Month: March 2017

NEW YORK, NY ― “Life hands all of us setbacks,” Hillary Clinton said to a room full of women the day before International Women’s Day. “I’ve had my ups and my downs, in the last months I’ve done my share of sleeping, a little soul-searching and reflecting, long walks in the woods.”

The audience chuckled somewhat sadly, because if anyone understands the impact of a woman’s setback, it’s Clinton and her supporters.

The former Secretary of State and presidential candidate gave a rousing speech at a luncheon for girls empowerment non-profit Girls Inc., calling on women to support women and girls across the country:

In big ways and small, the unfinished business of the 21st century is the full equality of women. There are still too few women in the upper reaches of the private sector, academia, science, technology, not to mention politics and government. And we’ve all heard the saying, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ So each of us should take it upon ourselves to do what we can to help more girls and young women see themselves at the highest reaches of every field.

Clinton was at the luncheon to receive Girls Inc.’s Champion For Girls Award.

“We are honoring Secretary Clinton for her lifelong commitment to the empowerment of girls and women and helping improve the conditions in which they live,” Judy Vredenburgh, President and CEO Girls Inc., told HuffPost. “We share a passion for supporting the young people who need us most; those who are navigating real and profound social and economic barriers.”

Clinton not only stressed the importance of representation, but acknowledged the barriers that young girls and women face when they try to enter fields or positions that have not traditionally been welcoming to women. She also directly called out the need for women to support other women who choose to run for elected office.

“We have to form our own chorus twice as loud convincing our friends, our colleagues, ourselves that women are both smart enough and good enough to be considered for anything they choose to pursue,” she said. “Let us hope there is a wave of young women running for office in America. And let’s be sure we support them in every way we can. Let’s help them shatter stereotypes and lift each other up. They are the history-makers, the glass ceiling breakers of tomorrow.” 

Skip to the 12:30 mark to watch Clinton’s remarks.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Warning: “This Is Us” spoilers below.

“This Is Us” has captivated TV viewers since its premiere, debuting to rave reviews and great ratings. But there’s one thing fans have been waiting for all season long: the truth about Jack Pearson’s unknown death.

Will we finally learn what happened to Milo Ventimiglia’s beloved character on the season finale? 

During a recent Build Series interview with The Huffington Post, Ventimiglia advised fans to make a tissue run before March 14.

“Get ready,” he said of the Season 1 finale. “Get yourself a watching buddy, get some food, which you probably won’t eat. I don’t know, maybe you want a warm blanket or a puppy. Kleenex, probably mandatory. And yeah, get ready, it’s going to be a little stressful.”

Ventimiglia said that although “we all know something has happened to Jack,” Papa Pearson will remain on the show for the foreseeable future.

“Dan Fogelman, our creator, said to me that no matter what, even though Jack is dead in the present day, that I’m not going anywhere,” he explained. “I think the idea that Fogelman really wanted to do was open up the story so that the characters you guys grow to love have a life beyond actual life. Even though when you do find out how and when and why Jack died, it doesn’t mean that the character is gone or I’m gone, its just you shift direction and tell a different story. He equates it to having a family album ― you open up to a random page and you just start telling a story based on that photo.”

Ahead of the finale, Jack and his wife, Rebecca (Mandy Moore), have been facing some ups and downs. After Rebecca reveals her plans to go out on the road to tour with her band ― and her ex Ben ― Jack gets discouraged and seemingly heads down a darker path. 

“Jack loves his wife and loves his kids, it’s very simple. Those two things are his life … Those two things are two screws holding him together ― [if] one gets loose or one falls out or one just kind of goes away, his life would start to unravel,” Ventimiglia shared. “They’re a real-life couple. Sure, they’re romantic and they have a storybook romance and life together, but they’re human. They’re flawed. They can break.” 

Jack’s drinking will also become a problem, Ventimiglia said, if he lets it affect his family unit. 

“It’s not that he’s a bad man when he’s drinking ― he’s not abusive, he’s not verbal ― he’s just not quite present. And I think when you really plug that into the cracks that are starting to form with Jack and Rebecca, that’s just going to make it worse.” 

At the end of Episode 17, “What Now?,” we see a seemingly inebriated Jack get into his car and drive off after watching a present-day Kate (Chrissy Metz) tell Toby (Chris Sullivan), “It’s my fault. I’m the reason that he’s dead.”

Fogelman told Variety in a cover story this week that the finale is “definitely the darkest place we’ve been.”

“There is a scene with Milo and Mandy that I have not seen on television,” he said. “I think it’s going to rock people.”

Mandy Moore agreed.

“We’re going to destroy America by the end of the season,” she said. “As if they don’t have enough to be upset about at this point in time anyway. But they’re going to be upset for a completely different set of reasons.”

Despite what happens in the final episode, Ventimiglia feels so lucky to be a part of a show that reaches a large demographic of people and equates the success of “This Is Us” to the fact that it mirrors real families and their personal situations. 

“It’s a show that’s built for everyone,” he said, “and then it’s also available to everyone, you know, if you have a TV and bunny ears. It’s very important to me to make sure I show up, I’m present, and I do the best possible job with Jack I can. Just make him a real man.”

Watch the full Build Series interview with Milo Ventimiglia below. The “This Is Us” finale airs Tuesday, March 14, at 9 p.m. on NBC. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

President Donald Trump tweeted a message of support for International Women’s Day on Wednesday. It didn’t go down well.

With his woeful track record of sexist and misogynistic behavior, Trump’s claim to have “tremendous respect” for women rang hollow for many Twitter users.

See Trump’s tweets here:

Hundreds seized on his call to honor “the critical role of women here in America and around the world” by referencing his disgusting hot mic comments on the infamous 2005 bus ride with former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush.

They also recalled THAT image of Trump signing an anti-abortion executive order, surrounded entirely by white men.

Here’s a sampling of the responses so far:

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Google’s new Doodle applauds 13 inspirational women from around the world who’ve changed history.

Mexican painter and activist Frida Kahlo, American journalist and suffragist Ida B. Wells and English mathematician Ada Lovelace are among the trailblazers the tech giant pays tribute to.

The homage is in honor of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, which celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women whilst campaigning for a gender equal world.

The Doodle is presented as a slideshow, which begins with a grandmother telling her young granddaughter a bedtime story about groundbreaking women from across the ages.

Check out the Doodle via Google’s homepage here, and see every woman featured below:

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— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Dr. Ben Carson recently referred to African-Americans as “involuntary immigrants,” but Trevor Noah thinks that’s just plain wrong.

“Look, I love Ben Carson, but calling slaves immigrants is like saying, ‘It’s not kidnapping. That person just got a free vacation in a basement,’” Noah said Tuesday on “The Daily Show.”

Noah pointed out that President Barack Obama said something similar in 2015, but Noah said there’s a simple reason why you can’t compare slaves to immigrants.

“Slaves weren’t immigrants, because an immigrant has choice,” Noah said. “They choose the country they’re going to because they hope it will bring them a better life.”

Noah thinks that saying that slaves are just another group of immigrants erases how black people were uniquely oppressed in America.

“It helps justify blaming African-Americans for their hardships. You can’t ignore the deficit. It’s like judging white people for bad twerking without acknowledging their asses are historically disadvantaged.” 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A mother in Raleigh, North Carolina, is seeking justice for her 15-year-old son, who says he was the target of a white student’s continued racism and harassment at school. The teen’s story has gained nationwide attention after a video of his altercation with the white student Friday went viral. 

Wake Forest High School sophomore Micah Speed is captured in an Instagram video, posted by a fellow student, pulling the white teen to the ground by his backpack. The white student gets up, calls Micah a “black piece of s**t” and walks away. Micah then pulled the student to the ground again. A female faculty member begins reprimanding Micah, warning him not to touch her or he’s in “big trouble,” and telling him the white student only “used words.”

Micah was suspended for 10 days. The other student wasn’t punished at the time.

What the video doesn’t show, however, is the alleged harassment that Micah said led him to his boiling point. Micah told ABC 11 that he endured two months of the student’s racial slurs and degrading comments before the two got into a physical altercation on Friday.

“He threw the N-word around very loosely, said things that I looked like I bathed in coffee beans and dirt,” Micah told the outlet. He said that he reported the harassment to a teacher three times in the past.

Micah told WRAL that the day of the altercation, the student told him that he should “name [his] kids crack head and convict because that’s what they would grow up to be.” But the point that pushed him “over the edge” is when the student showed Micah a video of him shooting a gun and threatened to kill him and his family, he told CBS North Carolina. 

Since the video of the altercation went viral, students have been rallying in support of Micah. Someone started a Change.org petition demanding the high school address the “bullying” and “blatant racism.” It’s gotten more than 16,000 signatures as of Tuesday.

On Monday, students protested in the hallways of their school. They chanted, “Bring Micah back.” 

Micah’s suspension has been reduced to five days since his story gained traction. His mom, Yolanda Speed, told News & Observer that she was told that the administration decided to punish the white student at that time as well, but she wasn’t given any details. Speed believes the other student was punished because the video went viral. 

She told WRAL that although she doesn’t condone fighting, she understands that her son was pushed to a point where he felt he needed to react physically. She also said she wants the teachers and administrators to be held accountable. 

The Huffington Post reached out to Micah and Wake Forest High School and did not get an immediate response. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

By Lisa Ryan

On Wednesday, women around the world will go on strike in observance of International Women’s Day as part of “A Day Without a Woman.” While not every woman has the luxury to take a day off from paid work, a new analysis from the Center for American Progress determined what it might cost the American economy if every working woman actually were able to strike tomorrow: around $21 billion in gross domestic product.

The Center for American Progress calculated that women’s labor contributes $7.6 trillion to America’s GDP each year — which is more than the entirety of the country of Japan’s GDP of $5.2 trillion. Moreover, women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, the analysis found, so women’s financial contributions have also become “increasingly important” to their individual families’ well-being.

But CAP notes that the $21 billion figure doesn’t “fully represent” the whole picture of what would happen to the economy if all women took a day off, since women’s paid labor contributions are still undervalued, as they tend to be overrepresented in economic sectors that are low-profit. Those sectors include child care (women make up 94 percent of workers in that field), home health services (84 percent), registered nursing (90 percent), preschool and kindergarten teachers (97 percent), and more.

“Even if women’s paid work was valued more accurately, this still would not include the other ways in which women contribute to the economy. This is because economic measures such as GDP do not include unpaid labor, which is mostly taken on by women,” the analysis noted. As such, women spent 150 percent more time on household chores than men, in addition to spending more than twice the amount men dedicate to caregiving.

“Women have long played a vital role in the economy, but women’s earnings and economic contributions are becoming more and more essential,” analysis co-author Kate Bahn, an economist at CAP, said in a statement. “However, due to occupational segregation and the devaluation of jobs that women disproportionately hold, outdated labor standards, and insufficient work-family policies, women in the United States aren’t able to meet their full economic potential.”

[Center for American Progress]

More from The Cut:

What Does It Mean to Strike From Child Care?

7 Polish Women Offer Advice to Americans on Fighting for Abortion Rights

What Camille Paglia Understands About the Trump Era

25 Famous Women on Resilience and Rebellion

The Only Way to Know If Striking Works Is to Do It

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

In a time of political unrest, some people are turning to small positive acts as a way to push back against the larger trends of intolerance.

Celeste Ng, author of the award-winning Everything I Never Told You, started the hashtag #smallacts on Twitter after the election of President Donald Trump. Her goal: to share small-scale but meaningful actions she was taking to resist injustice and support threatened communities, from people of color to LGBTQ individuals. 

People have since used the hashtag to share their own acts of solidarity, including attending a lecture on racism and donating books on the immigrant experience to a local public school.

“I began using the #smallacts hashtag on Twitter shortly after the 2016 election as a way to resist,” Ng wrote in a Teen Vogue commentary in January. “To resist the intolerance growing in our nation, to resist an upcoming administration that I believe threatens to pull us backward and strip rights from those already marginalized.”

The author has suggested such small acts of resistance as calling your elected representatives, donating diapers to local refugee families and subscribing to news outlets to show your support.

On Tuesday, the day after Trump issued a new executive order barring travelers from six majority-Muslim countries, Ng shared another list of actions she recently took ― including placing books by writers of color in a Little Free Library, a no-cost neighborhood book exchange program that exists around the world. She also urged followers to share their own efforts.

“It’s easy to feel helpless — like you can’t fight the tide,” Ng wrote in Teen Vogue. “But remember: small actions can have a huge impact, and one person like you can inspire others to action.”

Here are a few small-scale but important ways that 18 other Twitter users are fighting hate.

For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. Know a story from your community? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Tuesday marks 52 years since Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) helped lead the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in demand of voting rights for black Americans. 

In a series of tweets Tuesday, Lewis reflected on the demonstration that took place March 7, 1965, which was eventually written into history books as “Bloody Sunday” ― known as one of the most brutal assaults against peaceful protestors in modern American history. State troopers, most of them white, left nearly 600 activists bloody and beaten as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march led by Lewis, then chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which had helped organize the demonstration.

Though officers attacked demonstrators with batons and tear gas, two subsequent marches for voting rights followed same path from Selma to Montgomery, and both were led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. However, Lewis has always recalled Bloody Sunday in particular as a protest that presented to him both great challenges and unforgettable lessons on life and activism.

Read his moving account of the march below in the tweets he posted Tuesday with the hashtag #Selma52: 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Ta-Nehisi Coates told a group of students and faculty at Harvard that if the school really wants to atone for its past sins, it needs to pay up.

The Ivy League school held a conference on March 3 called “Universities and Slavery: Bound By History,” which aimed to unpack the university’s own past involvement in the institution of slavery. 

The day-long event included several panels and speakers, with the university’s president Drew G. Faust giving the opening remarks. “Harvard was directly complicit in slavery from the college’s earliest days in the 17th century,” said Faust, according to The Harvard Crimson. “This history and its legacy have shaped our institution in ways we have yet to fully understand.”

Research conducted by Harvard students in 2007 revealed that two Harvard presidents actually owned slaves on the campus, and that the university periodically accepted large donations from wealthy slave owners. 

Coates, who was the keynote speaker at the conference, reportedly received loud applause when he called on Harvard and other complicit institutions to pay reparations for slavery. 

“I think every single one of these universities needs to make reparations,” Coates said.

“I don’t know how you conduct research that shows that your very existence is rooted in a great crime, and just say well, shrug—and maybe at best say ‘I’m sorry’—and you walk away.”

Coates added that he believes its important that institutions not shy away from this discussion, uncomfortable as it may be. 

“I think you need to use the language of reparation,” he said. “I think it’s very, very important to actually say that word, to acknowledge that something was done in these institutions.”

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices