Month: March 2017

When it comes to reaching kids, the former first lady still reigns.

On Thursday’s pretaped episode of “MasterChef Junior,” Justise Mayberry triumphed in guest star Michelle Obama’s cooking challenge by making pan-seared shrimp with vegetables from the White House garden.

But the adorable Justise, 11, won something perhaps even better: a sit-down with the then-first lady at the Kids’ State Dinner in July. As shown in an unaired conversation posted Thursday by Fox, Obama did not disappoint.

Asked by Justise what advice she had for young chefs, Obama replied: “There is nothing more important that you can do for yourself than to get an education. Doing your best not just in the kitchen, but you’ve got to be your best in the classroom. I want you all to keep pushing and preparing yourself for college and doing well.”

Obama also told Justise to introduce other kids to vegetables and healthy eating.

Sounds like a good recipe for life, kid.

H/T People

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Last month, my second book, Stakes Is High: Race, Faith, and Hope for America, was published by Chalice Press. Before its official release, I was elated that the book received strong endorsements from academics and activists, alike. Dr. Elaine Heath, the dean of the Divinity School at Duke University endorsed the book by stating, “My hope and prayer is that this narrative of violence against black and brown people in the United States finds its way into homes, churches, schools, and offices of public servants across this nation.” The Reverend Stephen A. Green, national director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Youth and College Division stated, “Captivating and persuasive, Stakes Is High offers a poignant reflection on the social, political, and theological situations of Black people in America.”

Others now have had a month to engage the text. I have been overwhelmed by the positive responses I have received. Stakes Is High is already being added to University and secondary school syllabi, and it is being engaged communally by adult Christian education classes and soon, Masjid youth groups. The book was featured in a Publisher’s Weekly article among new books that “encourage and guide activism”, and editors for Sojourners Magazine have included the book among their four cultural recommendations for April 2017.

Thus far, one of the most personally moving responses came from a white suburban mother who was so moved by the text that she mailed a copy to an incarcerated nephew. Her nephew then shared the text with a Black inmate serving a lengthy prison sentence. After reading Stakes Is High, the Black inmate offered that the book was the first thing that had given him hope in a long time and that he felt as though they had not been forgotten.

Another moving response came from a Muslim mother whose son was recently bullied at his school. A young white classmate approached him and called him a terrorist. Having read my book, she determined that she would also have her grade school sons read the book to increase their awareness of the legacy of racism and hatred in America, to empower them to stand strong in the face of hate, and to encourage them to join the peaceful resistance against these destructive forces in American society. Even my own fourth grader surprised me by saying that he was reading Stakes Is High during his free reading time at school. I inquired what he had learned thus far. He responded, “That racism is real.”

I can think of no greater initial reception to this work, and with the recent release of a free online companion guide to the text authored by a diverse group of pastors and scholars from across the nation, I am even more excited about Stakes Is High’s future engagement. Interestingly enough, the only negative critiques I have received thus far have come from persons who have not even read the book. These are white persons who have judged the book by its cover, and they have taken to social media to express their disdain. Each of them has issued the same criticism: they cannot possibly bring themselves to engage the book due to the use of grammar in the book’s title. Hip hop heads and persons of a certain generation immediately recognized the book’s title as a nod to a seminal cultural artifact, De La Soul’s classic recording from 1996. I consider the song to be an essential part of my personal journey to social awareness and social activism, and it seemed a most appropriate title for a new book addressing the same subject matter in these tumultuous days.

I find the boldness of these people offensive and a gross representation of how some white folk address Black agency in the world. Forget the fact that the book shares the narratives of Black children, women, and men historically and in present day who suffer daily under the unjust oppression of the American enterprise. Forget the fact that in this age of alternative truths, the history of historically Black colleges and universities has been recast as an example of the success of school choice as opposed to being necessarily emergent in a society that made Black literacy illegal and barred Black people from attending white schools. And never mind the fact that slavery has been recast as an instance of immigration for Africans seeking a better life for their descendants in America.

This is the grossest of white privilege, a system empowered by the fatal legacy of notions of white supremacy, one that has always sought to undervalue the voice of others, especially if those voices failed to meet the standard of their Eurocentric notions of respectability. With a few characters haplessly released upon the Internet, they have employed weapons of silence and erasure, suggesting that Black vernacular deems a work unworthy of serious engagement. Undoubtedly, they do so by illuminating a gross hypocrisy. For generations, white people have found our contributions to American culture wildly entertaining, and when at all possible, have sought to colonize and make a commodity out of our culture for their financial gain. Black culture is only acceptable as long as it is entertaining and can be controlled. For some, as soon as our culture strengthens resistance or becomes revolutionary, it is deemed inaccessible, unwarranted, and ignorant.

Stakes is too high to care what some white folk think. It is more important now than ever before that we tell our own narratives, less they be used against us to promote platforms that will further harm our community. Their comfort is not our concern. Although our national obsession has shifted, unarmed Black folk are still being cut down by police. And the promise of the current presidential administration to restore law and order in our inner cities is no less than a national call of open season against Black and Brown people. As Muslim grandmothers and infants are denied entry into our country, and as racists and Anti-Semites continue to be appointed to positions of great influence in our national government, how comfortable or uncomfortable some white people are made with how my community chooses to verbally express our pain and struggle for justice and equality on these shores is inconsequential.

I believe this critique, and other critiques like it, to be a cover for white fragility and white tears. Some white folk have grown weary of our calls for justice now convinced that they are the true victims of history. These are they who believe that all struggles within our community are merely the result of Black pathology, and they fail to see how unjust systems continue to rage against us.

However, you cannot control the agency of my people. Our voice is our resistance. It is not designed for your comfort, nor does it need your approval. It is meant to shake you awake from your slumber that you might join the struggle and challenge notions of white supremacy in the places and spaces to which Black people are often denied access, spaces and places where the stain of notions of white supremacy has been passed down as a birthright to new generations, namely your churches and your homes.

The time is now to resist.

The time is now for movement. The time is now to demand justice and equality for all. Without question, stakes is high. Yet, when it comes to white fragility, white tears, and Eurocentric notions of respectability, ain’t nobody got time for that.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

In one of the most aggressive capital punishment states in the country, a new prosecutor is drawing praise for her refusal to seek the death penalty in any of her cases going forward. But she’s also drawing harsh rebuke from the state’s Republican lawmakers.

State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced Thursday morning that death was off the table for criminal cases in Orange and Osceola counties, which are under her jurisdiction.

“I will not be seeking the death penalty in the cases handled in my office,” Ayala said. “Let me be very clear, however, I will continue to hold people who do harm to this community accountable for their actions.” 

Ayala’s decision means she will not seek death for Markeith Loyd, who is accused of a December 2016 double murder. Loyd, 41, is charged in the slaying of Sade Dixon, his pregnant ex-girlfriend, as well as Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton, who was shot multiple times. 

Following her announcement, Ayala refused a demand from Republican Gov. Rick Scott that she recuse herself from Loyd’s case.

In response, Scott signed an executive order yanking Ayala from the case and reassigning it to State Attorney Brad King of Florida’s 5th Judicial District.

In a statement, Scott said he was “outraged and sickened” by the two murders. 

“These families deserve a state attorney who will aggressively prosecute Markeith Loyd to the fullest extent of the law, and justice must be served,” Scott said.

Scott’s office did not clarify how it will respond to other capital cases that may arise while Ayala is in office. 

The struggle highlights the fault lines in Florida’s fraught capital punishment system, which has been the subject of scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“In just over a year, Florida’s death penalty statute has twice been ruled unconstitutional,” Ayala said. “A new statute was enacted this past Tuesday morning. That’s Florida’s second death penalty statute in less than two years.” 

In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that the state’s practice of judicial override was unconstitutional. The practice had allowed a judge to ignore a jury’s recommendation of life in prison to instead impose a death sentence. Alabama is now the only state that has judicial override, and it has a bill underway to scrap the practice. 

Following Hurst, Florida still permitted death sentences by non-unanimous jury vote, requiring at least 10 votes rather than 12. Scott signed a bill Tuesday to require a unanimous jury vote in death sentences. 

Ayala’s actions drew praise from groups opposed to capital punishment, including the Equal Justice Initiative, Amnesty International and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Meanwhile, Orlando Police Chief John Mina and state Republicans including U.S. Rep. Bob Cortes and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, slammed Ayala’s stand as “dangerous” and outrageous. 

“State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s decision today sends a dangerous message to residents and visitors of the greater Orlando area — furthermore, it is a blatant neglect of duty and a shameful failure to follow the law as a constitutionally elected officer,” Bondi said in a statement. 

Ayala won election in 2016 in a race that, like all but three state judicial circuit races, was uncontested. 

She explained her decision at the Thursday news conference by saying that, while she understood some law enforcement officers and victims’ families would be upset, her decision was based on evidence, not emotion. She pointed to the repeated legal setbacks endured by Florida’s death penalty system as well as its ballooning cost. 

Sentencing someone to death in Florida costs roughly $2.5 million more than a life sentence of 40 years (the average age of Florida’s death row inmates when they commit their crime is about 30), Ayala said, citing figures from the American Bar Association. 

Ayala also cited research indicating that the death penalty does not make law enforcement safer or reduce crime. Its only certainty is that the obstacles that range from legal challenges to drug shortages make it impossible to promise that the families of victims will get closure.

I am prohibited from making the severity of sentences the index of my effectiveness.
State Attorney Aramis Ayala

“Some are left waiting for an execution that will never occur,” Ayala said. “I cannot, in good faith, look a victim in the face and promise that a death sentence handed down in our courts will ever result in execution.” 

She rejected the idea that automatically taking death off the table eliminates a valuable bargaining chip for prosecutors.  

“One thing that I think is inhumane is to negotiate life,” she said. 

“My duty is to seek justice, which is fairness, objectivity and decency. I am prohibited from making the severity of sentences the index of my effectiveness.”

Ayala said she would “absolutely” change her mind if evidence emerged to demonstrate Florida’s death penalty could be administered quicker, cheaper and error-free. 

“This has been an inconsistent system since I took office,” she said. 

In Denver, Beth McCann, a recently elected district attorney, said in January that she would refuse to pursue the death penalty. In a statement Thursday, she praised Ayala’s decision. 

“The state should not be in the business of killing people. The other issue is the enormous cost and the years — even decades — of litigation involved in a death penalty case. The money the state spends on death penalty cases can be saved to prosecute others,” McCann said. “Life in prison is not a walk in the park. It provides appropriate severe punishment and keeps the defendant off the street, and life in prison with parole is certain and final.”

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Sure, sometimes you get on each other’s nerves, but no one knows you better than your brother or sister. That might be why no one is better suited to be your bestie than your sibling. 

Below, 27 things that will just make sense if your brother or sister is your ride-or-die.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) publicly denounced Republicans’ silence on recent “racist remarks” made by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

Gutiérrez spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday morning, standing in front of a poster featuring tweets and quotes from King, as well as words of support for him from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The representative first addressed King’s tweet Sunday applauding the anti-Islam stance of Geert Wilders, a former prime minister candidate in the Netherlands.

Gutiérrez broke down why King’s words were so offensive to Americans who aren’t white.

“In context, what it means is A) Steve King believes Western civilization is under attack by ‘outsiders,’ and B) those outsiders can never be assimilated or be considered part of ‘our civilization,’” he said of the tweet.

The Illinois congressman used his grandson as proof of why he feels King is wrong.

“God knows what Rep. King would think of my grandson, who likes to tell me that in this arm he’s Puerto Rican, in this one he’s Mexican, but he says, Grandpa [in my heart], I am 100 percent American,” Gutiérrez said.

A day after the tweet, King said during a radio interview with Iowa’s 1040 WHO that “Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other” before these two populations overtake white people in the U.S. Gutiérrez criticized Republicans for not denouncing both the tweet and the comments.

“If he traveled somewhere without getting permission or he accepted a gift like tickets to a game without the prior approval of the Congress, he would be punished. He might get censured or called out in some way,” Gutiérrez said. “But for making racist comments, for supporting a racist candidate in someone else’s election, or for saying things that receive high praise from David Duke and the KKK, nothing is going to happen.”

“I have not heard leaders in the Republican Party scrambling to say that Steve King does not represent their views on race, religion, diversity, and the threat that ‘somebody else’s babies’ pose to American civilization,” he continued. 

The congressman went on to say people like King say “hurtful, xenophobic” things because they feel empowered by the presence of White House advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a president “who wants us all to fear Muslims, to fear Mexicans and frankly, to fear all Latinos, even my American-born grandson.”

Gutiérrez warned about the consequences of normalizing rhetoric like King’s. 

“This is what happens when good American men and women remain silent,” he said. “When we do not stand up to the bully, the racist, and the nationalist, they get more and more empowered and their actions become more and more normal.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), the first Latina elected to the U.S. Senate, similarly called King’s tweet “offensive.” She also echoed Gutiérrez’s concerns about the impact of King’s remarks.

“Whether it’s the rhetoric coming out from the Trump administration, or people affiliated with that administration, or members of Congress who are continuing down this path of this racist rhetoric, it is having consequences,” Cortez Masto told a small group of Hispanic reporters on Tuesday. “And anybody hearing it should step up and call it for what it is and hold it accountable so that people know that we’re not going to stand for it. And we are going to protect those who will be at the receiving end of that discriminatory racist rhetoric.”

 Watch Gutiérrez’s full remarks in the video above. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Today, 20 women and girls were added to a lawsuit against former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar, bringing the total number of women suing the physician to 78. Eighty-one women and girls have come forward with allegations of abuse against Nassarsince two gymnasts publicly accused him of sexual abuse in September.

As of Thursday afternoon, 78 of the 81 alleged victims are suing Nassar, MSU and USA Gymnastics in six separate lawsuits spanning both federal and state courts. The lawsuits allege that Nassar sexually abused the young women during medical appointments, dating as far back as 1997. According to the Detroit Free Press, Nassar assaulted girls as young as 12 on MSU’s campus, a gymnastics club in Dimondale, MI, as well as places he traveled during his time with USA Gymnastics. 

USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny resigned on Thursday afternoon in the wake of the allegations. “It has been heartbreaking to learn of instances of abuse and it sickens me that young athletes would be exploited in such a manner,” Penny wrote in a statement announcing his resignation. 

Most of the women who have come forward against Nassar are athletes or former athletes, many of whom were top-tier gymnasts. In a September interview with the Indianapolis Star, the first two women to publicly accuse Nassar alleged that when they were minors, the physician fondled and penetrated them with his fingers ― all under the guise of medical care. Both said Nassar penetrated them vaginally and anally without gloves or lubricant. 

“I was very confused, trying to reconcile what was happening with the person he was supposed to be,” former gymnast Rachael Denhollander told IndyStar in September. “He’s this famous doctor. He’s trusted by my friends. He’s trusted by these other gymnasts. How could he reach this position in the medical profession, how could he reach this kind of prominence and stature if this is who he is?” 

I was very confused, trying to reconcile what was happening with the person he was supposed to be.
Rachel Denhollander, Former Gymnast

Nassar, a 53-year-old Michigan-native, was a highly-renowned doctor in the gymnastics world for years. He worked as the USA Gymnastics’ team doctor during four Olympic games and was a faculty member at Michigan State’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. In September 2015, Nassar quietly resigned from his position on the USA Gymnastics team, and in 2016 was fired from MSU after the allegations went public. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Colleges across the U.S. continue to be plagued with fliers promoting racism.

On Monday, multiple fliers posted by members of Vanguard America ― a white supremacy group ― were found on the University of Maryland Campus. 

“A notice to all white Americans,” one flier read. “It is your civic duty to report any and all illegal aliens. …They are criminals. America is a white nation.”

“Carry the torch of your people,” another said. It was the third time in three months that fliers were found on the campus, according to The Washington Post.

Similar fliers were found the same day at George Washington University in D.C. 

“I cannot believe this is taking place today in the U.S., let alone on a college campus in a liberal city like D.C.,” Corey Garlick, a law student, told The Washington Post. 

