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There is very little recorded history on Yasuke, the young African man believed to be Japan’s first black samurai, but his story may soon be told on the silver screen.

Lionsgate has asked screenwriter Gregory Wilden, the creator of the 1986 film “Highlander,” to write a script for an action drama based on Yasuke’s centuries-old story, according to the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.

The Lionsgate film “is based on the true story of an African whose journey to Japan comes with conflicting background stories,” Widen told Deadline last week. “The one I’ve chosen is that he was a slave soldier after the fall of Abysinnian Bengal, a black kingdom run by Ethiopians.”

In that story, Yasuke was sold into slavery and “found himself in the care of Alessandro Valignano, an Italian missionary,” Widen explained.  “They formed a bond, and when there were complications in Rome, he was sent to Japan and took Yasuke with him,” he added.

Yasuke was an African slave in his early 20s when Valignano brought him on a missionary trip to Japan in 1579, according to historical accounts that Oxy reviewed. He stood out there because of his tall stature and dark skin and he soon became a local celebrity. His real name is unknown, but locals called him Yasuke in Japan ― likely a Japanese version of his birth name.

When Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga learned of Yasuke and his impressive strength, he hired the young African as a feudal bodyguard. Under Nobunaga, Yasuke quickly rose in the ranks to become a well-respected samurai warrior who spoke fluent Japanese.

“They presented him with a blade, and he went to work,” Widen told Deadline. 

Parts of Yasuke’s story lived on in a 1916 Japanese children’s book called Kuro-suke, about a young, black samurai who often dreams of his parents in Africa.

Mike De Luca and Stephen L’Heureux are co-producing the film, which is currently called “Black Samurai.” Lionsgate has not released any other information about the film and the media distributor did not immediately return The Huffington Post’s request for comment.

Below, a sculpture of Yasuka created by South African artist Nicola Roos.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) had nothing to say to Bill O’Reilly after the Fox News host made a racist and sexist comment about her Tuesday. But she did have a lot to say to viewers tuning in to MSNBC.

“I am a strong black woman, and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined,” Waters said after MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked her about O’Reilly’s disastrous insult.

“I cannot be thought to be afraid of Bill O’Reilly or anybody. And I’d like to say to women out there everywhere: Don’t allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people, to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are. Do what you do. And let us get on with discussing the real issues of this country.”

The California congresswoman also thanked Hillary Clinton for coming to her defense earlier Tuesday, saying that she appreciated the former secretary of state “standing up for all women and in particular for black women.”

Hours earlier, O’Reilly apologized to Waters in a statement to The Huffington Post for his comment about Waters’ hair. During an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” O’Reilly responded to a clip of the congresswoman addressing the bigoted behavior of President Donald Trump’s supporters by saying, “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig.”

Waters said she had nothing to say to O’Reilly but railed against the Fox News host and his former boss, Roger Ailes, for having “no credibility.” 

“They have been sued by women. They have had to pay millions of dollars in fines for harassment and other kinds of things. And so we know about that checkered past. And we also know that when a woman stands up and speaks truth to power that there will be attempts to put her down, and so I’m not going to be put down. I’m not going to go anywhere. I’m going to stay on the issues,” she said.

Shortly after Waters appeared on MSNBC, O’Reilly addressed his racist remark during his Fox News show, but he snickered while he issued an apology to the congresswoman.

Judging from the congresswoman’s inspiring response, she’s not too concerned about O’Reilly.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly apologized Tuesday night for making a racist, sexist crack about Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) earlier in the day. 

But while apologizing, the “O’Reilly Factor” host snickered. 

While on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning, O’Reilly was shown a clip of Waters speaking out against President Donald Trump and his supporters. 

“I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig,” he said.

He released a statement apologizing later in the day, then delivered another apology on his show.

O’Reilly said Waters is “totally sincere in her belief system” and “should not be marginalized by political opponents.” 

He said: 

“I made that mistake this morning on ‘Fox & Friends.’ I said in a simple jest that the congresswoman’s hair distracted me. Well, that was stupid. I apologize. It had no place in the conversation.”

However, O’Reilly snickered in the middle of the apology. 

O’Reilly then delivered a lecture accusing Waters of “demagoguery,” questioning her patriotism and calling on her and others on the left to “stop the ideological nonsense and really focus on what America offers.”

See his full segment in the clip above, which includes a discussion with radio talk-show host Jamila Bey. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

SAN FRANCISCO ― Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held up reporter April Ryan and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) as examples of how women face routine sexism in the workplace, arguing Tuesday afternoon that even women in the highest echelons of their fields face structural barriers to success. 

Hours earlier, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told Ryan, the Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, to stop shaking her head as he answered her question during Tuesday’s press briefing. And during a segment on “Fox & Friends,” Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly mocked Waters’ hair. O’Reilly later apologized for his remarks.

Clinton said both incidents reflected how women have to deal with “everyday sexism” in ways their male colleagues do not ― even if that sexism isn’t as overt as it once was. 

“Just look at all that’s happened in the last few days to women who were simply doing their job,” she said. “April Ryan, a respected journalist with unrivaled integrity, was doing her job just this afternoon in the White House press room when she was patronized and cut off trying to ask a question. One of your own California congresswomen, Maxine Waters, was taunted with a racist joke about her hair.”

“Now too many women, especially women of color, have had a lifetime of practice taking precisely these kinds of indignities in stride,” Clinton said. “But why should we have to? And any woman who thinks this couldn’t be directed at her is living in a dream world.”   

“It’s not like I didn’t know all the nasty things they were saying about me,” she added, in apparent reference to the 2016 presidential campaign.  

Clinton’s remarks came during a speech at the Professional BusinessWomen of California conference in downtown San Francisco, an annual gathering started by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). The conference was heavily attended by women working in the tech industry, many of whom gave the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee long standing ovations at both the beginning and conclusion of her remarks. 

Appearing later Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes,” Waters thanked Clinton for her remarks.

“Let me thank Hillary Clinton for standing up for all women, in particular for black women,” she said. “Let me just say this: I’m a strong black woman and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined. I cannot be thought to be afraid of Bill O’Reilly or anybody.”

Ryan tweeted about Clinton’s comment:

Keeping her audience in mind, Clinton also called out Silicon Valley companies like Uber for allowing systemic sexism to thrive. She praised former Uber engineer Susan Fowler for blowing the whistle on the ride-hailing company and called on tech firms to do better by their female employees.  

“It is a cruel irony that stereotypes and bias ran rampant, even at companies that pride themselves as being forward-thinking,” she said. 

Clinton also frequently nodded to the elephant in the room ― her November defeat to now-President Donald Trump. She opened her speech by declaring she was “thrilled to be out of the woods,” a wink at her post-election hikes in Chappaqua, New York. 

“There’s no other place I’d rather be today,” she said. “Other than the White House.”  

She also took jabs at the lack of women in Trump’s administration as well as the president’s frequent photo-ops of him signing executive orders while surrounded by white men. Clinton also blasted House Republicans for their failed attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, particularly taking issue with conservatives’ attempts to remove mandated benefits including maternity care.

“Take away maternity care? Really?” she said. “Who do these people talk to?”

At the end of her remarks, Clinton noted that “the last months haven’t been exactly what I envisioned.” However, she said, she plans to continue fighting for “a fairer, big-hearted America.” 

Clinton’s speech in San Francisco came less than two weeks after she told a crowd in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that she’s ready to resume a role in public life. The former secretary of state will speak at Georgetown University in Washington on Friday.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Food banks across the country have been noticing a trend since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January.

In recent weeks, outlets including the Washington Post, The Nation and NPR have reported that outreach workers and enrollment assistants who help eligible immigrants enroll in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, say immigrants are canceling their benefits because they fear their participation could flag them for deportation.

Such fears appear to stem primarily from a leaked draft of an executive order saying immigrants living in the United States could be deported if it is determined they rely on some form of public assistance — like food stamps.

It is important to note, however, that no law has changed — and the official guidance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency that oversees SNAP, remains that there are no immigration consequences linked with participation in the program.

Still, that hasn’t stopped some conservatives from applauding the news. One conservative news outlet called the news “excellent!”

Jackie Vimo, a policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center, said her organization has been fielding calls from organizations across the country on the issue of SNAP benefits and deportation fears in light of recent reports.

Vimo described celebratory reactions to these reports as xenophobic and reflective of the misinformation that persists regarding who legally qualifies for SNAP benefits and who doesn’t.

“The idea that people would be celebrating children going hungry because they feel like an outsider in their country is baffling to me,” Vimo said Tuesday. “These [immigrant] families are a part of our American communities, and an attack on them is an attack on communities as a whole.”

 Below are some facts on immigrants and SNAP.

Undocumented immigrants cannot use SNAP.

According to the strict requirements for the program laid out in detail by the USDA, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive SNAP benefits.

Even immigrants living in the United States as lawful permanent residents (aka green card holders) must live in the country for five years before they qualify for the program, though some states — like California and Minnesota — run their own state-funded food assistance programs that have slightly different eligibility requirements.

Children of non-citizens are SNAP-eligible, however, as are certain groups of refugees and asylees — such as victims of trafficking. Altogether, according to the most recent data from the USDA, only about 4 percent of SNAP recipients are either refugees or other types of non-citizens.

SNAP-eligible immigrants already face barriers.

Research has shown that SNAP-eligible immigrants participate in the program at a rate markedly lower than native-born SNAP-eligible individuals.

According to a 2013 USDA analysis, only about 56 percent of SNAP-eligible immigrants participate in the program, much lower than the overall participation rate of 72 percent.

That lower participation rate has many causes. Among those cited in the same USDA analysis were language or cultural barriers to accessing benefits, a lack of awareness that they are eligible for benefits in the first place, anxiety that participating in SNAP could hurt their chances to naturalize at a later date or fear of government in general.

The fear has been there for a long time and what we’re seeing in the media is only increasing that fear.”
Shannon Maynard, Congressional Hunger Center executive director

The anti-immigration rhetoric coming from Washington of late could be adding another layer of anxiety to anxieties that were already there to begin with, Shannon Maynard, executive director of the Congressional Hunger Center, a nonprofit anti-hunger group, told HuffPost.

“The fear has been there for a long time and what we’re seeing in the media is only increasing that fear,” Maynard said. “I can empathize with folks being concerned in this political climate with signing up for SNAP.”

Immigrant families have higher rates of hunger.

The likely result of all this, advocates say, is increased food insecurity — defined by the USDA as reduced food intake, disrupted eating patterns and/or reduced quality or variety of diet — among communities already dealing with heightened rates of hunger.

And that would hurt citizen children of immigrant parents — an estimated 8.7 percent of SNAP recipients — particularly hard. These children are already more likely than children of native-born parents to be low-income and struggling to put food on the table.

“If the motivation behind this executive order is to save money, that’s a really short-sighted goal,” Maynard added. “The children will suffer and go without, and it will cost much more both morally and financially.”

Estimates of food insecurity in immigrant communities have varied widely, mostly between about 30 percent and 60 percent, but some estimates — as high as 80 percent — have been documented among farmworkers in the Southwest.

“I really hope this isn’t the new normal.”

And that impact could be felt beyond immigrants’ participation in SNAP.

Christine Melendez Ashley, deputy director of government relations at Bread for the World, another anti-hunger nonprofit, told HuffPost her organization has received word that some immigrant children are skipping school altogether due to deportation fears. Some news outlets have reported similar incidents in recent weeks.

If those children are participants in free school breakfast and school lunch programs, that means they might not be getting those meals at home.

“This anecdotal evidence is definitely concerning given what we know about food insecurity among immigrant families,” Melendez Ashley said. “I really hope this isn’t the new normal.”

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Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food, water, agriculture and our climate. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo. Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

As high school seniors, Meggie Noel and Kylie Webster-Cazeau launched a campaign last January that placed the racism faced by black students at Boston Latin School in the spotlight. Their advocacy has since been honored by the Harvard College Women’s Center and The Boston Globe.

