• Education

by Black Enterprise Shop

October 8, 2022

Babbel Helps Reshape You With Language Learning at 55% Off

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Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote, “learning another language is like becoming another person.” And while that quote may sound like writer mumbo jumbo, there are scientific studies to back up that claim — people are often different depending on the language they’re speaking. 

One survey of English-German bilinguals found the languages themselves influenced how a person communicated, which shaped how their message was received and even affected how the speaker was perceived and how they felt about themselves. And nearly two-thirds agreed that they did when over 1,000 bilingual people were asked if they felt like a different person when they spoke other languages.

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As these linguistic building blocks stack on top of each other, working together to quickly grow the arsenal of available thoughts and ideas you could use in your new language, whether it’s French, Spanish, German, or Italian. From lesson discussions with native speakers to interactive games, podcasts, and more, Babbel’s approach gets learners to understand and speak at an accelerated pace. With their method, Babbel users can usually speak and comprehend their new language in as little as 21 days.

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Babbel offers a lifetime subscription membership with access to lessons in all its 14 languages. Right now, that membership is on sale for a limited time at 55% off.

Prices subject to change.

According to the Daily Mail, a 34-year-old devout Mormon married mother-of-three, Kathleen Nimmo Lynch has been identified as the woman who was creeping with former Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka.

Lynch reportedly landed a job with the Celtics as a team service manager.

Well, Lynch and Udoka soon did the team a disservice when the affair took flight and upended Udoka’s career and hurt his family and longtime fiancee Nia Long.

It was previously revealed that Lynch’s job was to serve as a team liaison arranging travel, game tickets and even lodging for Celtics family members. She reportedly did so for Long and helped her family move to Boston.

Lynch reportedly had a longstanding friendship with Danny Ainge, 63, who was the team’s executive director of basketball operations before he left last year. Ainge got Lynch the job and according to the outlet, he is deeply disappointed that the affair happened.

“The relationship to the Ainge family or where she went to school or her religious affiliation had nothing to do with the severity of the punishment,” the source said.

“The good thing is that everyone regrets what happened and is taking responsibility, and humbled, and trying to fight for their families and lives back,” the source said.

As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, President of the Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens, became emotional during a press conference while discussing the cheating scandal and said the affair was upsetting to many of the franchise’s female staff who were dragged after social media speculation about the woman’s identity targeted them. The woman’s name has not been made public so far.

The affair reportedly came to light when the woman’s husband overheard a conversation on the couple’s doorbell camera. Udoka was suspended for the entire 2022-2023 season and released a statement apologizing to his family and the Boston Celtics.

“I want to apologize to our players, fans, the entire Celtics organization, and my family for letting them down,” wrote Udoka. “I am sorry for putting the team in this difficult situation, and I accept the team’s decision. Out of respect for everyone involved, I will have no further comment.”

Long was recently out and about with her son and offered a mere chuckle in response to a reporter’s question to whether she and Udoka were working things out.

Former talk show host Sharon Osbourne has gone on record stating that she wants her money back after claiming she donated a substantial amount to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Osbourne, who used to be a co-host on The Talk, was stopped by the cameras of TMZ on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and asked to comment on the latest controversy surrounding Kanye West. Earlier this week, the rapper/fashion designing producer displayed T-shirts stating, “WHITE LIVES MATTER.”

“I don’t understand why white lives don’t matter. I don’t understand it. It’s not my culture,” Osbourne said. “Everybody matters, don’t they?”

She was then asked if she agreed with why he started the controversy behind saying White Lives Matter, and she said she had no clue. After being told that Ye had stated that the Black Lives Matter organization was a scam, she explained that she had also donated.

“Oh, well, we gave $900,000 to that, and, uh I’d like my money back, please.”

When questioned if the combative rapper should be canceled, she answered an emphatic “nope.”

“You know what? Don’t go to his social media. Don’t listen to his music. Leave the guy alone. Let him do what he does, and if you don’t like him, do that. Leave him alone.”

She was also asked about adidas cutting ties with him, and she stated that the sneaker company “won’t cut their ties; they make too much money from him.”

The latest buzz surrounding Ye and his unorthodox way of promoting started on Monday when he and conservative commentator Candace Owens donned t-shirts emblazoned with “WHITE LIVES MATTER.” Masters of using the media to extend whatever narrative they are perpetuating, the image of the two of them standing together wearing this piece of clothing trended immediately.

As Ye appeared on Fox News Thursday evening with Tucker Carlson, he said an upcoming show he was supposed to do at SoFi Stadium on Nov. 4 had been canceled because of the controversy surrounding the t-shirts.

The 1990s pop group Right Said Fred might be wrong.

According to Beyoncé’s camp, the group is perpetrating a lie with false claims that the multiplatinum songstress used a sample of their 1992 hit, I’m Too Sexy, without permission.

Right Said Fred, which consists of two brothers, Fred and Richard Fairbrass, are not too happy with Beyoncé over the track Alien Superstar on her Renaissance album, which lifts the 1992 hit I’m Too Sexy.

Recently, while the duo was at the 2022 BMI Awards in London at the Savoy Hotel, they claimed that no one made contact from Beyoncé’s camp, and because of it, they called the artist “arrogant.”

“Normally the artist approaches us but Beyoncé didn’t because she is such an arrogant person she just had probably thought ‘come and get me’ so we heard about it after the fact when you did. But everyone else, Drake and Taylor Swift, they came to us.”

“To use our melody, they need our permission, so they send us the demo, and we approve it, and if so, we get a co-write credit. With this Beyoncé thing, there are 22 writers; it’s ridiculous, so we would get about 40p. The reason that is happening, we think, is because there is so little money now in the actual sales, people like friends, golfing partners, engineers, bookers, and the guy who brings the coke, they all want a cut.”

According to The Sun, Beyonce’s team put out a statement slamming the accusations.

“The comments made by Right Said Fred stating that Beyoncé used “I’m Too Sexy” in “Alien Superstar” without permission are erroneous and incredibly disparaging. Permission was not only granted for its use, but they publicly spoke of their gratitude for being on the album.

“For their song, there was no sound recording use, only the composition was utilized. Permission was asked of their publisher on May 11, 2022 and the publisher approved the use on June 15, 2022. They were paid for the usage in August, 2022.

“Furthermore, the copyright percentage of the Right Said Fred writers with respect to the use of “I’m Too Sexy” is a substantial portion of the composition. Collectively the Right Said Fred writers own more than any other singular writer and have co-writer credit. This accusation is false.”

Earlier this summer, Kelis made a big stink after discovering that Beyoncé’s producer, Pharrell Williams, used a song he wrote and produced for Kelis, Milkshake, in a song on the current album. The only statement Beyoncé made was taking the sample off the song, Energy.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

October 7, 2022

Two Rappers’ Murder Convictions Overturned After Judge Rules Lyrics Used as Evidence May Have Caused Racial Bias

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Two rappers in California had their murder conviction overturned after a judge cited the Racial Justice Act as the reason to vacate the charges.

According to CNN, Gary Bryant Jr. and Diallo Jackson were given a reprieve by a judge in Northern California after stating that the prosecutors’ introduction of rap lyrics and racialized rhetoric violated the Racial Justice Act.

The men were arrested and charged with the killing of Kenneth Cooper in 2014. They were found guilty of gang enhancement in 2017.

Bryant Jr. and Jackson were convicted of Cooper’s murder “for the benefit of a criminal street gang,” based on what Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Clare Maier wrote in her order. During the trial, prosecutors brought into evidence rap lyrics that identified the defendants’ ties to a gang.

When the prosecution used the men’s song lyrics at trial, the judge stated, “though not done to purposefully invoke racial bias, more likely than not triggered the jury’s implicit racial bias against African American men.” It was also written that the repeated use of a racial epithet that quoted the defendants’ lyrics, the judge discovered, was discriminatory and “dehumanizing in its reference to the African American race.”

The racialized rhetoric included terms like “pistol whip” and “drug rip.”

“It was more likely than not that these [slang] terms activated a racial stereotype” while the slur “resulted in priming the jury’s implicit racial bias against African Americans” as cited in the judge’s ruling.

The attorney for Bryant, Evan Kuluk, expressed that although the lyrics were used as evidence in the trial, they were recorded years before the murder took place and had no link to the charges filed against the men.

He added, “The Racial Justice Act, the creative expressions bill 2799, and this case are all moments of positive change in making the legal system more just. Hopefully, making cases more fair for defendants facing similar issues.”

According to Variety, this ruling took place less than a week after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act into law, which limits the use of lyrics used and written by hip-hop artists in criminal court cases tried in the Golden State.

The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office plans to file criminal charges against Jackson and Bryant in a new trial. The DA’s office feels they still have a strong case against the defendants.

Public Information Officer to the DA Ted Asregadoo said, “This is not a case where Bryant and Jackson were convicted of murder solely because of rap lyrics. The jury found them guilty on all counts, including first degree murder, and was because of all the evidence the prosecutors presented in court, and that proved beyond reasonable doubt that they were responsible for murdering Kenneth Cooper.”

• Business

by Derek Major

October 7, 2022

Uber Eats Launches $240,000 Fund To Support Black Restaurants In The U.K.

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Uber Eats has partnered with Enterprise Nation and Be Inclusive Hospitality to launch a $240,000 fund to support Black-owned restaurants in the United Kingdom.

The Caterer reports the Uber Eats and its partners will expand the Black Business Fund and will award $10,000 in grants to 25 Black-owned restaurants. The fund is offering businesses five times what it did when it launched the fund last year and gave ten Black-owned restaurants $5,000 grants.

The grants will help Black businesses in the hospitality industry financially and with their operations. Black-owned restaurants with less than five locations are eligible to apply for the grants. The starting date to apply for the grants is Oct. 14 and will remain open through Nov. 25.

“The launch of this initiative is really timely. The theme for Black History Month this year is Time for Change: Action Not Words’, and this fund, and mentorship will help in a very tangible way to remove some of the barriers that Black business owners continue to face, during an extremely difficult trading period,” Lorraine Copes told The Caterer.

According to research, the grant money is needed for Black businesses in the UK. Be Inclusive found almost half (43%) of Black business owners believe their ethnicity and race have hindered the development of their business in some way. The highest percentage to be reported by any ethnic minority group.

Additional research by the Resolution Foundation revealed hospitality workers in the UK from Black, African, Caribbean and Black British backgrounds are the least likely to be the highest paid across all age groups.

Uber Eats has committed itself to improve opportunities and funding for Black Businesses in the UK and the US. Their commitments include highlighting Black-owned restaurants on their site, dedicating more than $10 million to support Black Businesses around the world and partnering with EatOkra to support Black-owned restaurants across the US.

“Given the barriers that Black owners face, we are incredibly proud to expand our support of small Black-owned businesses across the country,” Uber Eats UK & Ireland General Manager Matthew Price told The Caterer. “Through this fund we want to help the next generation of chefs and entrepreneurs thrive.”

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 7, 2022

Philadelphia Apologizes for Experimenting on Black Inmates at Holmesburg Prison

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The city of Philadelphia is apologizing for its unethical past that includes experiments performed on the mostly Black inmates at Holmesburg Prison.

On Thursday, the city issued a formal apology for the immoral experimenting it performed on Holmesburg Prison’s primarily Black inmates from 1951 to 1974, NPR reports. The apology is a result of community activists and family members of the inmates banding together to demand a formal apology from the city.

The unethical experiments were the byproduct of University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr. Albert Kligman who used primarily Black male inmates, many of whom were illiterate, awaiting trial, and trying to save money for bail, to conduct testing that intentionally exposed about 300 inmates to viruses, fungus, asbestos and chemical agents like Agent Orange.

Staff at the Mütter Museum say Kligman visited the prison in 1951 to treat an outbreak of athlete’s foot among the inmates and saw an opportunity to advance his research, Philly Voice reports. Kligman reportedly saw the predominantly Black prison population as a low-risk and bountiful group of test subjects on which he could research 250 different chemical compounds.

“All I saw before me were acres of skin,” Kligman said in an interview in 1966. “It was like a farmer seeing a field for the first time.”

A group of 300 inmates filed a class-action lawsuit against the university and Kligman in 2000, but it was tossed out due to the statute of limitations. Kligman, who would pioneer the acne and wrinkle treatment Retin-A, passed away in 2010.

The former Holmesburg Prison in Northeast Philadelphia has been inactive since 1995, but the findings highlight the prison’s dark past of exploiting inmates. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released a formal apology on behalf of the city.

“While this happened many decades ago, we know that the historical impact and trauma of this practice of medical racism has extended for generations—all the way through to the present day,” Kenney said.

“One of our Administration’s priorities is to rectify historic wrongs while we work to build a more equitable future, and to do that, we must reckon with past atrocities. That is why our Administration today, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, is addressing this shameful time in Holmesburg’s history.”

• News

by Atiya Jordan

October 7, 2022

After Tyre Sampson’s Fatal Plunge, Orlando’s Icon Park Will Close 400-Foot-Tall FreeFall Ride Attraction

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Orlando Slingshot announced its decision to close the 400-foot-tall FreeFall ride attraction at Icon Park due to the fatal plunge that killed 14-year-old Tyre Sampson in March.

According to a statement, a representative of the operator of the Orlando FreeFall revealed that the decision comes after listening to the concerns of the late teen’s family and those of the community. The shutdown process will be in accordance with the “approvals of all involved parties and regulatory entities,” Icon Park informed in the announcement.

“We are devastated by Tyre’s death. We have listened to the wishes of Tyre’s family and the community, and have made the decision to take down the FreeFall,” said Ritchie Armstrong. 

While the Orlando community anticipates the closing, Orlando Slingshot wants to commemorate Sampson’s legacy as a student and a budding football player.

“In addition, Orlando Slingshot will honor Tyre and his legacy in the classroom and on the football field by creating a scholarship in his name,” Armstrong continued.

With the help of Sampson’s family, the scholarship will be shared with the public upon further development.

As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, the Missouri teen was visiting the Florida amusement park when he died on March 24. He slipped from the harness that was confirmed to be in a “down and locked position when the ride stopped,” according to a report later released by The Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Additionally, an autopsy report indicated that Sampson was just over 6 feet tall and weighed 383 pounds as a passenger on the FreeFall Drop Tower. But the rides owner’s manual confirmed the weight limit at 287 pounds.

In April, Sampson’s family filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit accusing multiple defendants of negligence, including ICON Park and Funtime Handels GmbH.

“Tyre’s death is a tragedy that we will never forget. As the landlord, ICON Park welcomes and appreciates Orlando Slingshot’s decision to take down the ride,” ICON Park said, per the announcement.

• Politics

by Derek Major

October 7, 2022

Oh Now You Care? Kanye Calls Out Donald Trump For ‘Using Black People To Enhance Approval Rating’

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In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday, rapper Kanye West blasted politicians for using Black people to improve their approval ratings.

According to Business Insider, during the interview, West recalled a 2019 phone call with Donald Trump—who was president at the time—concerning fellow rapper A$AP Rocky, who was in jail in Sweden on assault charges. West called Trump to discuss helping him get A4AP Rocky out of jail and back to the U.S.

“And one of the things he said to me is, ‘Kanye, you’re my friend. When you came to the White House, my Black approval rating went up 40%,'” West told Carlson.

“And for politicians, all Black people are worth is an approval rating. The Democrats feel that they don’t owe us anything, and Republicans feel like they don’t owe us anything.”

During the Interview, West also explained the reasoning for wearing a White Lives Matter sweater along with Republican pundit Candace Owens during a Yeezy fashion show in Paris.

“The answer to why I wrote White Lives Matter on a shirt is because they do,” West said. “That’s the obvious thing.”

West continued, saying the sweater was controversial because “The same people that have stripped [us] of our identity and labeled us a color have told us what it means to be Black and the vernacular we’re supposed to have.”

In addition to his political takes, West has been in the news for ending his business partnership with Gap and pushing to end his partnership with Adidas.

In his interview with Carlson, the College Dropout rapper also touched on atheists, claimed more Black babies are being aborted than born in New York City, why he’s pro-life, and his relationship with former President Donald Trump and the backlash he’s received for it.

“My so-called friends and handlers around me told me if I said I like Trump, my career would be over, my life would be over, they basically said that I would be killed for wearing the hat,” West told Carlson.