can walk into a grocery store and see full shelves, unlike in the Trump years and his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. President Joe Biden worked through the supply chain issues and gave free COVID-19 testing kits to any American who wanted them. Nurses are no longer Facetiming families so they can say goodbye to mom or dad—the ill-conceived tariffs on Chinese goods cost Americans in the form of higher prices. Mr. Trump's policies were based more on animus than reason. Travel bans, caging children, even threatening to send COVID-19 protective gear only to red states. His tax cuts for the rich exploded the budget. President Biden lifted millions of children from their impoverished plight—the answer to Representative Stefanik’s question is a resounding YES! America is better off now than four years ago.

Vote Against Guns    

Commentary: Black Scientists, Explorers, Inventors, and Pioneers
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

Ernest Everett Just (August 14, 1883 – October 27, 1941) was a pioneering African American biologist, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is his recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. In his work within marine biology, cytology and parthenogenesis, he advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory setting.

Just was born in South Carolina to Charles Frazier Just Jr. and Mary Matthews Just on 14 August 1883. His father and grandfather, Charles Sr., were dock builders. When Ernest was four years old, both his father and grandfather died. Just’s mother became the sole supporter of him, his younger brother, and his younger sister. Mary Matthews Just taught at an African American school in Charleston to support her family. During the summer, she worked in the phosphate mines on James Island. Noticing that there was much vacant land near the island, Mary persuaded several black families to move there to farm. The town they founded, now incorporated in the West Ashley area of Charleston, was eventually named Maryville in her honor.

Hoping Just would become a teacher, his mother sent him to an all-black boarding school in Orangeburg, South Carolina at the age of thirteen. Believing that schools for blacks in the south were inferior, Just and his mother thought it better for him to go north. At the age of sixteen, Just enrolled at a Meriden, New Hampshire college-preparatory high school, Kimball Union Academy. Tragedy struck during Just's second year at Kimball when his mother died. Despite this hardship, Just completed the four-year program in only three years, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1903 with the highest grades in his class.

Just went on to graduate magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Just won special honors in zoology, and distinguished himself in botany, history, and sociology as well. He was also honored as a Rufus Choate scholar for two years.

When he graduated from Dartmouth, Just faced the same problems as all black college graduates of his time: no matter how brilliant they were or how high were their grades, it was almost impossible for blacks to become faculty members of white colleges or universities. Just then took what seemed to be the best choices available to him and was appointed to a teaching position at historically-black Howard University in Washington, D.C.. In 1910, he was put in charge of the newly-formed biology department by Wilbur P. Thirkield. In 1912, he became head of the Department of Zoology, a position he held until his death in 1941. Just was soon introduced to Dr. Frank R. Lillie, head of the biology department at the University of Chicago. Lillie, who was also chief of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, invited Just to spend the summer of 1909 as his research assistant at the MBL. For the next 20 years, Just spent every summer but one at MBL. On June 12, 1912 Ernest married Ethel Highwarden, who taught German at Howard University. They had three children: Margaret, Highwarden, and Maribel.....Read More

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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The key to building out the low-carbon energy source could be the city’s trademark alleys. Market Place: Geothermal energy could be on its way to Chicago’s South Side

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The Joe Biden administration has the ambitious goal to create a carbon pollution free power sector by 2035. To get there, communities will have to explore all kinds of carbon-free and renewable energy. One of them is deep below the surface of the Earth: geothermal.

In Chicago, a neighborhood has launched a community effort to see if geothermal is right for it, and residents are looking at taking advantage of the city’s trademark alleys to make it happen.

Naomi Davis is the head of the environmental justice group Blacks in Green, based in Chicago. At a community meeting she pitched geothermal energy — power drawn from underground that can heat and cool homes. The hope is that it could make life easier for residents in West Woodlawn, a historically Black neighborhood on the city’s South Side.

The undertaking, Davis said, could lower utility bills, bring green jobs and cut pollution.

“We’re about the business of energy justice,” said Davis. “Which means that we have a campaign to end energy poverty, and we’re not playing.”

Blacks in Green is one of many community partners across the country that was given a grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to design a geothermal pilot program. The task is to create a shared geothermal district networked across four city blocks. It would include more than 150 residential buildings.

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Valeria Howard-Cunningham took over the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo 10 years ago. Now, its cowboys can be found walking down Louis Vuitton runways. Bloomberg: Meet the Woman Revitalizing the World’s Only Touring Black Rodeo

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Skylar Brandon was only 18 months old when she first laid eyes on her “bestie,” Charlene. She’d gone to a rodeo in Oakland, California, with her grandmother, says Skylar’s mom, Shannon Williams-Brandon. “Apparently, Skylar was so star-struck by this white horse named Charlene. My mom told me she just gravitated towards this horse.”

When Skylar’s grandmother offered to pay for riding lessons, Skylar met the 1,200-pound Peruvian mare up close. She and Charlene have been inseparable since.

Now 6, Skylar has won two peewee barrel races riding at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo (BPIR), the only Black-owned traveling rodeo association, though she doesn’t seem to care about the hundreds of dollars she’s earned in prizes. When asked to describe her favorite thing about racing, Skylar’s answer is clear: “Going fast.”

For Valeria Howard-Cunningham, president of the BPIR, stories like Skylar’s are why it exists. “I love seeing the young kids get into rodeo,” says Howard-Cunningham. “I can see the excitement in their faces when they compete—and the friendships they’re making with other cowboys and cowgirls. Our rodeo is about developing that next generation.”

BPIR was founded in 1984 by event promoter Lu Vason, Howard-Cunningham’s late husband. Known for working with musical groups such as the Pointer Sisters and the Whispers, Vason got the idea for an all-Black rodeo when he attended Cheyenne Frontier Days, the world’s largest outdoor rodeo. He was shocked at the dearth of Black riders and viewers.

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Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Ala., is the Equal Justice Initiative's third site focused on America's history of slavery, racism and discriminatory policing. It opens March 27. The Grio: Sculpture park provides unflinching look at faces and lives of enslaved Americans

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Visitors to the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park wind a serpentine path past art pieces depicting the lives of enslaved people in America and historic exhibits, including two cabins where the enslaved lived, before arriving at a towering monument.

Stretching nearly four stories into the sky, the National Monument to Freedom honors the millions of people who endured the brutality of slavery. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War’s end.

The sculpture park is the third site created by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., which is dedicated to taking an unflinching look at the country’s history of slavery, racism and discriminatory policing. The first two sites — the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a memorial to people slain in racial terror killings; and The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration — opened in 2018.

The sculpture park, which opens March 27, weaves art installations, historic artifacts and personal narratives to explore the history of slavery in America and honor the millions of people who endured its brutality.

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Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women. The New Republic: The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

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Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

As traumatic as her experience was, Ochieng was more fortunate than many women in Kenya, which bans most abortions. She, at least, survived.

Like Ochieng, most Kenyan women facing unwanted pregnancies have no good choices. They live in a culture that gives women little agency over their bodies; they experience high levels of poverty—two-thirds of residents live on less than $3.20 a day—and they must contend with conflicts between abortion laws codified in the country’s 2010 constitution and an older, harsher penal code that remains on the books. Because the penal code criminalizes abortion, relatively few women are able to obtain the procedure legally, and then only if a health professional determines that their life or health is in danger or, technically, if their pregnancy was the result of rape. That final exception dates only to 2019—13 years after Ochieng’s three acquaintances raped her—and is rarely applied.

Despite the prohibitions, more than half a million Kenyan women have abortions every year. The small percentage with means might find a trained professional willing to perform a clandestine, but safe, abortion. All too often, women gamble on risky methods reminiscent of the coat-hanger days of pre–Roe v. Wade America. They insert knitting needles into their vaginas and ingest dangerous chemicals, abortion rights advocates in the country say. They turn to unskilled providers, who scrape their uteruses with wires, give them concoctions intended for animals, or tell them to ingest concentrated soap, said Nelly Munyasia, executive director of Reproductive Health Network Kenya, which represents nearly 600 private health care providers. The national hospital in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and largest city, has an entire ward dedicated primarily to women suffering from the complications of botched abortions, the advocates said. (Post-abortion care is legal.)

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Their rivalry underpins a big divide in the nation, regarded as a beacon of West African democracy. BBC: Senegal election dominated by freed prisoner Faye and heir apparent Ba

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It is a crowded field of 18 in the battle for Senegal's top job, but two men - recently freed opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the ruling party's heir apparent Amadou Ba - look most likely to win over voters in Sunday's presidential election.

Their rivalry underpins a massive divide and clash of outlook in the country, usually regarded as a beacon of democracy in West Africa, especially over its relationship with France, the former colonial power.

The poll is a rushed job - the date was announced with less than three weeks' notice, following a month of confusion and violent protests.

What seems to unite most Senegalese is the anger directed at outgoing President Macky Sall who tried to postpone the election - originally scheduled for 25 February - until December.

Mr Sall has told the BBC he acted to protect the integrity of the vote after allegations of corruption and disputes over the eligibility of some presidential candidates.

However, critics accused him of seeking to extend his term in office or stop the clock to better prepare his candidate - which he denies.

It led to political turmoil, the intervention of the Constitutional Court, the president agreeing to leave office next month when his term officially ends, and a new election date.

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The UK tabloids never miss an opportunity to display their misogynoir. Vox: The story of Kate Middleton’s disappearance is haunted by Meghan Markle

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As intrigue mounted last week over a then-missing, now recently appeared Kate Middleton and her Photoshopped picture, British-owned tabloids directed their ire toward a familiar target: Meghan Markle.

To an unpracticed observer, it would be difficult to blame the disappearance of Princess Kate from the public eye on her sister-in-law, but the tabloids are nothing if not resourceful. Page Six reported that Prince Harry and Meghan’s inner circle were mocking Kate’s botched Photoshop and sneering that Meghan would never have made such a mistake. Meanwhile, Meghan and Harry, alleged the Daily Mail, were nothing but a pair of hypocrites. They had used Photoshop on their own pregnancy announcement pictures, and so had no leg to stand on when it came to criticizing Kensington Palace for Photoshopping Kate’s Mother’s Day/proof-of-life picture.

Harry and Meghan swiftly went on the defensive and denied it all. The only alteration they had made to their photo was to render it in black-and-white, they announced, and they never said Meghan wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake. (Though let’s be real: with the amount of time Meghan spends curating her Instagram? She wouldn’t have.) The couple has otherwise declined to comment on the controversy, which is probably wise. There’s little chance of a win for them in getting themselves involved.

In a sense, though, they always were involved. The story of Kate’s disappearance took off to begin with because very online fans of Meghan sat up and took notice. As royals reporter Ellie Hall laid out in Nieman Lab at the beginning of March, early conversation about Kate’s disappearance from the public scene was driven by pro-Meghan and Harry accounts in the royal-watcher internet communities where royal haters and fans alike watch and discuss the movements of the royal family with avid fascination.

“It’s one of the points that keeps coming up in the online discourse — the apparent hypocrisy between the palace and the UK media’s treatment of each woman,” Hall explained. “People are comparing the hands-off, privacy-first stance that the press is taking toward Kate with their attitude toward Meghan and the stories that were written about her while she was on maternity leave. ... There’s also a definite feeling among some people that Kate should have to go through this social media and press speculation because Meghan went through it, it was worse for Meghan, and when she complained, people told her to suck it up.”

Meghan is part of the story of Kate’s disappearance because Meghan and Kate have been treated as each other’s opposites and foils ever since Meghan and Harry first got engaged. Their shifting treatments at the hands of the monarchy and the press has come to symbolize the question of what Britain’s values and priorities should be. Kate and Meghan themselves have come to symbolize different ways of being women, different ways of being royal, different ways of being famous — and, most fraught of all, different ways of responding to the problem of what happened to their husbands’ mother, Princess Diana.

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Graham was 17 years old when a Florida judge sentenced him to die in prison. He was 37 when he came home last month. Slate: The Supreme Court Struck Down His Sentence 14 Years Ago. He Only Just Got Out Now.

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Graham was the plaintiff in the 2010 landmark Supreme Court decision that found that sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole for nonhomicide offenses constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the 8^th Amendment. It was one of a series of Supreme Court decisions that reflected an evolving understanding by courts that kids are different.

In 2002, when Graham was 16, he was charged with armed burglary as an adult after he and two other teenagers robbed a Jacksonville restaurant. The charge carried a possible life sentence, but he took a plea deal and was given credit for time served in county jail and put on probation. Six months later, just a month short of his 18^th birthday, he committed a home invasion.

At his 2006 sentencing hearing for that crime, a Florida judge told the then 19-year-old that he had squandered his second chance: “It is apparent to the Court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try and protect the community from your actions.”

The judge could have given him five years, but instead sentenced Graham to the maximum: life without the possibility of parole.

Eight years later his case would be in front of the Supreme Court on appeal. The justices would find that sentence unconstitutional, noting that “it does not follow that [Graham] would be a risk to society for the rest of his life.”

The majority opinion noted that at the time, there were 129 juveniles convicted of nonhomicides who were serving sentences of life without parole across the country, a significant majority of whom (77) were serving sentences in Florida.

Following the Supreme Court decision, in 2012 Graham’s original judge in Florida resentenced him to 25 years in prison—the maximum sentence allowed.

Over his 20-year incarceration, Graham earned his GED, took college classes, and found solace in his faith. He’s passionate about family, sports, and prison reform. He also co-founded Plead the 8th, a nonprofit working to end the incarceration of children in Florida’s adult system.

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

The recent sentencing of six Mississippi police officers known as the ‘Goon Squad’ for the torture, sexual assault, and maiming of two black men would be condoned if Donald Trump were to get back in the Oval Office. The acquittal of police officer Jeronimo Yanez for the killing of Philando Castile or the killing of Breonna Taylor in her underwear in her home with no accountability was not egregious enough for former President Donald Trump’s liking. He has been on the campaign trail advocating for the complete indemnification of police officers. He is not talking about caveats or specifics, but just as he told Vladimir Putin, do “whatever the hell [they] want.” Like most things in Donald Trump’s life, his recent pronouncement is about him.

In a New Hampshire rally, Trump vowed to investigate prosecutors who hold police officers accountable for violating their oath, saying he doesn’t like  ‘their illegal, racist-in-reverse enforcement of the law.’ In addition, he played to the cheering crowd, stating:

“I am also going to indemnify our police officers. This is a big thing, and it’s a brand new thing, and I think it’s so important. I’m going to indemnify, through the federal government, all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong actions against crime,”Trump exhorted.

What Mr. Trump failed to acknowledge is that the police have protections that some would say contribute to the outrageous attitudes of, say, Derek Chauvin, who publicly choked the life out of George Floyd. According to the National Criminal Justice Association, police officers are already immune to financial recourse, which shieldsofficers accused of misconduct from lawsuits seeking damages. In most jurisdictions, lawsuits are paid by the municipalities, interpret that as the taxpayers. The twisted irony of that is that you may be paying for your mistreatment should you have a run-in with the police. Most of Trump’s musings on police reform often are tinged with a racial element that cannot be ignored. His racism dates back to the Central Park Five. The five young men of color were called to be executed by Trump in ads placed in four New York newspapers, including the New York Times, costing 85,000 dollars; the men were later fully exonerated.

Trump fought against Native American ownership of casinos in 1993, questioning their legitimacy, saying, “They don’t look like Indians to me, and they don’t look like Indians to Indians, and a lot of people are laughing at it,”Trump said of the Mashantucket Pequots. Mr. Trump is the worst kind of modern racist, one willing to denigrate and even kill to his benefit. His attacks on Barack Obama's citizenship were his foray into a base of gullible bigots that, to this day, are his primary base of support. Descending his golden escalator declaring brown people as rapists and murderers was the basis of his candidacy for president. His outlandish support of lawlessness by police officers is a shrouded appeal for his personal immunity. He says, “They are not after me, they are after you,” as a mind-meld trick that works with his base.

Convincing his supporters that they are in danger of being held accountable by the “un-select committee” or “ crooked Joe Biden” is a trick long used by cult leaders—It is not my sin but our sins. The use of police indemnification is the latest victim of his sleight of hand, or mind in this case. Any crime he has committed is for you, he wants his followers to think. Deaths, insurrection, extortion, fraud, and rape are sacrifices for his supporters, not crimes. Jim Jones convinced hundreds to drink the Flavor Aid laced with cyanide, and David Koresh convinced his followers to burn alive with their children. As part of his racist screeds, Mr. Trump tells his masses that immigrants are poisoning the blood of America. In reality, he has poisoned the ideas of integrity and honor and confused the country’s moral compass, blurring right from wrong because it benefits him.

Vote Against Guns

Vice President Kamala Harris’ week, featured a variety of issues, starting Mon. Mar 18, honoring women at the Women's History Month Reception at the White House, speaking to climate change and environmental issues in a moderated conversation with Senator Cory Booker at the League of Conservation Voters Capital Dinner ( Wed. Mar 20), visiting Puerto Rico (Fri. Mar. 22) to address the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to support the island’s recovery and renewal, ending in Parkland, Florida (Sat. Mar 23) to address gun safety and work to reduce gun violence. Throughout her speeches, there was a common theme of progress made, more work to do, an urgency to do so and an appeal to not go backward.

From VP Harris’ remarks at the Women’s History Month Reception at the White House, after listing a number of achievements (cancelling student loan debt for millions of women, investing in women entrepreneurs and small business owners & lowering the cost of healthcare, including the cost of insulin for seniors):

But even as we lift up the women and all people of our nation, there are those who are intent on dragging us backward.

From VP Harris’ remarks at the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Capital Dinner:

VP: So, yes, we have achieved a lot. [In an aside — it’s like a CVS receipt.] 

But I will say what everyone here knows: I do believe strongly that this is a very decisive decade that we’re in. And the moment now is to be bold, unapologetic, ambitious —

Senator Booker: Yes. Yes.

VP:  — and have a sense of optimism, knowing what is possible.

Vice President Kamala Harris addresses League of Conservation Voters’ Dinner. (video)

In Puerto Rico:

Secretary Jennifer Granholm introducing VP Harris: We are so grateful that you are here to inspect the work.  I hope that it meets with your satisfaction. You want to see it go faster, I know, because she’s impatient; she wants results!

VP Harris in her concluding remarks: “I see we are making a difference. There is still more work to do.”“We are ambitious. Yes, we are impatient.”

VP Kamala Harris’ remarks start at 7:37 minutes.

After her remarks, VP Harris visited La Goyco Community Center at the old Pedro G. Goyco School in Santurce, Puerto Rico. 

There were also protests to VP Kamala Harris’ visit to Puerto Rico by people who want independence, independentistas. For a great review of politics in Puerto Rico, see Denise Oliver-Velez's Caribbean Matters: The winds of political change are blowing in Puerto Rico. VP Harris’ visit fell on the same day that Puerto Rico marks the abolition of slavery and just after members of the newly formed, La Alianza (see Denise’s diary) were kicked off the ballot. Here’s a good article by AP correspondent, Danica Coto: Kamala Harris marks first visit to Puerto Rico as vice president, riling some in the US territory. There will be more in the comments I will be posting.

At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida:

And, we must be willing to have the courage to say that on every level, whether you talk about changing laws, or changing practices and protocols, that we must do better.

You know, there are only about 21 states that have passed red flag laws. So, part of why I am here today is to challenge every state. Pass a red flag law. Of the states, that have passed red flag laws, approximately 21, only 6, have taken up the offer we have made, through our administration, of federal resources to help them with the training and the implementation of these red flag laws. Of the 21, that have passed red flag laws, I challenge the others: Come on over. We’ve got some resources for you to help you implement the work you have done, which has been the work of a leader on this tragic issue.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

VOTE and GOTV! “When we fight, we win!”— VP Kamala Harris

Get to work, spread the word, and support Angela Alsobrooks in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s open seat in the U.S. Senate.  The primary is May 14, 2024.

Commentary by Black Kos Editor, Denise Oliver Velez

You don’t have to live in Maryland to help focus attention on a key primary race for a U. S. Senate seat. The state of Maryland has a Democratic senatorial primary coming up, and the two top candidates at the moment are Angela Alsobrooks and her opponent, millionaire Congressman David Trone. The primary winner will probably face Republican former governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who leads in current polling according to the Washington Post — since not enough voters know about Alsobrooks. We cannot afford to lose control of the Senate. You can help ensure that.  

The U.S. Senate currently has one Black woman sitting in a Senate seat, Laphonza Butler, who was appointed to “fill-in” Dianne Feinstein’s seat by California Governor Gavin Newsom. We are all aware, or should be aware that Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and yet we have only had two Black women elected to the Senate in its long history. In 1993 Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois became the first, and the second was Kamala Harris, now our VP, who represented California in the Senate from 2017 to 2021.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was running for the Senate in CA, but didn’t make it through their jungle primary. The good news is that Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware is running, and it looks like she has a good shot. However, I hope readers will pay attention to Angela Alsobrooks’ campaign — which make news recently due to a “verbal slip” (hmm) made by her Democratic opponent, Trone who used the word “jigaboo” in a House Budget Committee hearing. He says he meant to say “bugaboo”— which rings false to me and other Black listeners — but whatever.

The words the lowest common denominator are amongst the cliches we use to demonstrate hatred born of ignorance. As in, sinking to the lowest common denominator to describe an opponent whose barbs generally devolve into race, gender, or sexual orientation insults. Colloquial interjections like lying down with dogs, waking up with fleas or birds of a feather, flock together are a few more signifiers. One of my most memorable things was something my great-grandmother said: You can judge a man or woman by the company they keep. Although she was not original, I have often found that she was and is still accurate.

Before the women’s basketball team at the University of Utah took the floor to play a game, they had to endure the lowest common denominator in Idaho. Apparently, and as described, the lakeside resort in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is luxurious and should have been a highlight in these young women’s lives. Unfortunately, the experience of camaraderie, buckets, and backslapping, buoyed by cheers of friends and family, was partially drowned out by racial animus. Coach Lynne Roberts, obviously disappointed for herself and the young women in her charge, described incidents of racial taunting that created fear and bewilderment amongst her players. She described the incident as  “shocking” and said, “no one knew how to handle it.”

The young women of color crimes—in the eyes of some—were staying in an attractive hotel and eating at a nice restaurant. “For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it's messed up,”said Roberts. I have no doubts about the earnestness of Coach Robert's comments, but she made the same mistake I have repeatedly heard when these issues happen. She, like others, took an issue and created a fantasy around it, which makes what happened unserious and even worse a cliche. “There is so much diversity on a college campus, and so you’re just not exposed to that very often … Racism is real. It happens. It’s awful. So, for our players, whether they are White, Black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it. It was really upsetting,” exclaimed Roberts. First, let me applaud Lynn Roberts for saying unequivocally ‘racism is real” [and] It happens.”’ Her unfortunate need to include fantasy races like green or whatever makes Blacks, Asians, Latins, and Indigenous people(s) part of the unreal and nebulous menageries that exist in the minds of those looking for safe harbor from the realities of racism.

I am unsure if she has, but if Roberts is looking for ideas to handle it, ask the people most affected. The BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color) has offered ideas to fix the race problem that are ignored because the solutions often make the oppressors uncomfortable. The natural inclination to being pushed and not heard is to push back. The outcome is usually to bait minorities into the inevitable—violence—and then dismiss the groups as trouble-making thugs. Black Americans spend a great deal of their lives waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. An example of that was the terrible bridge accident in Baltimore yesterday. Of course, the GOP held responsible the border policy, immigrants, and, finally, Chinese terrorism. As a black man myself and knowing the governor of Maryland is a black man, I ducked, waiting for that other shoe.

Coincidentally, another Ute, the gubernatorial candidate for Utah, blames the accident on diversity. Port of Baltimore Commissioner Karenthia Barber, a Black woman, owns a consulting firm that includes “diversity, equity, and inclusion audits and consulting.” Utah gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman looked to hold her responsible for a ship losing power and crashing into a bridge abutment. “This is what happens when you have Governor(s) [Wes Moore] who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing [sic] and security of citizens,”Lyman posted on X Tuesday morning. I have wasted too much of my life ducking that flock of birds, avoiding flea-bitten dogs, and trying to restrict the lowest common denominators to math classes. I have been invited to the table on more than one occasion, but like many people of color, rarely do we get a seat or a microphone.

Vote Against Guns

Former United States Senator Joseph Lieberman died Wednesday, reportedly from complications after a fall. Poetically, Senator Lieberman's fall from Democratic grace was almost as deadly to his career. Lieberman was still politically active while working for the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres in New York City. His political star rose from his relative fame in Connecticut to the United States Senate. He was the first Jewish nominee for Vice President and was part of Florida's famed pregnant and hanging chads voting fiasco in 2000. Eventually, the Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the counting to stop. The Court installed George Walker Bush as the 43^rd President of America. When the counting stopped, five hundred and thirty-seven votes separated America from an Al Gore victory. Had Gore been victorious, it may have saved us from a disastrous economic policy that nearly plunged America into a second Great Depression and decisions that pushed the country into 20 years of war in the Middle East.

When someone famous dies, no matter what their stripe, a collective aww shucks is exclaimed to show respect. The Aww Shucks choir is in full force and will be louder at his funeral today. Words of praise came from both sides of the aisle, including President Biden. Senator Lieberman supported the abolishment of  “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military and backed abortion  rights for women. His views on affirmative action were sketchy and wavered depending on expediency. I am sure Senator Joe Lieberman, to his family, friends, and colleagues, was a lovely man. After a failed presidential run in 2003, Lieberman met a strong challenge in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat from party-favored Ned Lamont. Lieberman lost the primary but mounted a bid as an independent and won the race with help from Republican voters and Independents. Mr. Lieberman caucused with the Democrats, but calling him a Democrat after he felt the party abandoned him in the primary was a stretch.

From then on, Senator Lieberman turned his back on the party, and his vote during the  Medicare for All debate resulted in his decision to stop the Public Option. Lieberman stood fast in his support of George W. Bush invading Iraq and advocated for bombing Iran. In 2008, Lieberman backed his longtime friend, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), over the Democratic nominee, then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). In exchange for his support, McCain included him on his shortlist for his VP. Lieberman eventually withdrew his name from consideration. Although Lieberman had been the nominee with Gore for the Democrats, being a Jew was a bridge  (לְגַשֵׁר) too far for the Republicans. Yet, Lieberman moved his positions from center-left to center-right and alienated his Democratic contemporaries. Even though Lieberman had been a strong proponent of doing something on climate change and supported abortion rights and gay rights, his hawkishness on war issues left him at odds with Democrats. His excoriating speech condemning Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal left him a man without a political country.

Mr. Lieberman’s parting shot to the Democrats was being one of the co-founders of No Labels. Lieberman was an intelligent and sophisticated politician who knew the dangers of playing politics with a country on the verge of a potential autocracy. Lieberman will be missed by many and cursed by some. His voting record was filled with contradictions and complexity, but in the end, it's simple: death opens us up to not only grief but examination.

Vote Against Guns

Often lost in the accounts of the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration, when they are even noted by the MSM, is the influence of VP Kamala Harris on the administration’s policies. That is not lost on President Joe Biden, who from the start, has insisted that their administration is a partnership, embracing VP Kamala Harris’ visionary thinking. VP Harris’ events this week allow a focus on her influence on policy.

Monday (Mar. 25), Vice President Harris met with President Bernardo Arevalo of Guatemala, announcing new initiatives to strengthen the U.S.-Guatemala relationship and update the U.S. strategy for addressing Root Causes of Migration in Central America. VP Harris also convened members of Central America Forward (CAF) , with President Arevalo attending. This work is all an extension of VP Harris’ initiatives as AG of California ( Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Convenes Immigration Advocates, Law Firms to Provide Legal Support to Children Seeking Refuge in the U.S.).

This is an excellent interview with President Bernardo Arevalo of Guatemala, explaining the importance of VP Kamala Harris’ work and focus on long term goals:

Tues. (Mar. 26) Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden campaigned together in Raleigh, North Carolina under the banner of Affordable Healthcare.    

VP Kamala Harris’ influence on Biden-Harris policy is seen is 3 of the items in the list below, investing in youth mental health (Does VP Candidate Kamala Harris Know About ACEs? You Bet!), expanding access to Medicare and Medicaid and taking of the crisis of maternal mortality (Underwood and Vice President Harris Announce Administration's Strategy to Address Maternal Health Crisis). 

Wed. (Mar. 27) Vice President Harris held a press call on artificial intelligence where she announced OMB's first government-wide policy to advance governance, innovation and risk management in Federal agencies’ use of artificial intelligence. As AG of California, VP Kamala Harris, was on the cutting edge of promoting private security while encouraging potential benefits of tech companies’ innovation (Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Privacy Enforcement and Protection Unit; How Kamala Harris Changed Cybersecurity).

Ever the joyful warrior and always supporting and encouraging girls and women, VP Harris rounded off Women’s History Month (Wed. Mar. 27) hosting a reception for women in sports at her residence at the Naval Observatory.

VP Harris also took time Fri. (Mar. 29) to congratulate Beyonce on her new album, “Cowboy Carter”.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

VOTE and GOTV! “When we fight, we win!” -VP Kamala Harris

In 1965, as part of a thirteen-member panel under the Democratic administration of former President Lyndon Johnson, Jule Sugarman proved what pro-life means. Mr. Sugarman was pro-life in a unique way. It would be eight more years before abortion would be legal across the United States. Incidents of illegal and dangerous procedures, sometimes performed in a basement, kitchens, and makeshift clinics, would no longer be a threat to women who chose to take control of their lives. Jule Sugarman was not searching for doctors who would perform abortions or condemn to hell women who took that option. For wealthy women, it was not a problem, but for poor women, abortion could mean death, which is an indication of the desperation they felt. Mr. Sugarman became a soldier in the War on Poverty, and as a result, he created the Head Start Program.

The American public and advocates for the rights of women have allowed the conservatives and evangelicals to define the terms by which we discuss abortion. They have called women sluts looking for an easy way to avoid any consequences of promiscuity. Even when using birth control, women have been accused of not worrying about the health of their bodies, just their genitalia. Famously, the late radio crank Rush Limbaugh made such an accusation against a young woman named Sandra Fluke:

“What does it say about the college co-ed Susan [sic] Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.”

Limbaugh later apologized, but the damage had been done to Ms. Fluke’s reputation. Conservatives have coopted the term Pro-Life with the obvious implication that liberals are anti-Life. Just as they made the term “liberal” a dirty word and changed the name of the Democratic Party to the Democrat Party, Liberals fought the battles for women's and children’s rights on the Republican playing fields. Republicans are not pro-life; they are pro-fetus. Invading the body of a woman who carries a fetus and then ignoring the needs of that life when the breath is blown into it is not courageous; it is performative and cruel.

The latest example of that cruelty is the refusal by 15 GOP state governments to accept an additional 40-dollar-per-month grant for hungry children when school is closed for the summer.  The GOP, who beat their chest in an attempt to convince themselves that they believe in the sanctity of life, have proposed cuts in education, healthcare, and food assistance, known as TANF, mainly aimed at children. The Summer EBT program is designed to help 29 million school-aged children. Although the Republican party is living their lives in a fantasy world, there are some truths, one of which is that children get hungry year-round. The GOP is more overt in its cruelty and racism. The truth is they see any program that may benefit blacks as taking money out of their pockets. Ronald Reagan’s welfare queen scenario was confirmation from a president of prejudices through misinformation. What they forget is the black children who will benefit are matched by their white counterparts, and black people pay taxes, too.

Vote Against Guns

When Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959, I was too young, too far away, and too poor to see it. When I reached my teens, I saw the movie version and was enthralled. The movie starred Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, and Claudia McNeil as the vulnerable but strong family matriarch, Lena Younger. I identified with Diana Sands' character, Beneatha, because she was young, idealistic, and searching like many kids—my age for an identity.   Attached to Beneatha were two men vying for her attention. One is a Nigerian exchange student portrayed by Ivan Dixon (of Hogan Heroes fame), and the other is an erudite college student and son of a rich black business owner. The young ne’er do well suitor was George Murchison, portrayed by Lou Gossett Jr., who reprised his role from the 1956 stage play.

Mr. Gossett had a long and distinguished career, but for much of America, especially black America, he forever endeared himself as the character Fiddler in the 1977 historical drama Roots. For eight consecutive nights, my family and friends watched Roots, crying, laughing, but most of all, in awe of where and how far we had come. We felt the pain of Kunta Kinte, the defiant slave beaten into temporary submission, not because of the graphic depiction of his beating but because of the heart-wrenching winces and anguish on the face of his friend Fiddler. Gossett drew us all in and added an element of humanity to the times and characters missing from any dramas about slavery in America.

For years following, whenever Gossett would appear on screen, people would murmur, “That’s Fiddler.” Lou Gossett created iconic moments on screen as a tribute to his talent. The community remembers him stepping into the patriarchal role of Uncle Wilbert after the out-of-town departure of John Amos on the TV comedy Good Times as the brother of the lead character Esther Rolle. He also portrayed the much older and controversial boyfriend, Donald Knight, to the young and vivacious Bern Nadette “Thelma” Stanis. To mainstream audiences, Mr. Gossett was the hard-driving gunnery sergeant Emil Foley to recruit Richard Gere in the acclaimed film An Officer and a Gentleman, making him the first black man to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Gossett’s almost brush with fate happened when he was delayed in attending a party thrown by Sharon Tate at her home, whom he found out in news reports was killed by the Manson family. Mr. Gossett brought strength, sympathy, laughter, and empathic pathos to every character he portrayed. Illness, substance abuse, and old age slowed down Mr. Gossett, but true to form, he kept working, as evidenced by his appearance in the remake of The Color Purple, released this year. Gossett expressed some reservations when he was first approached for the role of Fiddler; he wanted to make sure the character was filled with quiet strength and not a shuffling servant. Mr. Gossett always seemed wise beyond his years and certain in a world of uncertainty. For a young black man, those portrayals were few and far between. Thank you, Louis Cameron Gossett Jr., You made me feel as if I could.

Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. May 27, 1936- March 29, 2024

Vote Against Guns  

Anna M. Mangin made a major contribution to household needs in the 19th century. with her invention of the pastry fork. Anna  was born Anna Matilda Barker in October 1844 in the state of Louisiana. On her 1877 marriage application, she listed her parents as Jacob Barker and one P. [Polly?] Shelton.  Jacob Barker was a prosperous planter, merchant and politician who was in his late sixties at the time of Annie's birth. It is of note that Barker, a native of Maine, worked closely with Rhode Island merchant Rowland G. Hazard who, using Louisiana state laws, was able to free over one hundred Northern-born African-Americans who had been enslaved. It is possible that Annie arrived in Nantucket, Massachusetts through the ministrations of Barker, Hazard, and African-American minister, activist, orator and Underground Railroad conductor Charles Bennett Ray; it is known that Annie was taken in by Ray's sister, seamstress and business woman Elizabeth S. Ray and her husband, shoemaker and merchant Abraham M. Nahar, a native of Surinam. Annie was adopted by the childless couple and was known as Annie Mattie Nahar.

In 1870, Annie returned to New Orleans, where she took on the position of principal of the Coliseum School. By 1873, she had moved to lodgings at the corner of Napoleon avenue and Dryades street.

By 1877 Annie was the "principal of one of the McDonogh Schools that had been established from a bequest by a wealthy slave owner who left his estate for the support of free schools for children regardless of color" when she met Andrew Fitch Mangin, a thirty-four-year-old African-American native of Monroe, New York who was employed at various times as a coachman and a teamster. He was described as a man with "more than average natural shrewdness and intelligence."

On August 17, 1877, Andrew and Annie married in New Orleans and moved to New York City where Annie embarked on a new career as a cook and as a caterer while Andrew went into business with his brothers and operated a hauling and moving business from a yard on Gold Street in Manhattan On January 7, 1879, Annie gave birth to their only surviving child, a son she named for his father.

To hear Andrew Mangin tell it, his wife first came up with the concept of a simplified manner of making pastry by an improvement to the pastry fork, and "then and there described it to him. The description was so clear and minute that Mr. Mangin often says, when speaking of the incident, 'I saw that fork just as plain as I see you now.'" Andrew Mangin went out to his tool shed and whittled a prototype of the fork out of yellow pine. Once Anna approved the model, Andrew had a more substantive model of the fork made, first from iron, and then from white metal. Anna Mangin received the patent for the pastry fork on March 1, 1892.

The pastry fork had many uses, including beating eggs, thickening foods, making drawn butter, mashing potatoes, making salad dressings, and most importantly, kneading pastry dough. "The curved piece at the upper end of the handle is what Mrs. Mangin calls the cutter or trimmer for pie crust."The pastry fork improved the lives of many people, and eventually led to more electric mixing inventions that are used to this day. Kneading pastry dough by hand is a grueling process that can cause arm cramping and other pains. Also, the dough often does not get fully incorporated when mixed by hand. If the dough does not fully incorporate during the kneading process, then it will not rise, resulting in a dense, and in most cases, underbaked consistency.

Read more here →

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Four assistant coaches arrested in a 2017 FBI probe designed to clean up college basketball are Black. All are out of the sport, banned by the NCAA. Associated press: Black coaches were ‘low-hanging fruit’ in FBI college hoops case that wrecked careers, then fizzled

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Book Richardson doesn’t sleep much past 5:30 a.m. anymore.

That was around the time seven years ago that FBI agents pounded on his door, barged in, handcuffed him and dragged him away while his 16-year-old son, E.J., looked on helplessly.

“Ever since then, everyone looks at me differently,” the former University of Arizona assistant coach told The Associated Press about his arrest, part of a sting designed to clean up college basketball. “And I don’t fall back to sleep when I see that time come up on the clock.”

He is one of four assistant coaches — along with a group of six agents, their financial backers and shoe company representatives — who were arrested in the 2017 federal probe aimed at rooting out an entrenched system of off-the-books payments to players and their families that, at the time, was against NCAA rules.

All four assistants — Richardson, Lamont Evans, Tony Bland and Chuck Person — are Black. Of the 10 men arrested, only one was white.

“Low-hanging fruit,” the 51-year-old Richardson said when asked why Black men took the brunt of the punishment. “Who do you see all the time that’s out there? Black assistants. Who is forging the relationships? Black assistants.”

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Pale marble pavers crisscross the Terrazzo, the plaza at the heart of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado that cadets traverse daily, on the way to class, the library and meals. In their first year, cadets must run and keep to the narrow marble strips whenever they are on the 20-acre Terrazzo. Reuters: Two Black cadets and the struggle for diversity at an elite US military institution

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Pale marble pavers crisscross the Terrazzo, the plaza at the heart of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado that cadets traverse daily, on the way to class, the library and meals. In their first year, cadets must run and keep to the narrow marble strips whenever they are on the 20-acre Terrazzo.

Tusajigwe Owens doesn’t take short cuts. He is one of 112 Black cadets in the class of 1,071 freshmen that started at the academy in June 2022. Running the strips helps instill a sense of urgency and attention to detail that “absolutely matters for the success of yourself and the success of your team,” he said. Older cadets share coping strategies such as organizing schedules to minimize Terrazzo trips, or walking when the marble is slippery in wet weather. “They would rather see you succeed,” Owens said.

Not everyone will. The graduation rate for Black cadets has for the last decade averaged 66%, compared to an overall graduation rate of 80%.

That gap has frustrated the Air Force’s stated objective of increasing diversity in its officer corps. Only 6% of officers identify as Black, compared to about 17% among enlisted members of the Air Force, according to the Air Force Personnel Center. Those figures have changed very little in the last 20 years, according to an Air Force spokesperson.

By comparison, around 13% of America’s population is Black.

On June 29, days after Owens finished his first year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a case brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), a group that argues that affirmative action policies discriminate against white and Asian American people. Chief Justice John Roberts exempted military training academies from the decision, citing the U.S. government argument that the legitimacy of the armed forces would be undermined by having an overwhelmingly white officer corps leading much more diverse enlisted ranks.

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The future of inclusion at elite B-schools may look a lot like the present at Berkeley’s Haas, where affirmative action has been off the table for almost 30 years. Bloomberg: Building Diversity When Affirmative Action Is Banned

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For top-flight American MBA programs hoping to enroll underrepresented minorities, last year was difficult, and nowhere more so than at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Only about 6% of an incoming class of 244 identifies as Black or Hispanic, the lowest share in the past 10 years, according to figures the school made public in its latest class profile.

Berkeley, like most of its peers, is drawing fewer US students these days, and underrepresented minorities— Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander students—have become even less represented on campus. This is true at most top MBA programs, according to data collected by Bloomberg Businessweek. Still, only the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business enrolled a share as low as Haas. (Because of the complexity—and ambiguity—in how schools collect and present racial demographic information, the figures reported here exclude the handful of multiracial people each year who identify as an underrepresented minority and may be a slight undercount.)

Haas has worked under a constraint that few of its peers have faced, until now. As a public university in California, Haas has been barred from considering race in admissions since 1996, when voters in the state passed Proposition 209. Within a few years, minority admissions to Haas plummeted, from 14% before the ban to just 5%. Over the past six years, the school has spent millions of dollars and built up an office of five people focused solely on becoming more inclusive.

With the US Supreme Court’s decision last June banning affirmative action nationwide, every other American business school has boarded the same boat. “When these classes come out, they’re going to be way out of whack,” says Eric Allen, a founder of Admit.me Access, a website that helps underrepresented minorities apply to B-school. Haas’s experience may well serve as a lesson for other schools hoping to attract more Black, Hispanic and Native American candidates in the face of changing rules.

The first thing other selective business schools can expect, after a drop in minority enrollment this fall, is constant monitoring by opponents of affirmative action, says Peter Johnson, who joined Haas’s admissions team in 1999 and eventually became director of the full-time MBA program before leaving in 2022. In the years after Proposition 209 passed, Johnson says he and his colleagues frequently fielded data requests from anti-affirmative-action activists. “I think they thought, ‘We know those people don’t agree with us, so they must be cheating somehow.’ We weren’t cheating. The data was pretty clear on that point.”

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The decision will send ripples across Africa. The Economist: Ugandan judges uphold a draconian anti-gay law

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The men came for Kwagala at the beer joint she runs in eastern Uganda, shouting that she was teaching homosexuality to their children. They kicked and punched her. “I ran as fast as I could, thinking to myself, ‘This is my day, this is how I die’,” recalls Kwagala, a trans woman whose name we have changed for her safety. When the police arrived they locked her up for three days and charged her under Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which became law last May. Her attackers went free; she faces life in prison if convicted.

On April 3rd the country’s constitutional court upheld the core provisions of the law. Those include long prison sentences for “promoting homosexuality” and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, including for anyone deemed a serial offender. The judges did strike down some sections, such as a duty to report gay people to the police. But they argued that the law reflects Uganda’s history, traditions and culture, likening their reasoning to that of America’s Supreme Court when it overturned abortion rights in 2022. The judges leant on “public sentiments and vague cultural-values arguments” rather than upholding human rights, says Nicholas Opiyo, lead counsel for the petitioners.

Ten years ago the same Ugandan court struck down an anti-gay law on procedural grounds. This time activists had challenged the act on both process and substance, and lost. The decision contrasts with court rulings in Botswana in 2019 and Mauritius in 2023, where judges decriminalised gay sex. It will send ripples across Africa, including in Ghana, where President Nana Akufo-Addo is under pressure to sign into law a recent anti-gay bill.

Africa’s anti-gay reforms are not driven by presidents, who are wary of the diplomatic fallout, but by ambitious lawmakers and religious leaders, sometimes with friends in right-wing American groups. Although Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, makes homophobic remarks in public and has done nothing to stop the law, allies of his have privately told Western diplomats of their reservations. That could be because America has imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials, warned business of the reputational risks of operating in Uganda, and removed duty-free access for its exports. The World Bank has suspended new loans.

For lgbt people in Uganda, where 94% of citizens say they would not want a gay neighbour, the law has made a bad situation worse. They have been evicted, sacked, outed, threatened, assaulted, arrested and subjected to forced anal examinations. Rights groups recorded 300-plus cases of abuse in the first eight months of last year alone. Much of the hostility comes from ordinary Ugandans who have been “radicalised into hatred”, says Frank Mugisha, a gay-rights activist who was a petitioner in the court case.

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Calvin Riley Sr.'s routine traffic stop becomes a legal nightmare. Video shows TPD Officer Oliver pouring out a sealed bottle of liquor and tossing it in Riley's passenger seat, before arresting him for a DUI. Our Tallahassee.: VIDEO SHOWS TALLAHASSEE POLICE OFFICER PLANTING EVIDENCE DURING DUI ARREST

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The police stop, initiated by a white 26-year-old recruit of the department, would zigzag several potential legal avenues for police to arrest Riley; ultimately, after planting evidence of an empty liquor bottle in Riley’s car, they would arrest him for driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license. Riley says He says the night ‘nearly ruined his life.’

After initially stopping Riley and getting his information, Oliver calls in backup and discusses the particulars with Officer Margaret Mueth who arrived at the scene. Oliver asks Mueth to contact Riley under the pretext of verifying his address to check if she thinks he is under the influence of something. “I feel like I’m getting some indications, I’m not really sure. I can’t really smell anything right now,” Oliver says to Mueth, indicating that her sense of smell was diminished.

Oliver, in comments captured by her body-worn camera, tells Riley that he smells like marijuana. Oliver, who says he doesn’t smoke weed, took offense to Oliver’s comments.

“You lie,” Riley says in the video.

At various moments in the forty-four-minute-long body camera footage, Officer Oliver seems to go from charge to charge, looking for a way to arrest Riley. In Florida, officers have discretion whether to ticket or arrest someone driving with a suspended license for the first offense. If an individual commits a second offense, it is mandatory for the officers to take them into custody and make an arrest. Riley received a suspended license notification just weeks before the stop on March 7th.

Officers Mueth and Oliver discussed the interaction in Oliver’s car before approaching Riley again. Mueth testified that they formulated a plan: ask Riley to submit to a voluntary field sobriety test, and if he refused, they would exercise their voluntary discretion to arrest him for a first-time offense of driving with a suspended license.

When officers asked Riley to perform a voluntary roadside sobriety test, Riley refused.

They didn’t tell him the consequences for refusing the then-optional test.

Despite initial claims that Riley smelt like marijuana, by the time they had placed Riley in the back of Oliver’s patrol car, officers began to claim that Riley smelled like alcohol.

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

I was a teenager in the 1960s and lived through some of the most turbulent years of political violence since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. So tumultuous that singer Dion linked them in the song, Abraham, Martin, and John. The outrageousness of the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John, and Robert Kennedy, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., brought about so much upheaval that rioting, commissions, and national uproar marked each violent demonstration of political cowardice. Most citizens—of all stripes were unified in a sense of national outrage, even if they hated Abraham, Martin, or John. The feeling that violence was abhorrent is what kept America from falling over the precipice and into anarchy.

This is not normal…

Columnists, bloggers, and hacks like me, along with doodlers and self-important scribes, have called Trump a cult leader and his followers loyal cultists. At first, blush, judging by the group of people willing to compromise their values and even their religions to follow a guy hawking Bibles, sleeping with a porn star while his wife was at home nursing their new baby, and peddling gold sneakers, cult sounds right.  Unfortunately, the cult leader is the least of Donald Trump’s public affronts to decency. What he practices is gang leadership. Donald Trump is in charge of an ever-increasing immoral gang. No better than kidnappers and terrorists who use and threaten violence to achieve a goal. Mr. Trump is going to desperate extremes that should frighten us all.

It reads as unbelievable to type the words, setting aside his fomenting of an insurrection, but Mr. Trump has set about destroying the last institution of integrity that exists, the courts. With the help of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Mr. Trump has turned the federal judiciary—most notably the Supreme Court, into a hackneyed bastion of conservative Christian autocracy. On their way to the White Christian utopia; they crave, the courts have trampled the rights of women, voting rights, and black educational equity in schools. The blatant attacks on judges like 1930s gangster Al Capone (whom Trump on more than one occasion likens himself) because they are not in his pockets, like so many nickels and dimes, to steal a line from the Godfather. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” testified before Congress that Trump gives coded orders like a Mafia boss, “He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders,” Cohen said. “He speaks in a code, and I understand the code because I’ve been around him for a decade.” The parallels between the Trump Empire and the World of Don Corleone are stark but much more frightening when applied to reality:

When The Don’s hitman, Willie Cicci, talks about soldiers and pushing a button, it is reminiscent of Mr. Trump calling criminals hostages, describing prosecutors as “deranged,” and using buffers on social media to threaten wives, daughters, and court clerks. Donald Trump is an offer we can refuse.

Vote Against Guns

Thursday (Apr.4) VP Kamala Harris made her fourth trip to North Carolina this year, her second to Charlotte, NC to announce selections for $20 billion in awards to a :

First-of-its-kind national network to fund tens of thousands of climate and clean energy projects across America, especially in communities historically left behind and overburdened by pollution.

In addition, selectees plan to mobilize almost $7 of private capital for every $1 of federal funds — approximately $150 billion total.

Prior to her visit, VP Harris was interviewed by Ms. Jessica of FM Power 98 Radio. It’s an excellent interview. Give it a listen.

While in Charlotte, Vice President Harris met with Levon McBride, first time homeowner. in Grier Heights:

In her remarks at the event announcing the Biden-Harris administration’s historic investments in climate action, VP Harris related: 

For example, today, I visited Grier Heights — (applause)- and as many of you know, it is an historically Black neighborhood here in Charlotte. And over the past two decades, the community bank Self-Help worked with residents and community organizations to install good insulation, high-quality windows, and new electric appliances in this part of Charlotte to make them more energy efficient. 

Levon is a small business owner and a former middle school teacher. He shared with me that in his last home, every month, he paid $300 for his gas bill and $300 for his electricity bill. 

After moving to one of Self-Help’s energy-efficient homes. Levon’s total energy bill — total — dropped to around $100 a month. (Applause.)

More from VP Harris’ remarks:

And here is what is special about this announcement: For the first time in history, we are providing tens of billions of dollars directly to community lenders to finance local climate projects.

This is a novel approach. It is actually the first time we have taken this approach, because we know that we have the capacity with this approach to empower communities to decide which projects they want, that will have the greatest impact from their perspective in the place they call home. And then, we can invest in those projects in a way that will actually have value for the people who live there, instead of us from Washington, D.C., telling you what you need. (Applause.)

And further:

So, all of that being said, we also know that this investment is going to create jobs — good-paying union jobs; jobs for the workers of the IBEW, who are going to install the energy-efficient lighting; jobs for sheet metal workers who can replace the dirty furnaces and — and replace them with clean electric heat pumps; and jobs for the laborers who will build affordable, energy-efficient housing.

Synergy!;

So, I’ll conclude with this. This investment demonstrates an important point: When we invest in climate, we create jobs, we lower costs and we invest in families.

When we expand access to capital and give every person in our nation, no matter who they are or where they live, the opportunity to pursue their dreams, we build a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable and more prosperous future for everyone.

VP Harris’ remarks start at 9:50 minutes.

After the event, VP Harris visited the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party Office for a campaign rally:

AND, while in Charlotte, NC, VP Kamala Harris conducted an interview with Tim Boykum, of Spectrum Local News. It’s a good interview; enjoy. 

See the comments for what else VP Harris was doing during last week.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at (AM ET. Please share widely. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup. 

VOTE and GOTV! “When we fight, we win!”— VP Kamala Harris

Beyoncé singsPaul McCartney’s “Blackbird” and draws attention to civil rights history

Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez

It’s been crazy enough in this country with certain white folks going into major freakout mode over Beyoncé Knowles Carter, known to the world as simply Beyoncé, for daring to release a country music album. This outrage happened, completely ignoring the fact that Beyoncé is from Houston, Texas and grew up with the genre, which I addressed here in a recent story about zydeco. Now there is now yet another offense being laid on her Black feet and vocal chords. She’s singing “Blackbird”written by former Beatle Paul McCartney, and taking the song back to its inspirational roots in the civil rights movement — specifically the history of “The Little Rock Nine.”

CBS News reported:

Beatles legend Paul McCartney's praised Beyoncé's cover of the band's song "Blackbird," saying that it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired him in the first place.

Last week, Beyoncéreleased "Cowboy Carter," a 27-track country album that bends the genre. In it she included "Blackbird," which was originally written by McCartney in 1969 and included in the band's double album "The Beatles."

"I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place," McCartney said in an Instagram post, on Thursday. "I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!"

The 81-year-old rocker went on to say that he spoke with Beyoncé, who thanked him for writing the song and letting her do it.

"I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song," he added.

The Republican party is materially fond of calling themselves the party of Lincoln. They pull on that thread, presumably to stitch together the appearance of their civil rights bona fides, without ever stating it. Saying we support black rights in this GOP would be a death knell.  Outlets like Fox, Newsmax, Charlie Kirk, and all the verbally unhooded racists would send out the primary calls to throw the RINO bums out. Also, as part of that false narrative is the quote from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., taken out of context. Ask any Republican what the legacy of Dr. King was, and invariably, you will get the quote that ends,“…they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” What they conveniently remove from that quote was King's admonition to America, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where…”

In a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in 1887, he said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” The once respected party has again and again truncated a famous man's quote and lived it in reality, “You can fool some of the people all of the time….” Over the weekend, Donald Trump promised his rich friends he would protect their money and blow up the deficit as he did in his one term to the detriment of the economy and the working man. A big part of the eight trillion-dollar explosion of the deficit under Trump resulted from a two trillion-dollar tax cut and its fallout. That cut did not have offsets that GOP Congresspeople like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz say are what’s wrong with Democratic spending.

Trump told the donors who attended his Bread and Circus fundraiser Saturday that he would keep their taxes low, although they are due to sunset in 2025. This is not the first time a recent Republican President promised a short-term tax cut for the rich. George W. Bush’s tax cuts were enacted in the years 2001- 2003, where, according to the Center on Budget and  Policy Priorities, High-income taxpayers benefitted most from these tax cuts, with the top 1 percent of households receiving an average tax cut of over $570,000 between 2004-2012 (increasing their after-tax income by more than 5 percent each year).

Coincidentally, both Republican presidents' tax cuts ended in disaster because neither could withstand the stress of an economic emergency. The bank failures during the Bush Administration nearly pushed the country into a depression. Under Donald Trump, the coronavirus exposed that no built-in economic safeguards existed for the working man to withstand a sudden economic downturn. In both cases, the election of a Democrat—Barack Obama and Joe Biden pulled our chestnuts out of the fire. The Republican Party seems wed to self-destruction following their leadership, this time chasing autocracy and white-Christo-fascism. The reasons are simple, and one of the quotes that a GOPer will never repeat are from Dr. King.,

“If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.”

Yes, Mr. Lincoln, you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Vote Against Guns

Commentary by BlackKos editor JoanMar

I imagine that in the unlikely case that I’m still here 30 years from now, my blood will still boil at the mention of the names of George Zimmerman and Derek Chauvin. But what I will not be doing is trying to convince people that my hatred for those two has nothing to do with race. I will not be trying to convince people that I’m mad at them, not because they are white representatives of a system that dehumanizes, brutalizes, and marginalizes Black lives, but only because they were murderers.

Similarly, white people ought to stop trying to convince us that their searing, intense hatred of OJ is not all wrapped up in race and the primal need to avenge the death of a beautiful white woman. Stop lying to yourselves. Know that you aren’t lying to us, because we know the truth.

After OJ became an honorary white and reveled in his new “colorblind status,” Black people were not that in love with him. For the most part, he was all yours. I remember as a young woman seeing a clip of OJ in a restaurant surrounded by all white men and being served by a young blonde, and him turning to the camera and saying, “If she doesn’t look like this, like this [pointing to her as she stood over him], I don’t want her.” It was pathetic. So when news of his ex-wife’s murder broke and that he was the prime suspect, for most of us, it was just news — sensational yes, but just another murder like the thousands of murders that we hear about every year. And then the media remembered that he was Black and began treating him as such. That was when Black people started taking notice. They blackened his skin, thuggified him, called him the worst kind of animal, and all the while made no bones about the fact that their animus was directed at the Black community in Toto. OJ represented the Black community, and we were all on trial. Anyone remember that subplot in the whole saga?

For most of us in my community, Johnny Cochrane was the person we were rooting for. If it were a soap opera, Johnny Cochrane would be the star. OJ was just a sidekick who benefited from the pride and admiration people felt for the brilliant Johnny Cochrane. The Dream Team, under the leadership of Johnny, ably assisted by Barry Scheck and the rest of the crew, took on a system that, up until that point, had had their way with Black folks. The outpouring of emotion after the verdict came down was for Johnny, and Barry,  and the fact that the racist media and all the pundits who could barely contain their racism, and who then went on to become media darlings, had all lost. The racist Los Angeles police department and all of its little bloodthirsty, petty tyrants running around had lost. It had very little to do with OJ himself.

Did I believe OJ was guilty? I wasn’t persuaded by the tainted blood evidence or by the motive. Was it a crime of passion or was it premeditated. In this case, it couldn’t be both. With premeditation, we’d have to believe that OJ, with his very distinctive body type, grabbed a butcher knife—not a gun, mind you, but a knife—got his ski mask, drove to the murder scene in his distinctive white bronco, brutally killed two people—one of whom was a very fit young man of whom it was said “he put up a spirited fight for his life”—jumped over a back fence after the act, and only managed to leave spots of blood and a minor scrape on one of his fingers. If it was a crime of passion, why was he armed with a knife, had a ski mask, and why was he parked in the back? The one bit of evidence that pointed to his guilt, in my mind, was the noise Kato heard in the back of the house around the time of the murder. That was Mark Furhman planting evidence, or OJ returning to the house after committing the murders and trying to avoid the chauffeur parked in front of his gate. Something happened that night that connected both locations. But  what do I know? I’ve only ever studied Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Columbo. What I do know about, however, is how racism works in this country.

And so, here we are 30 years later, and white folks are still trying to have their cake and eat it too. Still trying to set themselves up as the arbiters of what is righteous and moral, and cast Black folks as supporters of evil. Still trying to act as if we have or have always had a level legal playing field and that Lady Justice is and has always been blind. Still holding on to their soul-corrosive hatred even as they dare to chastise Black folks for having the audacity to remember history and the atrocities that have gone unpunished for centuries.

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman told people they could be subjected to arrest, debt collection and forced vaccination if they voted by mail. Reuters: Republican operatives to pay $1.25 mln for robocalls threatening Black voters, NY prosecutor says

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Despite criticism for the use of potentially harmful chemicals, companies are still selling the products around the world. The Guardian: The truth about hair relaxers: in the US, lawsuits over cancer. In Africa, soaring sales

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She no longer straightens her hair because she thought it was starting to thin. But over the years, Moraa used almost every relaxer on the market, with one goal: making her coily hair silky. The ingredients didn’t matter.

“I did not have the time or the expertise to discern the effects of listed ingredients,” Moraa says. “I’m a consumer, not a chemist.”

But questions are being raised about the safety of the ingredients in these products.

In October 2022, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a study that found women who used hair relaxers more than four times a year were at a higher risk of uterine cancer. The study marked a tipping point in the US, building on more than a decade of scientific research in which women’s exposure to chemicals known as endocrine disruptors appeared to correlate with the development of uterine and breast tumours.

Endocrine disruptors interfere with hormones that regulate functions such as mood, appetite, cognitive development and reproductive health.

While many black women in the US are now rejecting chemical straighteners – filing thousands of lawsuits against manufacturers in the wake of the study – sales of the products in some African countries continue to climb.

Tunisia, Kenya and Cameroon were among the countries worldwide leading sales growth for perms and relaxers from 2017 to 2022, according to Euromonitor, a market research firm. Sales in Tunisia and Kenya jumped 10% over the five-year span. South Africa and Nigeria also saw growth.

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Some say these images shows how Black people can be used as stereotypical props. Others point to larger problems with AI-fueled misinformation and the election. NBC: What AI-generated images of Trump surrounded by Black voters mean for this election

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Wayne L. Smith, an engineer in the Washington, D.C., area, scoffed at an image he saw last week of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gleefully nestled among a group of smiling Black people. Seeing the image immediately alarmed him.

“Everything he does to try to get Black people to like him is fake,” Smith said. “Why wouldn’t that photo be fake, too? It just didn’t feel right.”

Smith’s instinct about the photo was correct; it was created by Trump supporter and conservative radio host Mark Kaye, who admitted he used artificial intelligence to create the image and posted it on social media for his 1 million Facebook followers to see. Kaye did not respond to an NBC News request for comment.

“I’m not out there taking pictures of what’s really happening. I’m a storyteller,” Kaye told BBC News, which tracked down the images’ origins. He added, “If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.”

Trump’s campaign did not respond to an NBC News request for comment on this article, but last week one campaign official said: “The only ones using AI to meddle in an election are President Trump’s opponents. The Trump Campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these AI images. Nor can we control what other people create and post.”

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After a history-making 2021 debut, "Fire Shut Up in My Bones" returns to New York's Metropolitan Opera with a gripping take on Charles Blow's bestselling memoir. The Grio: The Met’s revival of ‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ brings the complexity of Black manhood to the operatic stage

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The core cause of Charles Blow’s inner conflict in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” stems from sexual abuse, a subject egregiously overlooked when it comes to African-Americans — and for Black males, in particular. Actor Laurence Fishburne explored his own adolescent molestation in last month’s one-man play, “Like They Do in the Movies,” shining another spotlight where precious little exists about the assault of Black boys. The first work staged at the Met by a Black composer (Terence Blanchard, with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons) in its 138-year history when it debuted in 2021, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” got there first. Returning now with all the majesty and pathos of its initial run, the opera makes a welcome return.

A Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity step show opening Act III elevates the production in all the right ways, with 12 dancers bringing pure Black culture to the highbrow halls of one of the world’s preeminent opera houses. The moment arrives as Charles first matriculates at Grambling State University, an HBCU a stone’s throw from his childhood home in rural Louisiana. His pledging of the frat mirrors the earlier loss of his virginity to a local girl, Evelyn, in Act II, a rite of passage to manhood that also fails to quell his inner demons. But the ritual brings into question the various ways Black males feel the need to “man up” in American society, and the turmoil that often lies underneath the bluster.

Opening with Charles (bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green) holding the audience at gunpoint in a narrative flash-forward, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” sets out its conflict from the start: our lead wants revenge. Eventually, as 20-year-old Charles trails his 7-year-old self (treble Ethan Joseph as Char’es-Baby) throughout his boyhood life in the Louisiana backwoods, we learn its particulars. Raised as the youngest, most sensitive of five boys by his mother Billie (soprano Latonia Moore), he’s continually called a baby, ostracized by his brothers and initially even kept out of school in order to stay under the watchful eye of his somewhat distant mom and Uncle Paul (played by bass-baritone Kevin Short).

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In her book, the country songwriter looks back on her career and the Black artists that shaped the genre, from DeFord Bailey to Beyoncé. Market Place: In "My Black Country," Alice Randall returns color to the heroes, and she-roes, of her songs

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Alice Randall has been in the world of country music for decades. Her professional career started back in the early ’80s, when she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a songwriting career and launch a publishing company with the hope of supporting Black artists. In 1994, Randall would become the first Black woman to co-write a No. 1 country hit with Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl).”

Yet she had never heard someone who looked like her sing one of her songs until 2023, during the production of the companion album to her new book, “My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future.” The album, in keeping with the themes of the book, is a collection of some of Randall’s songs performed by Black artists.

“Listeners thought all the heroes and she-roes in my songs were white because the singers were white,” Randall said in an interview with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal. “All of them I had imagined as Black, and I was willing and embrace people projecting their identities onto them, but I resisted the identities I originally imagined and created being erased.”

In her book, released as Beyoncé becomes the first Black woman to have a No. 1 country chart-topping album with “Cowboy Carter,” Randall explores the legacy of Black artists in the country music industry, including artists like DeFord Bailey, who helped shape the genre.

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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

I woke up yesterday morning to the news of Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson's death; O.J. is No More. What should have been the story of the American Dream ended in infamy. For many Americans, yesterday was a day to rejoice; for others, it was melancholy and confusing. I am old enough to remember O.J. terrorizing opposing defenses in the Pac-12 college football conference. I pointed to my TV set when he leaped suitcases in car rental commercials and, along with the viewing public, murmured, ‘Go, O.J. Go!’ Simpson was an enigma for many in the black community. He cavorted with the rich and famous, divorced his black wife [Marguerite], and married a white woman. For many of us, he had abandoned his roots. Mr. Simpson was a hero on the field, but the word sellout often followed the mention of his name among my peers. What may have appeared as racist from the outside, from within, was a feeling of loss.  

So, after years of seeing the Juice run behind the famed Buffalo Bills offensive line, who were dubbed the Electric Company because they made the Juice go, and portraying the foil Nordberg to Leslie Neilson’s buffoonish Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun film series, there was O.J. in the back of a Ford Bronco, threatening to kill himself. Sadly, the butchering of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman became a sideshow to the cultural, judicial, and moral divide in America. Looking at it out of context, much of white America was stunned not only at the acquittal but by the positive reaction of large portions of black America. The trial became America's first reality TV program. Cameras were stationed on black college campuses, community centers, and senior centers to gauge the live reaction at the verdict reading. The Oprah Winfrey Show broadcasts the live reactions of the races.

In 1991,the reactions were reversed.

Black people were stunned by the acquittal of the four police officers for the video-recorded near-beating death of Rodney King. Black people saw the beatings and acquittal as just another chapter in the long and brutal past of black Americans beaten, lynched, and seeing justice denied. O.J. was pilloried for writing a book entitled If I Did It. Black America had not forgotten Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the killers who murdered and mutilated 15-year-old Emmett Till and later confessed their crimes in a Look Magazine article. Of course, my experiences are anecdotal, but my peers did not cheer for O.J. but more the sentiment, so now you know the feeling of blatant injustice.
What black people had known for years was that there was racism in major city police departments, and ironically, although O.J. was a black man, justice was for the rich, and its privileges were exposed. In this case, that privilege extended to a rich and famous black defendant, and the joy was more hope than the reality of the moment. I would be less than honest not to say I believed O.J. was as guilty as sin, as my great granny used to say, but I also saw the bigger picture. I still grieve for the Goldman and Brown families, who ended up as collateral damage. They succumb to the trial celebrity of Kato Kaelin, attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, Detective Mark Fuhrman, and the Dream Team of lawyers (including a Kardashian) headed up by Johnny Cochran, addressing the jury in an askew knit cap and whose still famous quote, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” still haunts us as a comedic punchline.

O.J.’s life will be revered in the very corners of America and only by those who can distinguish his explosions on the field from his murderous rage off it. For me, O.J. ushered in an era of black celebrities selling products, good looks, and acceptance. His obituary and life story will always lead with the words athlete and suspected murderer. Bless the Goldman and Brown families; maybe their long national nightmare has concluded. For the Simpsons, I pray that they can bury bad memories along with O.J. Simpson’s body.    

Vote Against Guns

VP Kamala Harris’ first public event this week was her participation in a roundtable discussion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Mon. Apr. 8) announcing the Biden-Harris’latest initiative to cancel student loan debt, hearing from a group of public service workers about the impact of the administration’s student loan debt relief on their lives. Already planning on visiting Tucson, Arizona (Fri. Apr. 12) to address the administration’s further path to cancel student loan debt, anticipating a ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court on whether to uphold its 160 year old law outlawing abortions, when it ruled in favor (Tues. Apr. 9), VP Harris directed her team to make the event focused on abortion.  

Monday (Apr. 8) was a full solar eclipse, and of course, VP Harris took time to celebrate the occasion with young students before making her way to the roundtable discussion:

Samples of remarks from participants in Vice President Kamala Harris’ roundtable discussion on student debt relief, held at Cramp Elementary School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Mon. Apr. 8.) Please watch the full video to see the life changing impact for these women who have been serving their communities for years at high personal costs.:

Tonya Cabeza (school-based teacher leader at Cramp Elementary School): I was doing what moms do in the kitchen: making dinner, checking emails. And I open up an email that said, “Congratulations, your loans have been forgiven.”

It was 40,000-plus dollars in student loans just gone - zero. My life had changed, and what I was able to give to my children had changed.

I am the first in may family to go to college. There wasn’t a time that I didn’t want to be a teacher. I needed to go to college and graduate in order to do this.

I was 22 years old — graduated from college. I had to take out a loan for my entire amount of my undergrad. And then to continue teaching and get that permanent certification, I had to do more schooling, in which I had to take out more loans.

But, despite that, I did press on. I get to come here every day and work with these students, and this is my work home. I love working here, and the loans gave me the opportunity to do that.

But now that they’re forgiven, my eldest daughter is now in college — also going down the education path — I’m able to assist her in a way that my parents weren’t able to assist me.

Beth Whelan (school nurse at Richmond Elementary School): I’m a school nurse at Richmond Elementary School in the Port Richmond section of the city. It’s an underserved community that I work in.

I was hired under an emergency school nurse certification, so I needed to pursue further coursework in order to be able to continue practice.

Unfortunately, I accrued a lot of student loan debt at this time, coupled with my undergrad debt that I still had, I was paying hundreds of dollars a month, barely making ends meet.

I knew I could make more money if I returned to hospital nursing, but I really believed in the importance of school nursing, so I stuck with it.

Recently, I lost my father. I remember a conversation that  I had with him shortly before he died. He asked me if was okay financially, as he would help me from time to time. I had just gotten word that all of my $65,000 of student loan debt had been forgiven. And I told him that. I saw a lot of relief in his face, as I was not going to have that burden on me anymore.

Kelli Gray (social work services manager at the Philadelphia Department of Human Services): My student debt story is like everybody else’s. I knew I wanted a better life for myself and my two wonderful twin daughters, one of whom, Monique, is here with me today. And I knew education was that path. So, I took a risk, and I took out debt. I got associate’s, a bachelor’s, a master’s, and I wanted a PhD. But, ultimately, I had to stop taking my PhD classes because I couldn’t afford any more debt.

Giving direct care to children is beyond important to me. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I know that children need an advocate and someone who sees them, and I can recognize what they are going through when they don’t have a voice.

My daughter graduated from Spelman. I had to ask help for a parent PLUS loan.

My loans were $350,000.

On February 23rd of this year, I took my work — my papers, because I take it to work to shred. I opened up my letter. I was going to shred it. It was from MOHELA. And it said, “Congratulations. Thank you for being in public service. Your loans have been forgiven.”

After the roundtable discussion, VP Harris made a special appearance at the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee Dinner:  

Here’s the full video of her speech, which is well worth watching. I just could not stand the preview picture from YouTube, featuring the fg — won’t post his face here.

Tuesday (Apr. 9) “Madam Vice President”, VP Harris’ previously recorded podcast with Jen and Pumps of “I’ve Had It” was aired. It’s a great interview. Check it out:

Also on Tuesday, VP Harris met with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas: 

Wednesday (Apr. 10) Vice President Harris held a press call announcing new action by the Biden-Harris administration to implement Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and expanding firearm background checks and closing the “gun-show loophole”. This is the largest and most significant expansion of the background check requirement for gun purchases since the passage of the Brady Bill in 1993. Both Wednesday and Thursday, VP Harris participated in events honoring the State  visit of Rime Minister Kishida of Japan (more in the comments).

April 11-18 is Black Maternal Health Week and Vice President Harris did a telephone interview with Willie Moore, Jr. on his radio show, not only about Black Maternal Heath Week but a range of subjects including reproductive freedoms and student loan forgiveness. Here’s a good article from Essence Here's What The Biden Harris Administration Is Doing To Combat The Black Maternal Heath Crisis.

And for this week’s grand finale, Vice President Kamala Harris, in rapid response mode, held a campaign rally in Tucson Arizona (Friday, Apr.12), blasting the fg and the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate an 1864 abortion ban. She was on fire and her whole speech was packed full of punches.

Here’s the entire speech. Savor it!: 

VP Harris’s remarks start at 3:50 minutes.

Reminder: VP Kamala Harris Roundup is a weekly series, published on Tuesdays at 8 AM ET. For daily updates, see my MVP Kamala Harris comments in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.

VOTE and GOTV! “When we fight, we win!”— VP Kamala Harris

The theories, realities, and vibes of Blackness

Review by Chitown Kev

Reviewed:

The Black Box: Writing the Race by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Penguin Press, 266 pp., $30.00

I know one thing: I have gotten sick and tired of (usually) young BlackTwitterati making loud, bold and uninformed pronouncements that, ultimately, narrow the scope of the Black experience. The annoying thing is that they act as if they are posing original and even revolutionary arguments but as Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. points out in his latest collection, The Black Box: Writing the Race, Black people have been having these discussions amongst ourselves and with others (read: white people) since before the founding of the American Republic and Black people will, undoubtedly, continue to have these discussions.

Dr. Gates “jumping off point” for this essay collection is the birth of his granddaughter, Ellie, who “will test about 87.5 percent European when she spits in the test tube” yet his son-in law accedes to Gates’ request to check the “Black” box on the required form certifying Ellie’s birth. Gates runs with the “black box” metaphor and extends it from its common usage of flight recorders that “preserve the record of truth amid disastrous circumstances” to Oxford English Dictionary usages to metaphors of how (mostly) African Americans have defined themselves to themselves and others. Over the course of these essays, which originated in Dr. Gates’s lectures in his Intro to African American Studies courses that he has taught at Harvard for many years, we run into well known literary pioneers like Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Zora Neale Hurston, unknowns (at least to me) of the Enlightenment like the German Anton Wilhelm Ano, Francis Williams  and even white people like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson and the composer Antonin Dvořák.

Gates first essay, “Race, Reason, and Writing,” deals with Phillis Wheatley and the (white) reaction to the publication of her book of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. While receiving overall good reviews at that time as evidence that Black people could be every bit as intelligent as white people given the chance, the achievements and obvious intelligence of Wheatley and even older Black thinkers were dismissed by the likes of Enlightenment luminaries like philosopher David Hume, in spite of Hume knowing that “Black people could read and write” and “were intelligent, articulate, sophisticated, and aristocratic” or by Thomas Jefferson’s dismissals of Wheatley and any other abilities of African-descended peoples (other than...you guessed it, musical ability). It was from white criticisms and denial of the intellectual abilities of Black people that people like Benjamin Banneker, David Walker and Alexander Crummell saw development of a FUBU literature in response.

Gates’s finest essay in The Black Box is “Who’s Your Mama: The Politics of Disrespectability”, where notions of what it means to be “African American” (primarily in the early 20th century) run the gamut from Dr. Dubois notions of The Talented Tenth to middle class Black Victorians to cultural tensions with the old-time Black vernaculars and religious worship of the South. Gates uses this chapter as a sort of set-up to the arguments about blackness that characterized the literary rivalry between writers Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright which is, indeed, worthy of the entire chapter that Dr. Gates writes about the two titans of Black literature.

While understanding that Dr. Gates is writing, for the most part, about Black people in the United States, I do wish that The Black Box dealt a little more with contemporary worldwide discourses on what constitutes “Blackness”; for example, Brazil’s very different system of race categorization (where Dr. Gates granddaughter would probably be considered a “little white girl”, I suspect, but would have more freedom to self-identify, if she so chooses it) or even a more contemporary issue like the Twitter smackdowns of African Americans by quite a few Caribbean Blacks over the appropriateness of British pop singer Adele’s Bantu knots at the Notting Hill Carnival; African Americans do not have a monopoly on discourses of Blackness. Nevertheless, The Black Box is a far more comprehensive, educated, and informed historical guide on what it means to be “Black” than any sort of vibe-fabulous discourse that one my find on social media.

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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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A DIRE PROBLEM WITHIN THE PRISON SYSTEM IN THE U.S. Ebony: BLACK, PREGNANT AND INCARCERATED

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Being pregnant and giving birth are amongst the most memorable experiences in a woman’s life. The postpartum experience should be one of bonding between a mother and her child. However, this experience is much different for women who are in prison. Shackled until the moment they give birth—with only law enforcement and a doctor present, with no family or support person present—giving birth while incarcerated is one of the most inhumane experiences a woman can go through. The postpartum experience for incarcerated women is not one of mother to child bonding; the women are only given 24 to 48 hours with their newborn until their baby is taken away. And, they must also endure a period of lactating with no baby to breastfeed and heavy bleeding without access to proper menstrual products. Institutions don't always give mothers who are in the postpartum phase unrestricted access to hygiene products commonly used by mothers after they give birth—underwear, large sanitary napkins, and other items. Some institutions also don’t have appropriate waste disposal receptacles for said items.

The Prison Policy Initiative predicted that 55,000 women in the United States will be arrested while pregnant this year. In a single year, women in prison had 753 live births, 46 miscarriages, four stillbirths and 11 abortions. Of the 753 live births, there were three newborn deaths and no maternal deaths, and nearly a third of the live births were delivered via Cesarean sections. As laws are being passed to ban abortions and place those who have experienced miscarriages or stillbirths under suspicion for criminal acts, incarcerated women are dying and losing their babies inside of prison walls. The question at hand is: are the health rights of women being violated while pregnant in prison?

“Many women give birth in prisons and jails every year, but many more give birth in hospitals because most prison medical units aren't equipped to handle deliveries,” said Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist of the Prison Policy Initiative.

Though incarcerated women may give birth inside of hospital walls, these women are often shackled. Restraining a woman by the ankles, wrists, or waist during pregnancy and delivery is medically hazardous, emotionally traumatizing and unnecessary. According to the AMA Journal of Ethics, pregnant women who are shackled are at an increased risk of falling and sustaining injury to themselves and their fetuses. Most correctional facilities do not have on-site obstetric care. Because of this, pregnant women are typically transported to community-based providers for prenatal care and women in labor are transferred to medical facilities for delivery.

Medical Testing Supply Company Violated Title VII by Firing Black Employee Because of Her Natural Hair Texture, Federal Agency Charged. EEOC: American Screening to Pay $50,000 to Settle EEOC Race Discrimination Lawsuit

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Drug and medical testing supply company American Screening, LLC, has agreed to pay $50,000 and provide other relief to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

According to the lawsuit, a Black employee interviewed and was selected for a sales position with American Screening while wearing a wig with long, straight hair. After she stopped wearing the wig and started wearing her hair in its naturally curly texture, the company’s owner instructed a human resources manager to counsel the employee about her hair and “looking more professional,” complaining that the worker “came in with beautiful hair.” The employee’s hair—considered type “4-A” on the Andre Walker Hair Typing System—is commonly associated with people who, like the employee, are Black.

The owner then directed the employee to begin wearing her wig with straight hair again. When the employee continued to wear her natural hair, the company fired her. The company later hired a white worker in her place, according to the EEOC’s lawsuit.

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits firing employees or subjecting them to different terms and conditions of employment because of their race.  The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.  The suit (EEOC v. American Screening Case No. 22-01674) had been pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana and was resolved by a consent decree, which was entered by the court on April 4, 2024.

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A $475 million light-rail system serving Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa shows how some China-funded infrastructure investments across the continent are now suffering from neglect. Bloomberg: A Crumbling Metro Reveals Failed Promise of China’s Billions in Africa

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Almost a decade ago, the light-rail system in Ethiopia’s bustling capital of Addis Ababa was hailed as a revolutionary solution to the city’s transportation woes. Envisioned as a project that would redefine urban transport, the system promised to sweep up to 60,000 passengers per hour along its tracks.

Today it sits as a daily reminder of the broken promises of China-funded infrastructure investments that swept Africa in recent years. Frequent breakdowns, inadequate maintenance funding and operational constraints mean barely one-third of its 41 trains are operational, ferrying 55,000 passengers a day, a fraction of initial projections.

Once bustling and vibrant train stations now exude an air of desolation and neglect, contrasting sharply with the city’s urgent transportation needs for its almost 4 million residents. Inoperable trains are regularly parked at the railway’s garage, awaiting maintenance.

Overcrowding on those trains that do run has forced many commuters to seek new ways to get around. Yared Mekuanint, 36, who has been using the train since its launch, has largely abandoned the system.

Waiting times for a train can now stretch to 20 to 25 minutes, he said, four times the six minutes between services in the early days.

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Relief workers warn Sudan is hurtling towards starvation at a larger scale than the humanitarian crisis afflicting Palestinians. The Grio: World paid little attention to Sudan’s war for a year. Now aid groups warn of mass death from hunger

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On a clear night a year ago, a dozen heavily armed fighters broke into Omaima Farouq’s house in an upscale neighborhood in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. At gunpoint, they whipped and slapped the woman, and terrorized her children. Then they expelled them from the fenced two-story house.

“Since then, our life has been ruined,” said the 45-year-old schoolteacher. “Everything has changed in this year.”

Farouq, who is a widow, and her four children now live in a small village outside the central city of Wad Madani, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southeast of Khartoum. They depend on aid from villagers and philanthropists since international aid groups can’t reach the village.

Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, ever since simmering tensions between its military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into street clashes in the capital Khartoum in mid-April 2023. The fighting rapidly spread across the country.

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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY PORCH

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSEL

For centuries, mystery novels have been popular relaxation, fodder for thought, and grist for the mill, enticing the thinker, daydreamer, and skeptic. Today, reminiscent of the famed Bronco car chase of the recently departed O.J. Simpson, I expect cameras to hover above a bevy of dark security vehicles with helicopter shots of a slow-speed chase from Trump Tower to the Manhattan New York courtroom. Donald Trump makes his first appearance in court in a case that will undoubtedly be a future Lifetime Network movie of the week, maybe entitled If I Did It. The paparazzi will capture quick glimpses of Mr. Trump leaving his vehicle. Then the drinking game begins; how many times will you hear the words historic, unprecedented, and hush money?

Anyone who has any association with me (family or friends) will tell you I am the world’s biggest skeptic. No, I do not believe the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy; yes, we landed on the moon, and Tupac is dead. While Mr. Trump will continue his campaign to destroy the credibility of America’s justice system even further, the Iranian attack on Israel poked my skepticism. Is it ridiculous to think that the Iranians attacked Israel on the eve of Mr. Trump’s first trial with Russia’s blessings, or is it?

 I know my sober mind is playing tricks on me...

Oddly, there is a tie-in to the last big conspiratorial moment in the former President’s life. The key figure in the falsifying of business documents case, brought by Manhattan New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg and highlighted by hiding the information that he allegedly used campaign funds to pay off a mistress, is his former paramour, adult movie star Stormy Daniels.

Although Democrats loudly proclaimed that the Clinton email distraction was intended to benefit Mr. Trump, it also involved his dalliance(s). However, the public did not find out until almost two years later. When the infamous video and audio of Mr. Trump describing his methodology for molesting women was revealed, it signaled the systematic release (allegedly by Russian sources) of Hillary Clinton’s emails. During that same period, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, was arranging to pay off Ms. Daniels to keep her affair with Donald Trump secret from his post-partum wife and the public. Paying off one’s cheating partner may seem mundane and unconnected, but Trump was in the middle of his 2016 presidential campaign and was fending off the “grab them by the p***y” video and was desperate to stop the bleeding of support from his campaign.  All of this is old news, but put on your water wings. We will be drowning in sleaze, threats to witnesses, payoffs, and the Trump three-ringed circus for weeks.

As the noose he had hoped to close around the neck of his former VP, Mike Pence, tightens, Donald Trump will get more desperate, viler, and more mobby. His loosening grip on reality, as evidenced by his increasingly incoherent rallies, his failure to remember his wife’s name or who he ran against in 2020, and his garbled words, will worsen as the specter of a matching orange jumpsuit gets closer.

The right-wing media hounds will pick apart every ruling by Judge Juan Merchan. The blather, blubber, and sweat from the lips and brows of Alex Jones and Steve Bannon will be enough to fill the empty pools of their integrity. So, buckle up; speaking of buckle up, did anyone notice that on March 21st, the DMV shut down nationwide? All those records, addresses, and voter registration were unavailable for 3 hours or more, ehh, just another wild conspiracy; right?

Vote Against Guns    

Science fiction has long dabbled in the idea of time travel, both forward and backward—ask kindly “Doc” Brown about his plutonium-powered DeLorean. In 1978, when Superman flew so fast around the Earth to reverse its rotation and save Lois Lane’s life, cheers erupted in the theater. As intriguing as the prospect seems, most of us believe that day is as far off as Krypton. The Republican party seems enamored with the past, or is it the advantages it afforded white Christian males? Arizona Republicans decided that women have no right to determine the future of their lives and health. The Biden campaign is running an effective political ad that encapsulates the sheer hubris and ignorance of a woman’s needs by pro-life zealots.

Anyone watching Amanda Zurawski and her husband Josh agonizing over the death of their fetus, the possible death of his wife, and the future jeopardy of any future child without compassion and rethinking their position needs a brain if not a heart. The politicians and judges, most without medical training, who are making these decisions all over red states need to be reminded this is not a Holiday Inn commercial, and they cannot play doctor when they feel God-like. Arizona’s Supreme Court based its ruling on an 1864 law. Republicans have proposed rolling back child labor laws, excused insurrectionists marching through the United States Capitol with Confederate flags, and are contemplating making contraceptives and same-sex marriage illegal. All these things fly in the face of America, making herself a more perfect union.

More stunning is that the Court is taking rights away for the first time. What should have been summarily dismissed by the Supreme Court instead is actually under consideration whether America should have a king immune from criminal law. The basis for American law is that no man is above it. The banning of books such as the books on the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks is an abomination. The supposed reason for banning the book on Rosa Parks was because it identifies her as a black woman instead of just a bus rider.  

Listening to Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) stumble around trying to avoid the apparent one-word answer, NO! and devolving the argument into the semantical use of the word BAN should be embarrassing to her. Unfortunately, the GOP has dismissed honor, embarrassment, and fairness as just stumbling blocks in their zeal for unfettered white male Christian power. Moving toward what was—in place over what could be is just fine with the GOP. Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R- LA) led a contingent of wayward Republican impeachment managers, including Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), into the Senate chambers to perform a task not seen since 1876: the impeachment of Cabinet member William Belknap. This slim Republican majority wants to be rid of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This is not because of high crimes or misdemeanors as prescribed by the Constitution and as read into the record by Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) but because they disagree with the opposition party’s policy.

The 1860s, 1950s, or even 2024 is not a picnic for many female Americans or Americans of color who want to believe in the promise of America striving “to form a more perfect union.” Donald Trump told us that a temporary dictatorship is a good idea and that Confederate sympathizers are “very fine people.” So, while we stand back and standby, how many of our liberties are we willing to chance on a philandering, classified documents thief who has been impeached twice, criminally indicted in four jurisdictions, and just went to court for the first of 88 counts against him?

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