Webster-Cazeau, now a freshman at Temple University, was featured in the university publication The Temple News this week, and she reflected on the experiences that led to the #BlackatBLS campaign.

“It got really graphic,” Webster-Cazeau said of the racism she and fellow black BLS students encountered. She and Noel belonged to the school’s organization Black Leaders Aspiring for Change and Knowledge, or BLS BLACK, which Noel presided over.

“Students telling other students, ‘Go back to Africa,’ or ‘We should have never bought you’ or students telling other students that if they were at the protests, they would’ve shot them,” she said. 

The aforementioned remarks and a number of tweets ― which included callous reactions to the 2014 killing of Michael Brown ― moved best friends Webster-Cazeau and Noel to action. And like anyone on a quest for justice, the two kept receipts of their peers’ wrongdoings. They printed out around 25 tweets that evidenced the toxic racism of their peers and showed them to their headmaster in the fall of 2014. 

After a year and a half of inaction by the administration, Webster-Cazeau and Noel launched #BlackatBLS in January 2016. To kick off the campaign, the two made a video ― which now has over 30,000 views ― that encouraged others to join them in bringing attention to the school’s racism and pushing the BLS administration to create a better environment for black students. 

The video led to the trending #BlackatBLS hashtag, which other students used to share their experiences with racism at the school. One BLS student’s headline-making interaction with a teacher just two months after the campaign took off further illustrated the reality of being a black student at the school. This incident and a May video update from BLS BLACK indicated that no social progress was made in the school.

But the campaign did lead to an investigation of the school by Boston Public Schools, as well as a citywide discussion on race that culminated in the resignation of the school’s headmaster, Lynne Mooney Teta, in June. 

Just last week, the school appointed a new headmaster ― who happens to be a black woman and BLS’s first headmaster of color.

The two have received recognition throughout the year for #BlackatBLS, including being chosen as the 2016 Bostonians of the Year by The Boston Globe and being awarded an honorable mention from The Harvard College Women’s Center. 

“It kind of felt surreal,” Webster-Cazeau said of hearing about the Boston Globe award. “It was this thing that blew up and everyone kept texting and calling and congratulating me, but it never really felt real.”

Webster-Cazeau told The Huffington Post on Tuesday that while she keeps in contact with students who may be experiencing the same things she and Noel have and gives them advice, she isn’t as actively involved with #BlackatBLS. 

“I’ve somewhat stepped back from the movement and let the students who are still at BLS take over, because they’re there every day living with the changes,” Webster-Cazeau said. 

Webster-Cazeau told The Temple News that the university’s diversity has been uplifting. Noel now attends Spelman College, a historically black women’s liberal arts institution. The two continue to be besties and stay up-to-date on matters of racial justice. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Black women on Twitter are fed up with the way they are treated in the workplace so they are sharing their experiences on Twitter. 

Activist Brittany Packnett kicked off the hashtag #BlackWomenAtWork on Tuesday afternoon in response to the disrespectful ways in which two prominent black women were treated by public figures throughout the day. 

On Tuesday’s morning episode of “Fox & Friends,” the network’s Bill O’Reilly mocked Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.) by saying he was too distracted by her “James Brown” wig to listen to anything she had to say about President Donald Trump. He has since issued an apology, claiming it was all “a jest.” Later in the day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer scolded White House correspondent April D. Ryan and told her to stop shaking her head. This happened before a room full of journalists, and it was televised and broadcast on national TV. 

Packnett said that both incidents were unacceptable, but also unfortunately familiar. 

“I’m surrounded everyday by brilliant, confident, incredible black professional women who get demeaned despite their prowess. Today, I was over it,” Packnett told The Huffington Post. “I have deep an abiding respect for Congresswoman Waters and Ms. Ryan who are both trailblazers in their fields.  They are to be respected, just like every other black woman who rises each day to contribute to this society in ways that are all-too-often taken for granted.” 

As a way to help address these issues, Packnett encouraged black women online to share some of their real-life experiences at work.   

“I wanted the hashtag to make the invisible visible, to challenge non-black people to stand with black women not just when this happens on television, but in the cube right next to them,” she said. “I’m also glad stories of triumph and achievement got shared through the hashtag as well ― black women are more than just our woes, we are triumphant.”

Read through the tweets below to get a glimpse of the reality some black women face in the workplace: 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

— 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

Chrissy Teigen, supermodel and Twitter queen extraordinaire, rarely misses an opportunity to troll someone ― even if that someone happens to be hubby John Legend.

It all started Monday evening, when Legend gave props to his wife for clapping back at Fox News when they tagged her in a tweet about the United Airlines leggings controversy. 

Legend wholeheartedly approved:

Sweet, husbandly support, right? But the exchange escalated quickly from there, thanks to Teigen:

Not even a minute later, the model figured maybe she should have toned it down a little: 

Whoops.

The tweets didn’t end there, though. Watching Legend’s work as a particularly judgmental team advisor on NBC’s “The Voice” only gave more fuel to Teigen’s fire: 

The more Legend criticized contestants, the more Teigen’s inner troll came out: 

Then, in typical troll fashion, she called him a “dick” again: 

Then a third time! 

Then lastly ― just to end the night on a high note ― she gave the world this hilarious Twitter search: 

For what it’s worth, Legend pretty much agrees with his wife:

 These two. <3

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

After years of keeping its diversity data hidden away, Uber released its first diversity report Tuesday, under the direction of its new Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey.

The report revealed that Uber employees are mostly white and mostly male, especially at the more senior levels of the company. A full 78 percent of Uber’s workers at the director level or above are men, and 76.7 percent of the company leadership is white.

Tuesday’s disclosure is part of a concerted PR effort to right the ship at the company after a series of scandals. Uber has faced allegations of rampant sexual harassment from former employees; a high-profile lawsuit that contends Uber stole trade secrets from a Google-founded competitor; numerous high-profile departures; and a video showing CEO Travis Kalanick telling off a driver.

“​This report is a first step in showing that diversity and inclusion is a priority at Uber,” Kalanick said in a statement. “I know that we have been too slow in publishing our numbers — and that the best way to demonstrate our commitment to change is through transparency.”

Still, as dismal as Uber’s numbers are, Business Insider notes they’re slightly better than several other top companies in Silicon Valley.

Overall, 63.9 percent of Uber’s workers are male, and 36.1 percent are female. That’s not great, but it’s still slightly ahead of Facebook (33 percent women), Apple (32 percent), Google (31 percent) and Microsoft (25.8 percent).

In tech positions, however ― where Silicon Valley struggles as a whole ― women make up just 15.4 percent of Uber’s workforce.

Compared to the above companies, Uber also has a (slightly) more racially diverse employee base, with 49.8 percent of employees identifying as white, 30.9 percent identifying as Asian, 8.8 percent black, 5.6 percent Hispanic, 4.3 percent identifying as “two or more races,” and 0.6 percent identifying as “other.”

Again, not great, but still ahead of the companies listed above and Silicon Valley overall.

For comparison’s sake, as of June 2016, Apple’s U.S. workforce was 56 percent white (a 2 percent increase from 2015), 19 percent Asian, 12 percent Hispanic, and 9 percent black (up 1 percent).

In a release accompanying Tuesday’s report, Uber also noted it’s making an effort to hire more women and people of color. 

That includes ramping up recruitment efforts at historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, and pledging to spend $3 million over the next three years to help boost the ranks of women and minorities in tech overall. 

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Uber board member Arianna Huffington are also conducting an independent investigation into the various sexual harassment claims at the company. (Huffington, previously the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, stepped down from her role last year.) And last week, Uber made three female executives at the company available for a conversation with reporters.

But there’s clearly much more work to be done.

“Every strength, in excess, is a weakness,” Hornsey told The New York Times. “What has driven Uber to immense success — its aggression, the hard-charging attitude — has toppled over. And it needs to be shaved back.”

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices