Talk about premature hype! 

The new HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, revolving around the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, will be released next month, however, there are already talks in the network about adding a second season that focuses on the late 90s superstars. 

The first season of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will see Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson, John C. Reilly as the late Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Adrein Brody as Pat Riley, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar portrayed by Solomon Hughes.

HBO content chief Casey Bloys shared that the second season would be based on author Jeff Pearlman’s 2020 book, Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

The docuseries would be exclusive to the “Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal era of the Lakers.” 

Pearlman released the book in the wake of Bryant’s untimely death and was met with criticism because of what some considered a messy portrayal of the late NBA star. 

“The Kobe Bryant of 1996 to 2004 is not the Kobe Bryant of 2005 to January 26, 2020,” Pearlman wrote, per Time.

“He was not then the contemplative adult who raved of having four daughters. He was not then the doting husband. He was not then the Academy Award winner. He was not yet comfortable in his own skin.”

HBO however, is eager to highlight the journey into the winning of three consecutive NBA titles, the fifth team to do so in NBA history. 

“Obviously basketball is a really interesting part of it, but, and I say this as a 50-year-old gay man who’s probably been to five basketball games in my life, it’s much more a human story,” says HBO president of programming Casey Bloys.

The first episode of the 10-episode first season of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will debut on March 6 on HBO.

• Black Lives Matter

by Wendy Medina

February 26, 2022

Former Louisville Cop Not On Trial For Breonna Taylor’s Death But For Endangering The Lives Of White Neighbors

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Time and again, the U.S. justice system has failed to serve justice to the families of slain innocent Black people at the hands of police.

Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her own home after a failed police raid of a no-knock search warrant in March 2020. After the nationwide protests that echoed the names of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Taylor, the cop who murdered her is out free and in the process of appealing to once more be a police officer.

Brett Hankison would be the only ex-officer charged following the deadly raid, however, not for the life of Taylor, but for “blindly” shooting towards a neighboring unit and putting at risk the life of a white man, woman, and child, according to Kentucky Assistant Attorney General Barbara Whaley, reports CNN.

Opening arguments began on Wednesday for the trial of Hankison, where he faces three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment for allegedly firing 10 shots into the vicinity of Taylor’s next-door neighbors, Cody Etherton and Chelsea Napper.

Hankison was fired within three months after news broke of Taylor’s killing, but Myles Cosgrove, the one actually responsible for her death, remained on the force until January 2021, according to the outlet. Louisville police fired the wanton endangerment shooter before the actual killer.

“This case is about Cody and his partner Chelsea, who was 7 months pregnant at the time, and their 5-year-old son, who was sleeping in the bedroom closest to the front door when the bullets ripped through the apartment and out their sliding glass door, into the night,” the prosecutor said.

To his defense, Hankison alleges he opened fire because he and his colleagues were “sitting ducks” being “sprayed with bullets” from an AR-15 rifle. 

Hankison faces 1-5 years for each felony reckless endangerment charge. He pleads not guilty.

After almost two years, Taylor’s family still waits for justice for her unjust death.

James Brown will have a new docuseries on A&E, exploring his legacy, music, and intimate moments with family, friends, and musical colleagues. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots are executive producing the four-part docuseries, James Brown: Say It Loud. 

Set to premiere in spring of 2023 on what would have been Brown’s 90th birthday, the documentary focuses on the life and work of the soul superstar in his rise to becoming the voice of an era and redefining the perspective of Black masculinity. The four-hour project aims to share the complexity of Brown through his struggles with his personal vices, the music industry, the civil rights movement, and how he came to birth multiple new genres.

“The life of James Brown is significant not only to understand his immense musical impact, which inspires us and other artists to this day, but also for the deep and lasting impression he has had on American culture,” shared Questlove and Black Thought in a joint statement. “Brown’s life is a crucial and timely story of struggle, redemption, and self-identity and we are honored to have the chance to share it.” 

James Brown: Say It Loud will include never-before-seen archival footage of the musical trailblazer and showcase his humble beginnings in the Jim Crow era South to legend status through his style and moves that inspired musical revolutions, according to Jazz 91.9 WCLK.

The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger’s name is also attached to its producers. “He was a brilliant performer who inspired me from the beginning and was deeply committed to the Civil Rights movement,” said the rockstar Brit. “I have always admired James and learned so much from him. I look forward to bringing the series to life.”

James Brown: Say It Loud will be produced by Inaudible Films, in association with PolyGram Entertainment for A&E Network. 

Alabama native Bubba Wallace has been leaving the streets in smoke ever since making history and becoming the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race at the Talladega Superspeedway since 1963.

His new Netflix limited series, Race: Bubba Wallace, has finally dropped after much anticipation, released on Feb. 22.

In an interview with BET, Wallace describes how NASCAR has made some progress for inclusivity following the “sticky situation” created by his 2020 campaign to ban the confederate flag from the sport and after donning an “I Can’t Breathe” Black Lives Matter shirt. He says there was much more diversity and support in the crowd for him in a sport that doesn’t necessarily celebrate its athletes of color. The historic driver went on to remind fans that he will continue to represent in the spaces that he needs to, on and off the race track. 

Race: Bubba Wallace will feature his 2021 season at NASCAR, taking viewers through his competition on Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI racing team, as well as the moments he was vocal on issues of social justice, as previously reported. A victim himself to racial discrimination in the historically white sport, Wallace is said to be very candid in the series about the events leading to his championship win, and documenting the story through an honest lens.   

Director of the docuseries, Erik Parker, who also co-directed the 2017 doc L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later, shared, “I absolutely wanted to tell this story in real time of history in the making, and I think we captured that, but it’s also a snapshot, you know, in the 2020 season, when Bubba spoke out about what was happening in NASCAR and on racial justice, social justice issues. We wanted to capture that moment.”

Race: Bubba Wallace is now streaming on Netflix.

Legendary New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of the most influential creatives in contemporary history, his name usually attached to the likes of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

In this new unnamed biopic, If Beale Street Could Talk’s Stephan James will star as the late artist, which will explore his rise into the art world from an anonymous graffiti artist to international fame, his friendship with Warhol, and events leading to his death in 1988. 

According to Variety, the limited series will be co-produced by James and actor Shamier Anderson’s Bay Mills Studios, and Boat Rocker Studios. Currently, under development, the series continues its search for a writer. At present time, Bay Mills is under a first-look deal with Boat Rocker.

In a statement by president of scripted for Boat Rocker Studios, Steve Lescroart, he shared, “We’re grateful to be working with Shamier, Stephan, and the entire Bay Mills Studios team to tell the story of a visionary artist whose profound cultural influence only continues to grow with time. We know that audiences around the world will be captivated.”

Most recently in the news, Basquiat’s 1982 triptych Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict is set to start at $30 million this spring by Christie’s Auction House. Perhaps the most important neo-expressionist artist of all time, the anti-capitalist Brooklyn native used his art as a means of criticism of racial systems through social commentary and examining the Black experience of 1980s New York. 

“I am thrilled to partner with Boat Rocker to bring to life the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” said James. “Jean-Michel is an artist I have long revered, and someone who has greatly influenced my work over the years. To embody such a revolutionary, whose influence in the modern era of pop culture is simply immeasurable, will simply be one of the greatest honors of my career.”

The 53rd NAACP Image Awards honored Ruth E. Carter with the Vanguard Award for Costume Design, reports WWD. 

 

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Carter’s notable credits include Malcolm X, What’s Love Got to Do With It, Dolemite is My Name, and Marvel’s Black Panther, which she won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 2019, reports the LA Times.

This year’s Image Award is the first time that the award show recognizes costume design.

“My heart is so warm and so open to this honor of opening up this category. I used to always wonder why the NAACP Image Awards weren’t bringing us from behind the camera to in front of the camera,” Carter said during her speech at a “Colors Behind the Look: A Celebration of Fashion, Costume Design and Glam” event in conjunction with the week-long awards program where she accepted her award. “We actually are working it out for the actors behind closed doors; we are image-makers. We are image-makers, and we are a force to be reckoned with,” reports the Hollywood Reporter.

After her speech, NAACP reps announced the show is adding two new categories for next year, costume design and hair and make-up.  

The event also honored the legacy of late fashion luminaries Andre Leon Talley, Virgil Abloh, and hosted a fashion show featuring other Black designers Kevan Hall, Carl Jones, Rodney Epperson, Isaiah Hemingway, and Byron Lars. 

 

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Carter earned her first film credit as a Spike Lee’s School Daze costume designer. She continued to have her foot on the film industry’s neck by booking a plethora of jobs that afforded her a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2021, according to Variety.

“I didn’t start at this profession wanting to be the first Black costume designer. I knew that space had not been occupied, but I just really wanted to be the best costume designer. I studied all kinds of costume designers’ work. I went through the industry and dealt with the ups and downs of being an African American woman. I had to deal with the fact that maybe you know how to do any kind of a film, but they’re not going to let you….So, I didn’t start out to be a ‘Black costume designer,’ but as a Black woman in this industry, I had to fight,” said Carter of Golden Globes of her remarkable career. 

• Career

by Derek Major

February 26, 2022

Study: 20 Percent Of White Employees Have a Sponsor, Only 5 Percent Of Black Employees Have One

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Having a manager sponsor an employee can lead to promotions, higher wages and career advancement, however for Black employees, it’s hard to find a sponsor, even Black ones.

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports both finding and being a sponsor can lead an employee from middle management to the top of any company. According to the book Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career, male managers who win sponsorships within an organization are 23 percent more likely to be promoted than peers who don’t have a sponsor. Women are 19 percent more likely to get promoted.

Black employees who are sponsored by a manager are not only more likely to progress in their careers, but are less likely to leave the company they’re with. Additionally recent research shows employee sponsorships are by far the most effective method to retain and advance Black talent.

However, Black executives are few and far between and because they are under heavy scrutiny, are far less likely to sponsor someone. A Black executive at Cisco told  HBR “I’m comfortable with mentoring, but I don’t have either the ammunition or the armor to get in deep and proactively sponsor.”

This example is just one of the many reasons only 5 percent of Black employees have a sponsor. Black executives aren’t willing to risk their careers to sponsor someone and Black employees don’t actively look for a sponsor because of the weight they have to carry if someone sponsors them.

Jameela, who’s name was changed to hide her identity, shared an experience of a time when she didn’t sponsor another Black woman because of the potential effect it had on her own career.

“I was just a year into an executive position at a top-tier luxury goods company and beginning to hit my stride when a young Black woman asked me to sponsor her,” Jameela told HBR. “It’s hard for me to admit, but I balked. I know and like the woman who approached me. She’s a hard worker and a high performer. But while valued by the company she is not a shoo-in for promotion.”

Jameela added if she did sponsor the woman and it didn’t work, it would reflect negatively on her career and if she sponsored the woman and she succeeded, it might look like favoritism.

In order to remedy the situation, many companies including JPMorgan, Splunk, DraftKings, Norton Rose Fulbright have announced they’re committing or recommitting to sponsorship initiatives.

Those initiatives include positioning the retention and progression of Black talent as a strategic imperative, pushing senior executives and CEOs to sponsor someone at their company and providing customized executive coaching for both employees and protégés.

• Black History Month

by Yolanda Baruch

February 26, 2022

CÎROC Highlights Chicago Hair Stylist For The Brand’s Black Excellence Campaign

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Black women have a knack for making a way out of no way, and Midge Welch is a testament to that reality.

For Black History Month, CÎROC called upon Welch to partake in the brand’s Black Excellence campaign.

“To be recognized by CÎROC as a part of what it means to demonstrate Black Excellence, and to be celebrated as a trailblazer in the city that has been home is honorable. Barber Shops + Beauty Salons are pillars in our community, and a safe space for us to bond through conversation and experiences,” Welch noted. “I am appreciative to be seen on a platform like #CIROCStands by a brand that has been influential in the Black & Brown community that understands the importance of being a conduit for small business owners.”

“The stories of Black Excellence shared by these trailblazers are so incredibly inspiring and uplifting.  “Through #CIROCStands, we are able to amplify these stories to the world and hope these examples of vision and ambition showcase that Black Excellence is something to be celebrated and acknowledged all year round,” said Adrienne Cuschieri, Brand Director of CÎROC in an official press release.

Welch grew up in the Dearborn Homes projects and always gravitated to styling her friends’ hair.

“We all had like, our Jheri curls, and I would dye their hair with peroxide and then color it with Kool-Aid. So I was like coloring everybody’s hair red, purple, and this was years ago,” Welch tenderly recalls in a 2016 Vogue video profile.

She eventually went to work with a friend of her mother as a shampoo assistant at 17.

“That’s where I learned everything I know now as a stylist and business owner,” she says, crediting her previous employer with showing the ropes of hairstyling.

Within two years, she became a licensed beautician and then opened up her own salon within another year at age 23 on the south side of Chicago called Issues.

“I learned how to be a real stylist in school–school is so important,” she said and pointed out that customer service is not highly valued among young stylists because they do not appreciate gaining a formal education, according to Essence.

“I’ve loved to help make people look good since I was a little girl,” she said. “I was always the one styling hair, doing piercings for my friends, and really making them feel great about themselves since childhood.”

On July 12th, 2019, a Black woman was delivering food when she was pulled over for a traffic stop that quickly escalated when the cop pulled out his gun within sixty seconds and pointed it at the woman, reports KSTP-TV.

In October, based on Minneapolis Park Officer Calvin Pham‘s bodycam footage, the officer pointed his weapon at Jenice Hodge after pulling her over for a traffic stop. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board granted Hodge a $100,000 settlement, according to Raw Story.

Minneapolis Park Police Officer Calvin Pham’s body camera video shows him telling Jenice Hodge, 42, that he pulled her over because she was using her phone and improperly wearing her seatbelt.

Hodges explains to the officer, “I’m using my GPS to drop my food off.”

“And when I drove past you, you didn’t have your seatbelt on,” Pham pointed out to the driver.

“Because I wear it like this,” Hodges demonstrated by taking the strap off her shoulder.

Pham then requests her driver’s license and insurance card, and Hodge reaches in the back of her vehicle to retrieve her purse to hand him her identification. He immediately takes his gun out of his holster and tells Hodge to exit her car.

“I didn’t even have my driver’s license out of the sleeve, and I had a gun pointed at my head,” she said. “You didn’t see a firearm; you didn’t ask if I had a firearm; you just reacted to something that you seen in my wallet.”

Hodge has a valid gun permit, but the firearm was not in the car.

Hodge said she feared her life would end like Philando Castile, a 32-year old African-American man fatally shot in a routine traffic stop. He told an officer he had a permit to carry a firearm and was killed by Minneapolis-St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez in 2016. Yanez was later acquitted, reports Raw Story.

Retired Chicago Police commander Marc Buslik reviewed the tape and said the officer should not have pointed his gun at Hodge based on his observation.

Buslik said the officer should have asked Hodge if her firearm was physically in the car with her.

“The more appropriate response would have been, ‘Ma’am, do you have a firearm with you?'” he said.

However, Pham never inquired about the gun as the body camera video shows and never questioned Hodge’s permit.

Hodge was awarded a $100,000 lawsuit settlement based on the officer’s body camera video.

Pham documented the incident in his police report and cited he believed ‘Jenice may have a gun’ when he noticed she had a permit card in her wallet; however, Pham never said he saw an actual weapon in his report KSTP-TV reports.

Hodge is concerned for others who may find themselves in her situation.

“You never know when it’s your turn,” she said.

• Black Lives Matter

by Wendy Medina

February 26, 2022

First Black CEO Of Big Brothers Big Sisters Artis Stevens Aims to Honor Ahmaud Arbery Under Leadership

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In another historic first in November 2020, Georgia-native Artis Stevens was named the first Black CEO Of youth mentorship nonprofit Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

He shared with CNBC Make It that the first person that came to mind when receiving the title, was Ahmaud Arbery. 

Hailing from the same small town of Brunswick as Arbery, Stevens recalled, “The street he walked on and was murdered on, I walked on as a kid.” 

The three men convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment were additionally found guilty on Tuesday, of federal hate crimes, which included violating Arbery’s civil rights and attempted kidnapping.

Upon hearing about Arbery’s death in February 2020, Stevens began questioning if more could be done for his community, after having been a decades-long youth development executive at associations like Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the National 4-H Council, and the Atlanta Public Housing Agency.

Stevens’ plan for the Big Brothers Big Sisters network is to provide opportunities for children such as himself growing up, who had to make do with less than means. If it wasn’t for him being deemed as “gifted,” mentors and education would have been too far beyond reach. His objective, however, pertains to all children. 

Years before becoming the head of the 116-year-old organization, Stevens set his sights for law school. On a visit back to his hometown after college, he was interviewed at a childhood playground in the public housing community, in which the interviewer ultimately set him on a different life course after discussing transforming the community he grew up in. 

In Stevens’ 25-year career of positive youth mentorship, the best advice he shares for the future generation is: “You don’t have to be perfect, you’ve just got to be present. You’ve got to be yourself… I call failure ‘learning’… People call it ‘failing forward,’ but for me, there is no such thing as failure. It’s all about learning and continuing to build and grow.”