“America is, by right and history, a White nation,” Vanguard America says on its website. “It deserves to stay that way, and it deserves a political system that realizes and preserves the essence of its unique people in all forms.”

In a statement to The Post, Vanguard America said they were hoping to “raise awareness” of white supremacy.

Since President Donald Trump’s election, hate-filled fliers have been found on college campuses in states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida and Oklahoma. At the University of Hartford, Connecticut, an email was sent to members of the school community in February saying that “White America is under attack.”

The Anti-Defamation League has catalogued more than 100 incidents of racist fliers being found on more than 60 campuses across 25 states. The ADL said they have seen a surge in fliers since January. 

Rosanne Hoaas, a spokeswoman for the University of Maryland Police Department, told The Washington Post they will review security cameras to find those responsible for the most recent fliers.

“We are concerned and are investigating these acts as hate/bias incidents,” she told the publication.

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News of an Oprah Winfrey-led cast for the movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” has been circulating for some time now, and there’s finally a trailer and a release date. 

HBO on Wednesday uploaded a trailer for the movie, inspired by the true story of Henrietta Lacks, a cancer patient whose cells were used by doctors ― without her consent ― for research that would lead to life-saving advancements in the medical field like the polio vaccine and gene mapping.

The movie, directed by George C. Wolfe, follows the Lacks family as they seek acknowledgement and remediation for the unauthorized use of their mother’s cells, known as HeLa cells.

The movie is based on the 2010 best-selling book of the same name by journalist Rebecca Skloot. 

Winfrey plays Lack’s daughter Deborah, who works closely with Skloot, played by Rose Byrne, to seek justice for her mother.

The movie will premiere on HBO on Saturday, April 22,  at 8 pm. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Afro-Dominicana artist Zahira Kelly went so many years without seeing images that acknowledged her ethnic identity, she felt she hardly existed.

When she finally “gave birth” to herself, as she puts it, she documented the start of her evolution in a 2011 blog post titled “If I don’t exist in your historic & present consciousness or books or media, do I really exist?”

But the most standout work to come from the 34-year-old Bronx native, who now resides in Georgia, would be her art. Kelly’s illustrations, paintings and digital prints capture the patterns of objectification, ostracism and oppression that countless black women have experienced. 

From images that praise the art of twerking to women finding their self-worth in the wake of toxic romantic relationships, Kelly unapologetically places the glories, woes and ironies of black womanhood front and center in her work. 

Warning: the following images contain nudity and graphic content.

In her latest collection, the Nude Series, she created three works of art (one of which is above) that are a combination of drawing, watercolor, graphic illustration and photography. They not only illustrate the beauty of black women, but also contain proclamations of self-love, something we often have to fight to maintain.

Kelly ― who also created the 2016 hashtag #MaybeHeDoesn’tHitYou to emphasize the insidious nature of emotional partner abuse ― said the above painting, titled “I’m Too Good For You,” was inspired by the frequent mistreatment she’s seen women around her endure. 

“I just know so many black women who are dealing with so much dehumanization at every level of life, romantically, at work, just in general. Society doesn’t really value black women,” Kelly told The Huffington Post earlier this week. 

“We’re sort of internalizing it,” she said. “But the point of the [painting] is … we’re just all too f**king good for it.” 

One of Kelly’s earlier works illustrates the burden of constantly being devalued by external forces. The painting, titled “Inconvenient,” was a visual manifestation of a graphic dream that Kelly had a couple of years ago. 

“I was watching [this woman] and I could tell that she was used to feeling pain and at some point, she sort of felt it was her position in life,” Kelly said of the dream. “So she just started gutting herself.”

She said the vividness of the dream stuck with her, partly because it was symbolic of her tendency at the time to stifle her own self-worth to “comply with the rest of the world.”

“We are used to cutting ourselves down for everyone else and then we just start doing it even if no one else is around,” she said.

While Kelly has said that her art is simply a reflection of her experiences, for a number of black women, it’s a mirror into our own. 

More of her artwork can be seen below:

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices