Couples Celebrate Black Marriage Day
March 29, 2010 by owner
Filed under Relationships, United States
For Kenny and Lynette Seymour, last weekend’s black marriage gala was about celebrating their seven-year marriage. They got to meet other black couples while spending a romantic evening together.
“Every time you meet another couple, you learn something new about yourself and relationships in general,” said Kenny Seymour, a 39-year-old Broadway music director who lives in Queens. “It was beautiful to be around a bunch of married people in love.”
Other U.S. black couples will be marking the eighth annual Black Marriage Day this weekend, by attending workshops, black-tie dinners and other activities. Some groups have held events throughout the month, although Black Marriage Day, which celebrates matrimony in the black community, falls on the fourth Sunday in March.
Race Matters
A constant theme of reports about math and science is that the United States will have a large enough supply of scientists only if it does a better job of attracting black and Latino scientists — and not just relying on Asian American, white and foreign talent. Many of these reports note that large shares of black and Latino high school students don’t receive the kind of preparation they should in math and science.
A new study points to another factor: the role of black college instructors in encouraging black science students to persist as science majors. The study finds a statistically significant relationship between black students who plan to be a science major having at least one black science instructor as freshmen and then sticking to their plans. The finding could be significant because many students (in particular members of under-represented minority groups) who start off as science majors fail to continue on that path — so a change in retention of science majors could have a major impact.
Black Methodist Leaders Deny NAACP Controversy
March 3, 2010 by owner
Filed under History, Politics, United States
The NAACP said today that its economic boycott of South Carolina remains in force, despite comments to the contrary.
The organization imposed the ban in 2000 when lawmakers declined to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol. But, according to local news reports, state Sen. Robert Ford—who is Black—declared that this week’s meeting of the three Black Methodist churches in Columbia indicated that the sanctions were over. However, countered church and NAACP leaders, that’s not true.
“I’m here to set the record straight,” the Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III, vice president of stakeholder relations of the NAACP, told the Great Gathering assembly Monday. “Our sanctions are ongoing….If you want to know if the sanctions are over there’s a real simple test: when the flag comes down our sanctions stop.
“That flag represents tyranny, treason, hatred and the oppression of my people and I will die before I give up on tearing it down,” he added to a thundering applause.
The Rev. Staccato Powell, chairman of the Great Gathering as the meeting is called, added that Ford’s statements were prompted by his ambitions and not fact.
“Senator Ford speaks neither for the NAACP nor the Black Methodist churches,” he said in the opening press conference. “Senator Ford is an aspirant for the gubernatorial office in this state and so he does what he needs to do to capture media attention.”
So far, church leaders said, media attention to this issue has centered on rumors that the conference’s presence in South Carolina has been a slap in the face to the NAACP and has brewed discord between the groups.
“It’s the White media; they always engage in divide and conquer,” Powell told the AFRO. He added in other statements, “Our presence here is not in confrontation but in solidarity and we speak with a united voice with the NAACP.”
The Rt. Rev. John Bryant, senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, said Black Methodist churches and the NAACP have always been in “lockstep” going back to the Niagara Movement, the precursor of the civil rights organization. Several church leaders have served as officers of the NAACP, including Bishop William Graves, senior prelate of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, who now serves on its board of directors.
Black farmers: Government to fund racial bias settlement
February 19, 2010 by owner
Filed under Crime & Law, Politics, United States
The head of the National Black Farmers Association said Thursday the U.S. government has agreed to pay qualified farmers $50,000 each to settle claims of racial bias.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said those farmers may also pursue a claim for actual damages from the bias, and potentially receive up to $250,000.
The settlement, which covers as many as 80,000 black farmers at a price of more than $1 billion, still needs to be funded by Congress, both sides acknowledged Thursday.
The 2010 farm bill, still pending in Congress, includes more than $1 billion to cover the compensation claims.
In a written statement Thursday, President Obama said his administration “is dedicated to ensuring that federal agencies treat all our citizens fairly, and the settlement in the Pigford case reflects that commitment.”
The Pigford case was decided in favor of black farmers by a federal judge’s ruling in 1999.
The head of the farmers group, John Boyd, said: “It’s really the Department of Agriculture agreeing to pay, the Justice Department agreeing to pay and our lawyers agreeing to the process.”
In a conference telephone call with reporters, Vilsack said racial bias unquestionably took place in his agency over many years.
He gave an example of two farmers, one white, one black, applying for a farm loan with an office of the USDA.
The white farmer’s application “was processed rapidly, it was approved, and resources were quickly available to enable him to put a crop in,” Vilsack said. The application from the black farmer “was denied without due diligence on whether he had the capacity to repay, or else he or she was strung out over such a long period of time that they couldn’t put in a crop,” Vilsack said.
Chris Matthews Clarifies “I Forgot Obama Was Black”
Watch him explain the controversial remark in this video HERE…
VIDEO: Chris Matthews Says “I Forgot Obama Was Black”
January 28, 2010 by owner
Filed under Media, Politics, Washington DC Metro
Blagojevich: “I’m Blacker Than Obama”
It’s an ill wind that blows no good, even in Chicago in November. Take Skittles Blagojevich, a small white dog — could be a bichon frise, maybe a Maltese — who joined the family shortly after Governor Rod’s arrest on December 9, 2008, when it was alleged that he was auctioning off Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Whatever Skittles allegedly was doing on or before that date, he or she — I didn’t look; who am I, Woodward and Bernstein? — landed soft on his or her paws as the newest member of the former first family of Illinois, obtained to distract and console Rod and Patti’s two young daughters, Amy and Annie, when their home was hemmed in daily by satellite trucks and Dad was crowned Blago, clown king of political corruption.
Skittles was there when the indictment was handed down last April, charging Blago with sixteen felonies, including making false statements to federal agents, racketeering, conspiracy, and attempted extortion. Skittles was there when Mrs. Blago went to Costa Rica and ate a dead tarantula on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, because the judge in Blago’s case, fearing Blago might not return for the trial, refused to allow him out of the country to appear on the show. And Skittles is here now, at Revere Park, walking the sidelines while Annie’s Saturday-morning soccer team plays to yet another scoreless tie under a high autumn sky.
They could be any family anywhere, a fiction they’re trying to maintain under dire circumstances. Nobody has a steady job, Blago’s staring at a prison stretch as long as twenty years, and however corrupt he may have been as governor, he apparently botched the part about putting a pile of money aside, just in case. Hence the tarantula, which turns out to have been the dignified choice.
“We had all kinds of offers to do reality shows,” says Blagojevich. “This bullshit where they come in the house — Keeping Up With the Kardashians — I won’t do that shit.”
He looks fantastic, Blago. He ran six and a half miles this morning, he says. In his powder-blue shorts and black long-sleeved jacket zippered to his neck, he could easily pass for ten years younger than his age, which is allegedly fifty-three. Here, he’s just another dad cheering on his six-year-old, although he’s the only dad I can see whose whorled forelocks cover the entirety of his forehead.
“The two biggest sellers this Halloween in the Chicago area were Michael Jackson’s jacket and wigs of my hair,” he says as we head to the parking lot. Rod, Patti, and Amy are good to go for brunch, but Annie heads straight for the monkey bars on the fenced-off playground, and Skittles, shivering a little, sniffs the gravel.
Neo-Nazi Member Who Stabbed A Woman For Dating A Black Man & Killed Teen For Being Gay Is Orderd To Have His Tattoo Covered By A Judge! (Wanting A Fair Trial)
December 11, 2009 by owner
Filed under Crime & Law, Florida News, Media
Parents Say New Black Dolls Not Black Enough
December 8, 2009 by owner
Filed under United States
Some Parents are saying Mattel’s new “So in Style” Black dolls made with wider noses and fuller lips in an array of skin tones are not Black enough, according to “Wall Street Journal”. Parents are not too pleased with the straight, long hair and blue or green eye color that some of the dolls have. The dolls also feature the waif-like figure of Barbie dolls, not an accurate depiction of most women in general, much less Black women.
All Members Of Congress Being Investigated For Ethics Are Black
November 17, 2009 by owner
Filed under Crime & Law, Politics, United States
The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.
Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe.
The ethics committee declined to respond to questions about the racial disparity, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wary of talking about it on the record. But privately, some black members are outraged — and see in the numbers a worrisome trend in the actions of ethics watchdogs on and off Capitol Hill.
